The Fat Lighter Stump Rattler
Sunday, August 5, 2012
Lincoln County, GA
By Al Gray
An
indispensable material in country life, a role that will accelerate its current
reprise as the economics of energy demands, is the fat lighter stump. Fat lighter is also known as "fat
lighter," "lighter wood," "rich lighter," "pine
knot," "lighter knot," "heart pine," and other similar
descriptors of resin-rich pine wood. The stump is the most concentrated area of
the tree to be left full of pitch, albeit not the only section, as trees with
cat-faces, like this one, are also great sources.
Our modern
homes are increasingly equipped with wood stoves and heaters, creating current
demand, but strips and splinters of fat lighter have been used to start fires
in the Southern United States for eons. One can imagine the nostrils of the
earliest Americans flaring to take in the pleasant aroma of pine pitch as they
stacked their own kindling to make camp fires or cook fires in their lodges.
For this
aging scribe, that smell brings back memories and more than a few laughs.
Back in
1966, my great Uncle Land Rhodes set out to find some hunting land to rent in
the Shell Bluff community of Burke County, Georgia. He found a willing partner
in Bennie Gilchrist, who had about 250 acres off of Georgia Highway 23. The
place had a couple of peanut fields on it for dove shooting, a few covies of
quail and some briar patches full of rabbits. Mainly, though, the place was
situated in close proximity to vast public lands of ITT Rayonier, Continental
Can, and other private lands where the family could hunt.
In the midst
of the first season the clan decided to camp out in an old tin-roofed shanty
with just two rooms. One room had a working fireplace. The other did not.
Naturally everybody with two legs slept in the one with the fireplace, for it
was a brutally cold winter. The greater
number of the hunting party was better dressed for the cold and slept in the
second room.
To get the
fire started, they picked up some fat lighter over around Youmans Road on the
way back from the first afternoon hunt. The splinters of that fat wood produced
a rich, wafting odor of pine resin. Soon the fire was crackling, the stories
were being spun, and before long, the tin roof was buzzing from the snoring
from both rooms. No alcohol was involved, because John Rhodes was a tee-totaler
and adamant about that.
The morning
of the second day was a quail hunt, with plans for a grand rabbit hunt after
lunch. John, Land, and Andrew were the
morning hunter contingent as the bigger party for the rabbit hunt was still up
on Stevens Creek Road in Martinez. It was a good morning, too, for the uncles
bagged 22 bobwhites before the hunting prowess of Bronco, King, and Nell.
Upon their
return to the camp they found that Buster, Hugh, and Junior arrived. We won’t
engage in a round of overstatement about the fare being sumptuous fried quail,
cabbage, corn on the cob, cornbread, and a helping of Aunt Francis’ peach
cobbler, because it was mostly saltines, sardines, and Vienna sausage.
Afterward came a nap in front of the fireplace.
No one was
asleep when a knock came from the front door. It was Alvin Needy, a local
inhabitant who worked on farms part time. Old Alvin was known to drink
moonshine and he had been into it early that day. “Hey,
fellas, y’all kill many birds this mawnin?” Buster said “Yeah, I wrung the neck of one of the yard
hens for Hattie Mae just before we drove down, but you got to ask Land here if
they got any quail birds.” Land said “Yeah,
we found a big covey, got 5 on the rise and 3 more single birds. We knocked
around and got a really nice mess of birds.”
By this time
Alvin was inside, peering all around. “You
mens got some licca you can spare for old Alvin? “ John spoke up and said “ I don’t drink. I suspect these other boys
do, but not when I am around.” “WHAT?” exclaimed Alvin. “Six white mens down heah in dis sandy place
in a shack on dis cold day and NO Booze?” By this time he had rumbled and
stumbled to the door to the back room. He wasn’t taking no for an answer,
believing he was being put off and mislead. Alvin reached for the door knob.
One of the uncles said “I wouldn’t do that
if I were you……”
“AiiiiEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!
“
Too late,
Alvin had opened a Pandora’s box. 16 beagles overran Alvin. Old Bo headed for
the front door….John grabbed him and said “Oh
no, Bo, not time to go.” Polly, Prissy, Peaches, Jojo, Jesse, Freddy, Hap,
Annie, Mabel, Jinx, Rebel, Tom, Fanny, Lucy, and Missy were milling around a
still-muttering Alvin. “OOOO….WEEEE..lookit
all de rabbit dawgs!” He turned to
flee and tripped over Mabel. Then the licking started. Imagine 16 beagle butts turned outward while
lathering attention on a drunk.
Word has it
that Alvin was in church the next Sunday and didn’t touch moonshine for a very
long while.
That day was
one for the books. The afternoon was crisp and the thunder of 16 beagles in
fully cry carried for nearly a mile. Alvin was long gone by the time the pack
returned to that back room of the shanty.
35 years
later your scribe went on a hunting lease exploration up at Old Anderson
Plantation in Warren County near Norwood, Georgia, much like Uncle Land’s in
finding the Gilchrist place. The plantation manager – let’s call him Jim Doe - met
me at the hunting camp. At the time the plantation was about 20,000 acres and
it had a central area of about 1500 acres that was open to bow hunting only.
Jim was very gracious and we spent a lot of time, not just doing the obligatory
cruise of the roads and fields, but a lot of actual strolling through the oak
stands on the property. About half-way through, Jim spotted a fat lighter stump
that he wanted, so we uprooted it and threw it in the back of my pickup truck.
Eventually I had seen enough to conclude the excursion and return to the camp. We were approaching a creek bottom on the paved highway, when Jim yelled “Rattlesnake!,” pointing at a reptile nearing the centerline. “Kill him” he commanded.I complied,
despite having to cross the double yellow line, then slam on the brakes as we
crossed the snake’s body. The rattler was slung to the edge of the pavement.
We backed up and parked. The snake had
somewhat regained his senses to head for the high grass. Jim said “Shoot him.” That brought the response “With WHAT?” There was no gun in the
truck. The only thing available was the old fat lighter stump. It was about 3
feet long and perhaps 8 inches wide at its base, but it was solid. While Jim
was busily cutting a stick to dispatch the snake with the Gerber folding saw
from my hunting pack, I grabbed that stump, walked over to the rattlesnake, and
dropped it on his head. The rattle was buzzing furiously. The assault with the
fat lighter piece stopped the advance toward the tall weeds, then Jim’s stick
finished the job.
Jim said “Let’s take this snake back to Rooster back
at the camp. He likes to make hatbands from rattlesnake skins. This is a good
one because it isn’t full of birdshot or buckshot holes.”
Rooster had
left camp. I was left with the snake in the back of the truck near the
tailgate, as I had my cooler and drinks forward against the tool box.
The trip
back to Augusta began. When the on ramp
to I-20 at the Camak Exit was approaching a sudden bout of thirst struck for
one of the Diet Pepsi’s in the cooler. I pulled off on the apron at the top of
the ramp, got out of the truck, reached for a can of Pepsi, popped the top, and
started to drink. Out of the corner of my eye, there was movement and something
red. At the bottom of the ramp was a fiery red Mustang GT, with the trunk
raised. Walking toward me was a guy dressed in an Atlanta Braves T Shirt and
jeans. There had been a big game early that afternoon in Atlanta. Obviously
there was car trouble.
I pulled
down the ramp and rolled down the window. “Hi,”
the man said, “I‘m Charlie Reed. My
buddy, Dan Potts, and I were driving back to Augusta from the Braves – Giants game,
when we hit a piece of metal that blew out a tire. We cannot get the lug nuts
off of the wheel because the #%$%$# lug wrench handle is too short to apply
enough leverage. Do you have a 4 way lug wrench?” “Sure do,” I replied. “I have a length of pipe to slide over a lug
wrench as an extended lever, too!” We located the wrench and pipe in the
tool box.
Charlie was
a talker, one of those incessant gabbers, to whom you cannot get in a word
edgewise. We were about 150 yards from the Mustang.
Charlie said “It sure
is hot, could I ride back to the car in your truck?”
I replied “my passenger
side seat and the floorboard are filled with tree stand paraphernalia”
He said, “That’s OK I
will just hop back there and ride!” The man never stopped flapping his jaws
to look what he was doing.
I stammered “No…no!....”
Charlie said “It’s OK, I
am not choosy.”
Me: There’s a……”
Charlie, stepping up on the bumper, lifting his right leg
high over the tailgate: “I ride in the
backs of trucks all the time.”
Me: “I wouldn’t do that if I were You……..”
Charlie, looking down in mid-giant-stride, his leg
perpendicular to the ground 5 feet below: Aiiiieeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
SNAKE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Charlie
bailed out in mid stride and catapulted to the ground. No bones were broken,
only his stream of talk.
I have that
way with people. I go to find a little fat lighter to make a fire. Somewhere
along the way, be it to a county commission or just a hitchhiker in a Braves
shirt. I will advise “I wouldn’t do that if I were You……..” They then ignore me but they come to
their senses screaming.
I did that
recently, warning about how the TSPLOST transportation tax in Georgia was going
to bite them. They promoted it anyway.
It went
TSPLAT.
They should
have banged the TSLOST to death with a stick of fat lighter. Now they have to bail out and land on their
rumps.
I will laugh
my large Gray-family-inherited buns off.***
A.G.
A.G.
ITYS
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