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row miles to Wilson Dam to find the big cats, crappie, or gar. Gar could be four skinny feet and were mostly sharp teeth and bone. If you were able to get one near the boat you’d have to knock it out with a paddle to get it into the boat. Also, you could find good fishing at the ponds that formed below the damns needed for grist mills. Water ran the wheels that turned the stones that ground up the corn used to make corn bread.
The Buttahatchee ran into the Tombigbee, which ran into the Alabama and then Mobile Bay. Once we went to the Vicksburg Civil War battlefield and saw the Mississippi. We’d also visit Jackson, Kosciusko and other Mississippi cities to see our many relatives. Grandmother and Granddaddy are buried in Kosciusko which is on the Natchez Trace, now a scenic highway. When river trans- port was dominant, they’d carry cotton overland from Nashville to Natchez, which was on the Mississippi, then sell it and ride back. The Trace started right by Vanderbilt football sta- dium, about a mile from where I now live.
On Sunday’s we’d drive to Guin to see the train come through. They’d suspend the mail in a sack on a hanger and a porter would stick out a metal arm and pull it into the
