"....as the worm turns....."

Friends:

" ... as the worm turns ... "

You already know how boring I-16 can get, and I have traveled this route too often in the last couple of weeks. However, I-16, like slow long-distance running, is conducive to dwelling on inane thoughts and getting a hold on elusive dreams. Yesterday, the "worm" thought kept circling around in my brain, apparently prompting me to recall some long-buried remnants of my youth. And I was transported back in thought to pre-teen years of a country boy, bored, curious, and penniless, but creative.

In those days there was little excitement in Colquitt, Georgia, so we had to be creative. The Spring Creek, a beautiful but small creek, meandered slowly through the westerly portion of town, and it was the first choice for spending days in carefree fun. In fact, it was encouraged by our parents. We'd mostly fish with cane poles, using worms we captured, not bought. Since money was in short supply, we had to find our own fish bait, so we resorted to a method of extracting 2 inch wiggly earth worms from their burrows, a process called “ grubbing. “

"Grubbing" was simple: take a sharpened 2 foot 2 X 4, drive it into the ground about a foot, and take an axe head and rub it across the top. This produced a "grunting" sound which resulted in a 10-foot circumferential vibration of the ground. The worms, either tickled or intrigued by this mini-earthquake, came worming to the surface, where we'd pick them up by the hundreds. It's easy to fool worms .. .little did they know their fate! The best “grubbing" was in a boggy area on "our place" (idiomatic for "our farm"), and we could always count on it for worms. We found some pine ridges which produced larger 10 inch worms we called "Piney Hill Rooters," but they were too big and we had to dice them up to fit in the fishes' mouths. I'm sure they appreciated this unanaesthetized primal surgery.

The results were always the same ... we caught plenty of fish for our "fish frys" (just FYI, the very first outing produced for Tubby and me 45 bream, all of which fit into a quart jar). Country boys can survive! Well, you know the rest of the story ... we grew up and left childish things behind, and began "grubbing" for grown-up things like money, a different sort of creative thrill ... but, 0, for the return just once more of the good-old-days!

You might wonder where the euphemistic saying, "the worm turns" came from, and where all this is heading ... well, it was first used by Shakespeare (who else!) in Henry VI, Part 3, and in that context meant that even the most humble of creatures will eventually turn to fight an oppressor. Well, I kept thinkin' how a worm might turn to accomplish this, and along I-16 somewhere near Blitchville it came to me in a flash of light. The moral is this: while we got the first laugh on the worms, nevertheless in the end the worms will feast on us even as we so callously did upon them. Thus, the circle is complete.


Bud
March 1, 2007