It’s funny how the mundane, with little or no meaning to most people can somehow achieve significance in one person’s mind. It’s that way with a concrete slab in Thomasville. When I drive by it, I remember some of my best days fishing.
I rarely go through Thomasville anymore. But U.S. Highway 43 seemed like the best route between Gulf Shores and Selma despite the ridiculously low 50 mph speed limit between the Interstate 65 and the Mobile County line.
As I always do when I pass through that Clarke County town, I turned toward the little strip center and again looked at the small square of bare concrete.
Back in 1983, a little shop, probably no more than 400 square feet, that housed an outdoors store sat where nothing but the slab remains. I was in the midst of a miserable year spent in Fort Walton Beach and was headed home to visit my parents in Demopolis. I’d seen the store many times and Father’s Day gave me a good excuse to browse.
The owner had done an amazing job of cramming every inch of space with outdoor products.
“Does he like to bass fish?” the owner, a young ambitious guy who obviously enjoyed running the shop, asked me after finding out I was looking for a gift.
“We do more bream fishing,” I said, perusing his stock.
“Does he have one of these?” he asked, holding a skinny black object. He handed it to me. It was a Lew’s Bream Buster.
My father was born in 1909 and had never been one to accept new technology quickly. My family was among the last in town to own a television. Dad never did catch on to the VCR thing. So, I wasn’t sure how he’d feel about replacing his cane pole with a telescoping fiberglass rig.
For those not familiar with the Bream Buster, it is a panfish catching machine. My father’s is 11 feet long but telescopes down to about 3 feet long for easy transportation and storage. It is as whippy as a light fly rod and it’s fun to watch it bend and throb under the weight of a big bluegill or shell cracker. An eyelet at the end makes it easy to rig and there’s a bracket near its vinyl handle for wrapping the line when its folded up for storage.
My father accepted it graciously, perhaps only out of kindness to me at first. But after using it, he embraced it and took delight in the fun of fighting a fish with its light action. It was about all he used the last 10 years of his life.
I used it a couple of times when I fished without him and I could see why he liked it. I don’t know when they ceased production but by the time I decided to buy one, I could no longer find it. I ended up buying a similar rig but it just wasn’t quite the same as Dad’s. And I must admit to being somewhat covetous about it.
The Bream Buster will forever be associated with our favorite fishing haunt in Greene County. It was a beautiful, ancient place that had once been the pond for a grist mill. It was actually three ponds connected by little canals with foot bridges over the canals. A spring fed it and kept a constant flow of water going out the overflow pipe.
The family that owned it had a pretty little camp house beside it set in a grove of tall, mature pines and they kept the firm, flat banks mowed and well groomed. The first time I saw it, I thought it was a little too picture perfect to be fishy. Usually where there’s that much evidence of human activity, you won’t find a lot of fish or game. In this case, looks were deceptive.
The pond was crammed full of big, belligerent bluegills, copper nose and shellcrackers. And it was perfect for my father, who, by this time, was crippled with arthritis. When we arrived, he would set out slowly on his crutches while I gathered up the poles and rods, a cooler, the tackle box and dove stools or lawn chairs. On our last few trips, I learned to use a garden cart to transport it all.
My father would find a nice shady spot under the oaks where the bream liked to bed. There he would sit on his stool or lawn chair with his cricket cage and his Bream Buster plucking one sassy bream after another from the water and tossing them into the cooler.
Around noon, I’d grab a couple of cold beers from a different cooler and we’d enjoy them before moving on to a couple of sandwiches washed down with a Coke. It’s hard to describe the peaceful silence that surrounded us, usually broken only by the sound of a barge on the nearby Warrior River and the leaves rustling in the breeze.
It’s hard to believe now, how long past those days are. My father died in December of 1993 and we probably last fished together in the summer of that year. By then, he was fishing from a wheelchair but enjoying it every bit as much.
I haven’t been to the pond in quite some time. It’s not the same anymore. Bank erosion caused our favorite oaks to topple over. And the owner cut down the beautiful stand of pines out of fear that they would fall on the camp house. I fished there a few times without my father but it wasn’t quite the same.
I don’t know when but the little shop in Thomasville burned. They must have a good fire department to keep it from burning down the strip center. I don’t know what happened to the young man who owned it and all his dreams and aspirations.
The Bream Buster now sits in a climate controlled storage room in Tuscaloosa. My father cared for it so lovingly that even the rubber stopper that goes in the end of it when it’s folded up is still original. Anyone who has ever owned a telescoping pole knows it’s virtually impossible to preserve the rubber stopper.
I once thought how nice it would be to use the Bream Buster once my father was gone. But I rarely bream fish now. I took it with me on several occasions and used it once. But I worried about breaking it. It has become, a bit like a holy relic and holding it made me feel a bit like a usurper. Its master is gone and I’m just not worthy.
