Undeserving by Dr. Juan Harrison
Undersrving
I held the Navy knife, a guilt gift from Uncle Billy. He came down to visit us on our farmette on Hwy. 154 about where Dean Owens’ RV Park is now on the south side of Lake Fork bridge. We had moved from the farm after Hwy. 515 cut through two of our meadows and disrupted our dairy/farming business. We found this place in the Quitman School District, but Yantis kept picking us up. The farmette had room for a couple of cows, a garden, outhouse, and my basketball goal.
We’d been shooting the 12-gauge shotgun, bruising my shoulder. My skinny 60 lb. frame had no fat, so my uncle’s “attaboy” punch to my sore shoulder brought tears to my eyes. Feeling guilty, he gave me his Navy knife. Later I took it down to the pond and cut a soft willow halfway through before it fell creating a kind of retention area where I could trap minnows. Later Waynie and A.J. McAdams from over the hill would join in as we baited twenty or so cane poles cut from the roadside and bait em and caught little catfish called pollywogs. We would throw the poles into the pond, wait for them to start vibrating, and then swim or wade out to get the small fish. The critters weren’t good for much but finning you and causing pain. Still, it was great fun, especially swimming naked. Not much thought was given to snapping turtles who could mistake dangling body parts for a snack. Maybe they could but didn’t care.
One day I was playing around the base of the big willow I’d cut when I recognized a stinky smell from previous encounters. I slowly raised my head and eye level to where I was looking directly into the face of a large cotton mouth coiled up in the break of the tree. Six inches of separation didn’t seem very far at the time. I knew the snake couldn’t see very well, but they have a bad habit of striking out at any big bodies setting off the heat sensors in those pits close to their eyes.
I knew I was toast. He was big and I was little. A bite to my little face would most likely be fatal. I was frozen. I couldn’t figure out why he didn’t strike. Slowly I began to move my head backwards in a steady motion. An eternity later I was out of range. Oddly, my jeans had become wet in the process. Where were Depends when you need them.
He shut the lions’ mouths in Daniel’s den. The fish swallowed Jonah but didn’t digest him. I have to give a tip of my Stihl mowing cap to the Good Lord who spared me for the first of many times. I think I heard Him whisper, “Not your time.”
By Dr. Juan Harrison
