Last night Landi and I had dinner at a ‘Seafood’ house. that’s what they call a ‘fish house’ down here on the coast. It had all sorts of nautical gear on the wall, and it smelled…well….it smelled of fish. It smelled of good fish. It smelled of fish so good it made your mouth water.
I opened the menu and perused my options. I could have the catch of the day, or I could have shrimp. Crab legs are always a good choice. None of these would do tonight because my eye had settled on catfish. I love catfish. I like it blackened, broiled or fried. Dredged in corn meal, I can still enjoy it because it has no flour, and hence no gluten. Gluten makes me socially unacceptable for a few hours.
Many years ago when I was about 18 or 19 years old, Dr. Lewis O’Neal taught me how to cook catfish….and drink beer. He had a farm north of Jonesboro where he raised quail, fished , and drank beer.
You get some Martha White corn meal, add an unconscionable amount of Morton’s Table Salt and a lot of black pepper. You dump all that into a brown paper bag like you used to get groceries in, and shake it up. Once it is all mixed up, you are ready to drop some catfish fillets in, and shake.
The real magic was in how you cook the fish. Most important of all the steps was to make sure the oil was hot enough, but not too hot. It was hot enough when a drop of water would immediately pop when you drop it in the oil. The first step was to cook one piece all by itself. This piece would not be fit to eat, but it would get the oil ‘right’ for the rest of the fish. Now, the cooking can begin. For the record, I still have no idea what ‘too hot’ is, but I do know it ruins the fish.
While you are doing all this, Dr. O’Neal or perhaps his good buddy Gene Pate would tell stories about hunting, fishing and life in general. There were golden nugget life lessons in those stories. (If you are teaching a young man to quail hunt, only allow him to put one shell in his gun. It vastly improves his aim.) These were the stories that you wish your son could have heard from these men. We heard stories about World War II. How many people have you met who actually fought in the ‘Battle of the Bulge’? We talked about boxing and some of the greats.
Dr. O’Neal and Gene would cook the fish. We’d all drink ice cold beer (Strohs), and have a great time. Dr. O’Neal was a big man with a heart the size of Texas, and a wonderful wealth of solid southern wisdom. He was a hell of a boxer, a gentle spirit and a fine dentist. He was a pediatric dentist. Kids just intuitively trusted him. All kids liked Dr. O’Neal. He only worked on kids, but my sister loved him so much she wouldn’t go to an adult dentist until she was nearly 20 years old. His wife, Rose O’Neal was a nurse in the Emergency Room at St. Bernard’s Hospital. She was always so kind, and so calming when I was a patient there. (As a young boy, I spent more time in ER than you could imagine.) Three finer people have never graced God’s green earth.
When you are young, you think things last forever. They don’t. It never once occurred to me that one day, all would move on to their greater reward. Though I always hoped each visit to the ER would be my last, I never thought that the fish fries would end. I never realized they would become just one more great memory of growing up in Jonesboro in the 1960s and 1970s.
As I looked at the menu at the fish house last night, all this flashed through my mind.
I ordered the fried catfish. My mouth watered as a waited for it to come out. I ate a pound of crawdads as an appetizer.
Finally, my fish arrived.
It looked like something from Arthur Treacher’s Fish and Chips. That’s not how you do catfish!!! Where in the hell is the cornmeal???
Disappointed, I ate one piece. I had to. I knew there would be a consequence, but I ate it. It wasn’t right. Catfish is supposed to be dredged in cornmeal.
This morning, while I was ‘paying the price’, I had some time to think. I sure miss Doc, Rose, and Gene. I suspect there are many guys like me whose lives were touched by Dr. O’Neal, his wife Rose, and Gene. Everyone who knew them was better for having known them. Jonesboro was a magical place in the 1960s and 70s. People like Doc, Rose and Gene were a big part of the magic.
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Like you, I was acquainted with and influenced by Dr O’Neal in my younger years. My grandfather and dad knew Doc and invited him to our hunting camp in SE Arkansas. That’s where I first met him. This was in the early 70’s and I was just a teenage kid. For whatever reason, he took an interest in me and we struck up a friendship of sorts. I decided shortly afterwards that I was going to be a dentist. He hunted with us for several years at our camp. Good times that I will always be thankful for.
I spent many days at his office observing him working. You’re right about Doc, he could gain your trust. Influence you. Make you want to just be in his company whenever you could. A good man with a big heart. I got my dental degree several years later from the University of Tennessee, same as Dr O’Neal.
My wife found your story ‘The Jube’ and sent me the link to your website. I’m so glad she did! I’ve read several so far, and when I read this one I had to leave a comment. I grew up in Bono. My family were farmers at Bono and Egypt, so I’m very familiar with a lot of your writings. Thanks for sharing, and keep up the good work!