Don’t Lose The Plug

[FIELD ETHOS]

Don't Lose The Plug | Field Ethos

By Cam Smith In the spring of 1994, I got a new Chevrolet Z71 and was on my…

fieldethos.com

By Cam Smith

In the spring of 1994, I got a new Chevrolet Z71 and was on my way that fall to Mississippi State to play football on scholarship for the Bulldogs. My last summer at home was spent with my buddies, helping on their farms, fishing as often as we could, shooting every critter in sight, and generally just being normal rural high school kids. It was mid-summer, and my best friend asked me to come spend the night at his trailer out on the farm, help water beans all night, and get up the next morning to go fishing. On the afternoon before the trip, I met my dad at our house and loaded our Yamaha Big Bear into my new truck and hooked up to his green aluminum jon boat with a 40-horse Evinrude. The four-wheeler sat high in the bed of the truck and kept me from seeing anything in the rearview mirror. I was adventure-ready.

My dad was a semi-pro bass fisherman in college, and our storeroom had an old refrigerator box full of every lure and worm you could imagine from brands like Culprit, Heddon, Rappala, and Falcon. He had a dozen rods with Abu Garcia reels that I’d always wanted to fish with, and a giant forest green double-decker, two-sided tackle box with all the baits a young boy dreamed of. This particular afternoon, I guess he was feeling great because he said,“Son, go in there and get all those poles and that tacklebox … pick out some lures and stuff and y’all have a good time. Be careful.” I was floored, and so I asked if there was anything he wanted me to do or if there was any special way to take care of all of these sacred tools. He walked to the back of the boat and said, “Remember not to screw up at that club as a guest and don’t lose the plug to the boat.” That was it. Pretty simple. And with those instructions, he took an old dog leash, hooked it around a handle on the back of the boat motor, and clipped it to the plug.

I headed out to my buddy’s trailer for the night. The three of us cooked supper, checked the water on several fields, and actually went to bed early. The next morning, we got up really early, like 4:00 AM, and went to work some levees and gates so the beans could finish watering, and then we headed out to go fishing. We pulled out of Cleveland with all the routine safety checks completed on the boat and trailer. All of the tackle, tackle boxes, rods and reels, and life jackets were there in the bottom of the boat and yes, the plug was screwed in its hole with the dog leash attached. Off we went into the darkness from Cleveland to Beulah to hit the levee and cross into the promised land. I remember having the music on and the peace of being awake while my buddies slept and I drove, thinking of all the fish we would catch.

We signed in to the hunting club with plenty of time before daylight. We got to the blue hole and I backed up to the landing before putting the truck in park and hopping out to pee and check everything one more time. As I stepped out into the darkness and looked the boat over, it took a minute to process what my eyes were seeing and my mind was telling me. My heart hit the dirt. I was so horrified I couldn’t swallow or get a breath. I got my flashlight out and peered around to confirm what I hoped I hadn’t seen. The first thing that I noticed was that the motor was no longer on the transom of the boat. The second thing I noticed was that what was left of the motor was lying in the bottom of the boat—on top of all of my dad’s prized poles, reels, and tackle box. The third thing I noticed was that all the poles were broken in half and the tackle box was destroyed. The fourth thing I noticed was that several of the vintage Abu Garcia reels were in pieces. The fifth thing I noticed was that the motor was missing the foot, the prop, and the engine cover was in shreds as were much of the metal parts that would make a motor operable. I was so sick to my stomach that I almost missed noticing the final piece of the puzzle, which was the damn dog leash that was still connected to the motor and the plug. The plug never came out but the metal had expanded about six inches and made a nice concave dent in the back of the boat from the pressure and force of the motor trying to come loose from the dog leash. Holy shit.

It was starting to get light, and I was starting to get light-headed. My buddies stirred in the truck, stepped out, and began to see the destruction. Of course, it was the funniest thing they’d ever seen because nothing that was destroyed belonged to their dads. I was nauseous. We talked about what in the hell could have happened. It came down to this: at some point on the highway, the bolt holding the motor had come loose and wiggled out. With the bolt gone, the 40-horse Evinrude dropped off the back of the boat onto the highway and thanks to the fucking dog leash attached to the plug, it dragged down the highway at 75MPH throwing sparks and pieces into the darkness until if finally hit something so hard, it bounced up and forward, crashing into the bottom of the boat, destroying everything my dad had loaned me, and my credibility, because no amount of truth would sound plausible or make this ok. I wanted to die. Who could imagine the roostertail of sparks flying down Highway 1? Moreso, who could imagine that none of us felt, saw, or heard anything unusual that would have indicated we needed to stop?

Well, since the day could likely not get worse, we decided to take the trolling motor from my dad’s boat and put it on one of the jon boats at the landing. Reluctantly, I agreed to join the two in the “borrowed” boat with my dad’s trolling motor, and off we went into the blue hole at sunrise. We got about 100 yards into the water, and that’s when the day totally got wrecked. We looked back, and low and behold, the boat we borrowed didn’t have a plug in it. That’s right. The only thing I was to pay attention to on my boat had doomed my life forever, and as we began to take on water, I realized it was about to get exponentially worse. Within a few minutes, the borrowed boat began to sink, and we began to swim. As we three got to the bank, I watched the handle of my dad’s trolling motor go down last hooked to some member’s boat that I didn’t have permission to borrow. There we sat, soaking wet, everything my dad loaned me either destroyed or sunk. No story would keep my dad from killing me. This would never go away. It just wouldn’t. We packed our stuff and went home without ever casting a line, much less catching a fish.

When I backed into the driveway, I was met by my dad, curious to know why we were home so early. He quickly and horrifically honed in on the fact that his motor was no longer on his boat. And then a flood of more bad news had to be relayed while he said words I hadn’t heard him say before, and my two friends laughed so hard in the truck that I could hear them. (*Note to all young men reading this: When your dad is royally pissed DO NOT under any circumstances, let your buddies cause you to break your look of seriousness and start smiling or laugh.*) All I could whimper was, “You told me not to lose the plug, and I didn’t.” He was so mad that I didn’t even get around to the part where we sunk someone else’s boat with his trolling motor on it. That was for another day when he cooled off.

 

[BourbonTrail]

 

[HankBuck]

Don't Lose The Plug | Field Ethos

By Cam Smith In the spring of 1994, I got a new Chevrolet Z71 and was on my…

fieldethos.com

View attachment 680544
By Cam Smith

In the spring of 1994, I got a new Chevrolet Z71 and was on my way that fall to Mississippi State to play football on scholarship for the Bulldogs. My last summer at home was spent with my buddies, helping on their farms, fishing as often as we could, shooting every critter in sight, and generally just being normal rural high school kids. It was mid-summer, and my best friend asked me to come spend the night at his trailer out on the farm, help water beans all night, and get up the next morning to go fishing. On the afternoon before the trip, I met my dad at our house and loaded our Yamaha Big Bear into my new truck and hooked up to his green aluminum jon boat with a 40-horse Evinrude. The four-wheeler sat high in the bed of the truck and kept me from seeing anything in the rearview mirror. I was adventure-ready.

My dad was a semi-pro bass fisherman in college, and our storeroom had an old refrigerator box full of every lure and worm you could imagine from brands like Culprit, Heddon, Rappala, and Falcon. He had a dozen rods with Abu Garcia reels that I’d always wanted to fish with, and a giant forest green double-decker, two-sided tackle box with all the baits a young boy dreamed of. This particular afternoon, I guess he was feeling great because he said,“Son, go in there and get all those poles and that tacklebox … pick out some lures and stuff and y’all have a good time. Be careful.” I was floored, and so I asked if there was anything he wanted me to do or if there was any special way to take care of all of these sacred tools. He walked to the back of the boat and said, “Remember not to screw up at that club as a guest and don’t lose the plug to the boat.” That was it. Pretty simple. And with those instructions, he took an old dog leash, hooked it around a handle on the back of the boat motor, and clipped it to the plug.

I headed out to my buddy’s trailer for the night. The three of us cooked supper, checked the water on several fields, and actually went to bed early. The next morning, we got up really early, like 4:00 AM, and went to work some levees and gates so the beans could finish watering, and then we headed out to go fishing. We pulled out of Cleveland with all the routine safety checks completed on the boat and trailer. All of the tackle, tackle boxes, rods and reels, and life jackets were there in the bottom of the boat and yes, the plug was screwed in its hole with the dog leash attached. Off we went into the darkness from Cleveland to Beulah to hit the levee and cross into the promised land. I remember having the music on and the peace of being awake while my buddies slept and I drove, thinking of all the fish we would catch.

We signed in to the hunting club with plenty of time before daylight. We got to the blue hole and I backed up to the landing before putting the truck in park and hopping out to pee and check everything one more time. As I stepped out into the darkness and looked the boat over, it took a minute to process what my eyes were seeing and my mind was telling me. My heart hit the dirt. I was so horrified I couldn’t swallow or get a breath. I got my flashlight out and peered around to confirm what I hoped I hadn’t seen. The first thing that I noticed was that the motor was no longer on the transom of the boat. The second thing I noticed was that what was left of the motor was lying in the bottom of the boat—on top of all of my dad’s prized poles, reels, and tackle box. The third thing I noticed was that all the poles were broken in half and the tackle box was destroyed. The fourth thing I noticed was that several of the vintage Abu Garcia reels were in pieces. The fifth thing I noticed was that the motor was missing the foot, the prop, and the engine cover was in shreds as were much of the metal parts that would make a motor operable. I was so sick to my stomach that I almost missed noticing the final piece of the puzzle, which was the damn dog leash that was still connected to the motor and the plug. The plug never came out but the metal had expanded about six inches and made a nice concave dent in the back of the boat from the pressure and force of the motor trying to come loose from the dog leash. Holy shit.

It was starting to get light, and I was starting to get light-headed. My buddies stirred in the truck, stepped out, and began to see the destruction. Of course, it was the funniest thing they’d ever seen because nothing that was destroyed belonged to their dads. I was nauseous. We talked about what in the hell could have happened. It came down to this: at some point on the highway, the bolt holding the motor had come loose and wiggled out. With the bolt gone, the 40-horse Evinrude dropped off the back of the boat onto the highway and thanks to the fucking dog leash attached to the plug, it dragged down the highway at 75MPH throwing sparks and pieces into the darkness until if finally hit something so hard, it bounced up and forward, crashing into the bottom of the boat, destroying everything my dad had loaned me, and my credibility, because no amount of truth would sound plausible or make this ok. I wanted to die. Who could imagine the roostertail of sparks flying down Highway 1? Moreso, who could imagine that none of us felt, saw, or heard anything unusual that would have indicated we needed to stop?

Well, since the day could likely not get worse, we decided to take the trolling motor from my dad’s boat and put it on one of the jon boats at the landing. Reluctantly, I agreed to join the two in the “borrowed” boat with my dad’s trolling motor, and off we went into the blue hole at sunrise. We got about 100 yards into the water, and that’s when the day totally got wrecked. We looked back, and low and behold, the boat we borrowed didn’t have a plug in it. That’s right. The only thing I was to pay attention to on my boat had doomed my life forever, and as we began to take on water, I realized it was about to get exponentially worse. Within a few minutes, the borrowed boat began to sink, and we began to swim. As we three got to the bank, I watched the handle of my dad’s trolling motor go down last hooked to some member’s boat that I didn’t have permission to borrow. There we sat, soaking wet, everything my dad loaned me either destroyed or sunk. No story would keep my dad from killing me. This would never go away. It just wouldn’t. We packed our stuff and went home without ever casting a line, much less catching a fish.

When I backed into the driveway, I was met by my dad, curious to know why we were home so early. He quickly and horrifically honed in on the fact that his motor was no longer on his boat. And then a flood of more bad news had to be relayed while he said words I hadn’t heard him say before, and my two friends laughed so hard in the truck that I could hear them. (*Note to all young men reading this: When your dad is royally pissed DO NOT under any circumstances, let your buddies cause you to break your look of seriousness and start smiling or laugh.*) All I could whimper was, “You told me not to lose the plug, and I didn’t.” He was so mad that I didn’t even get around to the part where we sunk someone else’s boat with his trolling motor on it. That was for another day when he cooled off.

@FIELD ETHOS - that’s NOT the end of this story (can’t be??) —- are you going to FINISH IT ? The fact you are alive to write this story means your Dad loved you…..what was the end result and consequence?

 

[skydiver386]

Happy Days!

 

[spike.t]

All I can say is fk .....

 

[AZDAVE]

The things we do as young men that are a warm and sometimes funny memory as we mature to our dads age. Fishing gear, fast cars and faster bikes, there are campfire stories to go with each

 

[spike.t]

The things we do as young men that are a warm and sometimes funny memory as we mature to our dads age. Fishing gear, fast cars and faster bikes, there are campfire stories to go with each

Oh yeah.....when I was back where I come from beginning of March, my friend who has same bday as me...bout 4 years younger though....started talking about some of the shit we got up to with cars....daughter of friends was sitting at the table with us and somehow from a question she asked the stories came out...she said you two should write a book .....all before they brought the breathalyser in to use of course......one I had totally forgotten about as well....