My hometown was a small town in Texas. Back in the 70's everything was different, even stranger than now in some ways because back then people seemed to just be too predictable. There were no 24 hour stores, no news cycle, no Facebook...everybody was slower, even the grocery store checkers took longer to check you out. I remember walking home from school and hearing the locust in the trees emitting a chorus of sound as I passed the rows of houses I would walk absentmindedly by, my mind in deep thought of dreams of the future. When I got home I would do my homework, get a snack if there was one, and immediately go outside. There was no Internet, no video games so outside you had to do things to be entertained. My friends and I would go to the creek down the road and make a slingshot from a y-shaped stick. We cut the stick with our pocket knives, and found an inner tube from a bicycle tire. We then cut the rubber from the inner tube into strips to make the sling. These weapons were highly effective to catch locust. You see, locust can be found reverberating their chorus on the underside of the mighty oak tree branches 20 or so feet in the air. With my 20/20 vision and and expert aim, I would carefully load my home-made slingshot with a perfect sized rock. Then after sighting in my target, I would slowly exhale, release! The rock would slam into the tree limb with such force that the locust would be stunned and fall to the ground at my feet. I then collected them Into a mason jar with holes in the lid. After getting ten or so I would get my fishing pole and go to the stock pond down by the tracks on the edge of town. The old man's pond was over 3 acres in size and I don't know how deep it was, but if you fell in then you had better know how to swim. If you heard or seen his old Chevy truck coming, then you had to run cause he would shoot you with a load of rock salt. I once fished there with some nightcrawlers during the crappie spawning season in the middle of March and caught at least 70 fish 1-2 lbs each in 1 hour. This trip was different though because my bait was 10 large beautiful green and white live locust. I took one out of the jar and put it on a treble hook, a part of me being sad and feeling regretful that I had to take his life for this mission. I set my cork height for 2 foot, and threw my line out 20 foot and began to wait. It was cloudy at 7:30 pm, I nervously looked back towards the old man's house just in case he might see me trespassing. I turned back to look at my cork- It was gone and my line was speeding off to the deep! I sunk the hook and reeled in as much line as I could! The line tightened and the spectacular 8 lb largemouth bass jumped majestically into the air in retaliation! I pulled him in some more feeling the excitement of a legendary record breaking bass on my line, my mind was racing as the mammoth fish dove deeper. Then the line snapped with a sound I will never forget, as the empty twine slung weakly back towards me and you could hear a pin drop as I just cried.
