Dependable Boxelder

Editor’s note: The following poem was written and submitted by Erwin Curry, former Carter County resident.

It was everything to me:

A delight of discovery,

A sign of seasons turning,

A source of entertainment,

A refuge from sadness,

A solitude for thought.

Boxelder Creek, my dependable Boxelder.

Cottontails, beaver, rattlesnakes,

Mink tracks, deer tracks - raccoons.

Tall cottonwoods, fluff afloat,

Magpies in the morning.

Licorice smell from the wild.

Boxelder, my dependable Boxelder.

Life can be chaotic.

My first eighteen years seemed to be.

Boxelder - with open water in winter - the brush.

Dependable source for water and with good cover.

The rancher's blessing and his son’s, too.

Boxelder, my dependable Boxelder.

Along the creek the waters controlled,

The animals controlled,

The plants controlled my world.

And nature’s lectures - ever changing - always taught.

I listened and learned - filling my mind - reflecting on my place.

Boxelder, my dependable Boxelder.

I was a worry to my family,

The creek I often explored alone.

Sometimes with the dog,

But he might scare the fish - so seldom - he came along.

The waters always brought peace.

Boxelder, my dependable Boxelder.

Catfish in the stream,

Hoot owls hooting across the creek.

Muddy water after long June rainfalls,

Set lines on willow poles dancing and snapping turtles.

The raft Toby and I made,

Boxelder, my dependable Boxelder.

In the spring we saved the fish roe.

“Fish was brain food” - my mother said.

Catfish steaks rolled in cornmeal and flour

Deep fried - you had to cook it long, sometimes for breakfast

With wild asparagus in the spring.

Boxelder, my dependable Boxelder.

I once hooked a largemouth briefly.

There were many other fish,

Other than catfish, carp, goldeye, or sucker.

The Friese’s caught sauger in Spring.

For me channel cats remained the king.

Boxelder, my dependable Boxelder.

The channel cats like many things,

Earthworms usually but are quickly torn.

It was better to use cut up carp I found.

A mouse from a trap at home worked, and a frog.

But the “best bait” was quietness and patience.

Boxelder, my dependable Boxelder.

I always took a book with me fishing

Or floating on my raft, the ants and flies joining

The sounds of nature with the written words.

And a six-pound catfish might eventually strike

At the start of the third chapter.

Boxelder, my dependable Boxelder.

I found my calling early with catfish,

I read every article in Outdoor Life and Field & Stream.

Dad said “He always comes home with one as long as his leg”.

I understood the heavily scarred and weaponed brutes,

I seemed to know them - perhaps too well.

Boxelder, my dependable Boxelder.

But Dad caught the fifteen-pound cat in April.

He fought the huge fish for many minutes,

Sister drove to the house for the landing net, which proved too small.

I went up the bank away to watch through the sagebrush.

Dad landed the giant on eight-pound test.

Boxelder, my dependable Boxelder.

Goldeyes are a toothy fish with a toothy tongue.

Eat an orange and throw the peels in the water.

The goldeyes attacked - they were always hungry.

The fly rod with marabou streamers, mighty fun.

Throw them grasshoppers, too, They liked that.

Boxelder, my dependable Boxelder.

Boxelder upstream all the way to Ridgeway.

Classmate Bryce caught large bullheads

In a slough attached to the creek.

We caught many that day and cleaned them all.

Then a fish fry the following Sunday.

Boxelder, my dependable Boxelder.

Cleaning fish, the better the day, the harder the night.

I came up with my own methods for each fish, extra flesh here and there.

I taught my art to Bryce with bullheads.

And with Dad. I always cleaned Dad’s fish.

Pliers pinching catfish skin, sharpen the knife again, the fishy smell.

Boxelder, my dependable Boxelder.

Swimming in the swimming holes,

Inner tubes for each.

Fish nibbling at your toes,

Fish feeding around - a jumping carp’s splash.

Water almost always murky,

Boxelder, my dependable Boxelder.

Town kids had the swimming pool

With a lifeguard, clear with chemicals.

John said Boxelder was dirty,

Not for swimming - his dad the pharmacist after all.

My young feelings hurt but - then, he didn’t understand.

Boxelder, my dependable Boxelder.

The diving board at one of two creek crossings - to Ralph’s.

My older brothers used it, not I.

Years later after the flood,

A deep hole was scoured somewhere new.

A new board put in place from which I dove.

Boxelder, my dependable Boxelder.

Wintertime and skating,

First had to shovel the snow.

And even ice fishing,

Goldeyes sluggish and slow, corn as bait.

Trace my name with my feet in the snow on the ice.

Boxelder, my dependable Boxelder.

Spring ice floes,

Dad had many stories.

“Back then kids rode the floating ice slabs”,

He said - “but no...not him...and not you son” - Dad was cautious.

The smashing ice floes would thunder and echo.

Boxelder, my dependable Boxelder.

Dad made a special point for me to see nature’s might.

The thick ice slabs leaving to the gulf - melting waters rising.

That early spring with sun and warmth, an ice jam to leave.

The cows had already been fed their cake and hay.

It was indeed quite a show - the ice parade marched away with a clamor.

Boxelder, my dependable Boxelder.

Jack would visit to fish.

I would guide him to the spots.

But it seemed then the big catfish would never bite.

Mostly skunked, but we shrugged and enjoyed.

Jack - my age passed early - this memory may be his.

Boxelder, my dependable Boxelder.

Crossing the creek was an art,

The creek too high - the car could drown out.

The station wagon drowned one fall.

Until it finally fired, after the several hikes.

And the time I tumbled over a stopped horse’s head into it.

Boxelder, my dependable Boxelder.

The raft we made lasted two summers

Before the logs from the old barn became waterlogged.

Toby and I - both proud owners - poling the long bend.

My brothers built a boat. I rode in it once.

Then the sheep shearers sank it...made us mad.

Boxelder, my dependable Boxelder.

The footbridges at Ralph’s and Shorty’s

Swung back and forth when we crossed.

A hired hand once dove from Ralph’s into the swollen creek,

And the bobcat we treed near it,

The last for our old hound Pepper.

Boxelder, my dependable Boxelder.

I tagged along behind my brothers - 22’s in their hands.

They hunted with intensity, whatever the quarry.

There were the cottontails, check for tularemia then add mushroom sauce.

In the fall the young sage hens,

An unfortunate roasted duck at times - but dry as jerky.

Boxelder, my dependable Boxelder.

We irrigated for a time - Massey Ferguson tractor with pump

The level land with corn and alfalfa.

Pulling weeds from the ditches.

The deer liked our crops as well as raccoons.

Pepper dog with porcupine quills - baying in the corn.

Boxelder, my dependable Boxelder.

Then in ‘76 - a moment changed,

Eight inches of rain upstream, a dam broke.

The water up near the shop,

Whitetails swimming - place to place across the rushing width.

A beaver chewed a branch - soon to be high up above my head.

Boxelder, my dependable Boxelder.

Jack and I bow-hunting whitetails

In September, the weather, warm and nice.

In the “Oil Well Bend” were six bucks.

One played tag with us that afternoon.

The large buck didn’t exactly laugh out loud.

Boxelder, my dependable Boxelder.

My first deer with the 30-06,

In the sheep pasture across the creek.

Dad drove the brush, my usual chore.

I dressed out the doe, my animal after all.

That unmistakable odor - the heart and liver.

Boxelder, my dependable Boxelder.

Another October with orange vests.

Whitetails were in this bend or that.

Dad knew where to sit,

Sure enough the buck came his way.

Sounds of shooting in the air.

Boxelder, my dependable Boxelder.

Shortly out of high school,

The Boxelder beaver cutting down our trees.

Dad said the old ones were the worst.

I trapped that winter.

Skinning and stretching and drying - I was a mountain man.

Boxelder, my dependable Boxelder.

The talk was a dam on the creek.

It had been done upstream.

But the sediment load would have been high, other problems perhaps.

I would become one to design such dams myself in my years.

I’m glad no dam was tried.

Boxelder, my dependable Boxelder.

Now Travis on Facebook with a northern pike,

I haven’t wet a Boxelder line for years.

But I think back to those days, far to the east.

Fishing, swimming, hunting, skating, and trapping.

Exploring, just watching, learning and thinking - much thinking.

Boxelder, my dependable Boxelder.

It was everything to me:

A delight of discovery,

A sign of seasons turning,

A source of entertainment,

A refuge from sadness,

A solitude for thought.

Boxelder Creek, dependable Boxelder, my old home.