An Homage to Catfish - The Man, The Myth, The Legend

In EQUAL NIGHT, Catfish is based on my Grandpa Leroy, who went by the same nickname. He worked hard, played hard, had a wonderful sense of humor and a zeal for life. He shopped at Goodwill and chewed snus, collected hundreds of hats, and ate Egga Doppa off the floor as a dust bunny sailed past just to prove it was clean. (Stay tuned for more Catfish cleaning tips!)

He called me Chicken, as Catfish did Maddie in EQUAL NIGHT. Although I wasn't thrilled at the time, I realized years later that I was lucky to be the grandkid bestowed with such a cool nickname.

One time he dragged an old Honda motorcycle out of the rusting shed in the yard. It wouldn't start, so he walked up the road to a friend's house to relax and have a beer; room temperature, of course. He told my friend Ruthie and me to bring it to him if we got it started, and he would show us how to ride it. I'll never forget the enormous grin on his face when he saw us coming with that bike. As promised, he wiped the tobacco juice from his chin and taught us how to ride. That summer, we wore out that little blue piece of freedom cruising up and down the dirt road that led to our cabin. We raced for hours and never tired of the ride. Man, we were the coolest. At the end of that summer, the Honda died, and to my knowledge, was never ridden again.

The cabin cruiser he built was the most extraordinary vessel on earth. Sometimes he took my sister and me out on the lake at night and set up his telescope on the back of the boat. He taught us about the constellations in the night sky before we camped below deck until morning. I'm sure he imparted years of wisdom on those trips, like how the moon affects the tides and what causes the aurora borealis. But the thing I remember most is just spending time with him. To this day, my sister and I are both astronomy enthusiasts.

The consummate fisherman, he would sometimes run a pole at night from the lake up to the house and tie beer cans to the rod to wake him when he had a catfish on the line. In fact, his skill was so great that he was jostled out of bed shouting obscenities as he ran for the door in his underwear more times than I can count.

His fish-filleting skills are legendary on Cross Lake. He could deconstruct a crappie in seconds. Heads from northern pike and catfish, long since dehydrated, adorned the tree trunks by the lake. It creeped me out as a kid, but now—well, it still does. After a fish fry, he would stick the pans in the sand to clean them, and it worked! (Catfish cleaning tip #2).

He also taught me how to box. I can still hear him shout, “Lead with your left!”

His brother, my great-uncle Clate wrote his eulogy:

GRANDPA LEROY WAS LIKE A LOAF OF FRENCH BREAD – CRUSTY ON THE OUTSIDE AND SOFT ON THE INSIDE. LIKE A LOAF OF BREAD, HE SUSTAINED US ALL. HE WAS ALWAYS THERE FOR US. HIS PUCKISH GOOD HUMOR AND HIS READINESS TO LAUGH WERE ATTRIBUTES WE ALL ENJOYED WITH HIM. IF ANYONE EVER LOVED LIFE, HE DID. HE WAS TOTALLY HONEST IN HIS CONVICTIONS, AND HE DIDN'T CARE WHERE OR TO WHOM HE EXPRESSED THEM. WEALTH OR TITLE, PRINCE OR PAUPER, HE WAS ALL FOR THE LATTER. HE BROUGHT JOY AND INSPIRATION TO US ALL. HIS FRIENDS WERE LEGION. NO ONE WHO KNEW HIM WILL EVER FORGET HIM. HIS SPIRIT WILL HELP LIGHT THE WAY FOR ALL OF US.