MEACHAM LANE MEMOIRS/Ramsey's Pond and My Secret Fishin' Hole

Marmont Hill Art Collective "Nash's Pond" by Curtis.  The Meacham Lane gang could not have looked
much different heading to Ramsey's Pond minus the picnic basket and plus another ball cap or two.

Nothing honed my pre-adolescent fishing acumen more than my trips to Ramsey's Pond.  My love of the old farm stock pond lasted through most of the years we lived at the little house on Meacham Lane and for another year or two when we relocated to the little grey rental house on Estes Lane.

But, sometime around 1957 and eleven years of age the little gravel lane could no longer contain either me or my best friend, Sonny Vaughn, and our need to explore and that sense of adventure led us further and further away from the rows of houses and the tiny yards.  I am not sure who was the first of the juvenile Sir Edmund Hillary "wantabes" that discovered the pond, located just over the railroad tracks on Husbands Road about three miles from the road's junction with Bridge Street, but the news circulated fast among the neighborhood gang that the pond was loaded with not only tons of tiny sunfish but a healthy population of bullhead catfish.

The pond was a good one to one and a half mile walk each way, but with plenty of company, it was not a hardship we seemed to mind.  We must have been quite a sight, ball caps pulled down to eyebrows, rods and poles positioned over shoulders, cans of worms and fishing gear swinging in time with each stride, heading down the road to the fishin' hole.

My parents did not fish but my arsenal of hooks and terminal tackle was pretty fair, though I did not possess initially anything resembling a rod and reel.  But I did have a small cane pole, as did Gary Vaughn, and it proved sufficient for the task.  Tommy and Ronnie Connor and Sonny Vaughn had spin cast reels and rods, and David Hurt had his father's steel catfish rod paired with a level wind Shakespeare casting reel loaded with braided line.  David and I had the most hooks, mine an assortment that came in a white, small round tin.  The smallest hooks were in hot demand.

The pond itself was of no great size or depth, you could easily cast from one bank to another with the spin cast reels.  Weeds grew along the pond's rim and into the water.  It was a pretty healthy home for the finny denizens of the warm brown-green waters.  About four feet off the edge of one of the longer banks was positioned a barn, a remnant of the time the pond was indeed used for thirsty livestock, and not a refuge for the four or five 10-12 year old novice anglers that encircled its banks. Dragon flies would zoom the surface and land as gracefully as an angel on a cloud and small frogs hid among the green lace surrounding the pond.

It was a glorious time and every cast or plop of a bobber resulted immediately in a charge of a hungry little bluegill.  They were ravenous and we couldn't dig worms fast enough or often enough to keep up with their hunger.  The pond was overstocked with the little critters.  The only requirement the pond's owner asked of us was that we kept all of the little fish and did not throw them back. It was explained that this was necessary for the population of remaining fish to have a chance to grow larger and be healthy.  And so we brought our buckets and filled them up with the 2-4 inch fish, not having the heart to just throw them into the old pasture.  And we took turns carrying the catch home, sloshing water all the way until they were barely able to maneuver in the two or three inches of remaining liquid.  We refilled the buckets and they were usually positioned under the old elm tree in the shade of the front yard, to be admired with tireless fascination until the fishes' eventual demise.

David Hurt was the first of us to hook a whiskered bottom dweller. He baited up just like he did when fishing with his dad, Hayes Hurt; the lead sinker was on the bottom of the line and two hooks up the line.  The bullheads averaged from 1/2 to 3/4 pounds, but I'm sure we embellished that considerably.  And it didn't take long for the rest of us to adapt our fishing strategy to go for the bigger quarry. Some of these fish made it home in buckets, some on chain stringers.  

Mine were always brought home alive in an old aluminum minnow bucket filled about half way with the pond water. I used the bucket on the way to the pond to carry a rusted fish stringer and  my hooks, lead weights and bobbers.  Switching hands often, my fish made it home gasping at the surface for more oxygen and needing fresh water, which I attended to at once and daily thereafter.

It was about this time that my dad was able to switch the house water supply from the cistern outside our kitchen door to the county's water supply. The old cistern was positioned under the concrete and its dimensions were nearly as spacious as the entirety of the hardscape surface.  A wood cover could easily be removed to add water to the reserve when or if needed.

You can see where this is going.  I was about twelve years old, loved fishing, loved catching bullhead catfish, and here was all that water just going to waste.  It occurred to me that this could be my private fishing hole.  So, Keith added catfish, A bunch of catfish.

Now this, of course, I accomplished within the premise of the old adage, "it's easier to seek forgiveness than permission" And since I had the most easy-going dad in the world, in no time I had my own fishery.  The fish lived in total darkness until those times I removed the wooden cover and tossed in a line baited with bread dough, or an unlucky garden variety worm.  No rod and reel needed, I just tied the line to my finger and tossed it back into the nether regions of the submerged water tank.

It usually took the whiskered citizens of the old cistern a few minutes to get accustomed to the sudden light emanating from the freshly uncovered portal, their eyes suddenly reduced to pinpoints because of their adaptation to their dark environs.  But, after a few minutes I would feel the tug of the line or see it snap forward and I would hand over hand the fish in.  Whenever I felt the urge to go fishing but did not have the time for the long walk to Ramsey's Pond, I slaked that passion in the bowels of the old cavern beneath the concrete slab outside our kitchen door.

Of course, in time, my dad and mother realized what I was doing, and I was relieved to find that they thought it amusing and understanding the nature of their son, enjoyed my occupation with my past time pursuits so close mother just had to whisper through the screen door to call me to supper.

At some near point in time, we were visited by dad's brother Neal and his family.  One evening while they were all playing cards at the kitchen table, I went outside under a beautiful starry night to visit "my secret fishin' hole".  After the customary wait, I brought up a wriggling, fat bullhead, caught on an equally fat worm.  As usual, I went inside the screen door to show it to mother and dad.

The card game came to a pause, ice water pooled under glasses, puffs on Phillip Morris cigarettes momentarily ceased, conversation came to a halt.

My dad didn't look up.  My mother smiled.  But my Uncle Neal and Aunt Dot had horrified looks, their faces, drained of color.  The last time they had visited our water supply had been in that cistern.

"Bob, did he just catch that fish out of the cistern"?  Neal asked.  Both he and Aunt Dot were staring first at their half empty glasses of water, and then to the black fish struggling on the end of my hook, chewed up fragments of the worm hanging from one side of its jaw.

"Yeah". Dad calmly replied never looking up.

I started to say something, but dad gave me that look.  Surely Uncle Neal didn't think we were drinking that water?

But indeed, he did.  You would have to understand the mischievous nature of my father.  This was a marvelous ruse to play on his younger brother.  Neither Uncle Neal and Aunt Dot, nor their children would have another drink of water, a glass of iced tea, or a cup of coffee on the visit.  For dad never told him the household now ran on well water.

Robert Nathaniel Ragan, my dad, passed in 2003, at age 89.  After services in California his body was flown back to Paducah, KY for visitation by family before interment in Oaklawn Memorial Gardens. Among those attending was his brother Neal and his son, Neal, JR.

It seems to me the melancholy and sadness of these times are usually supplemented with a story or two about times shared with the departed loved one, and this time was no different.  Virtually no time had passed before Uncle Neal had to talk about visiting us and drinking water from a cistern teeming with fish--and fish bait.  I was surprised that he still was wriggling on dad's own hook and felt maybe it was time to set the facts straight.  But, an image of my mother's smile and dad's twinkling blue eyes flashed in the recesses of my brain pan, and I decided to let the story stand without correction or embellishment.

Uncle Neal is gone now, too, and I hope he and dad are somewhere playing cards together and reminiscing over old times.  But, at some point I know Uncle Neal is going to say. "Hey, Bob, you remember that old cistern where you kept your water and Keith kept his catfish"?

Ramsey's Pond is filled in now and exists only in my precious vault of memories.  So, too, gone is the old water crypt at 1507 Meacham Lane.  They both were favorite places for me, and forever are amongst the most treasured times I spent while living in the little house fronted by the big elm tree with my mother, father, and older brother, Ken.

My shirts were old t-shirts and a few of Ken's hand-me-downs, my blue jeans all had patches on the knees, and my tennis shoes had soles so thin you could feel the heat of black topped roads halfway up to your ankles.  But I was rich in ways rarely appreciated at the time they are experienced.

I know now.  I was blessed.  I am joyful, humble, and thankful for those times.  All 12 year old boys should be so blessed, and all seventy-year old men should have such wonderful memories of innocence, family, and their favorite fishin' holes.

The author, Keith Ragan

Copyright by the author Keith Wayne Ragan 07/11/2016