Big Pines Lodge. Great view of the river channel. Incredible catfish served family style. Jalapeno hushpuppies that looked like snake-devils and tasted better than anything offered up the angels. The coldest beer on the planet served in Mason jars. Displays of fishing lures I didn't need but wanted to buy anyway.
You can forget all that and people would have still showed up. To see and be seen. It was impossible to walk in the front door, saunter pass the fishing tackle and pickled eggs and gimme caps and not see a bevy of people you knew.
It could take a while to mush on through the howdys and the hand-shaking. It was not unlike a murder of politicians descending on a busload of voting virgins. Everybody was glad to see everybody.
One favorite memory: A business acquaintance was taken out to Big Pines for a catfish dinner. The man, a competitive weightlifter from New Jersey, politely declined catfish and ordered a steak with a side order of shrimp.
After a beer or three, this man with a neck the size of a Mac truck tire, started mouthing about how he couldn't fathom how anyone could eat "bottom dwellers" like catfish. "Man," he said in his heavy Joisey accent, "catfish are scum-suckers, eating things on the bottom that other fish wouldn't touch."
He simply wouldn't shut up. It was more than embarrassing.
I finally persuaded him to take a single bite of Big Pines catfish. After having a 16-ounce steak and enough shrimp to feed a homecoming crowd, he ate 12 fillets.
Every Christmas for the next several years, I would get about five pounds of uncooked catfish fillets with hushpuppy makings from Big Pines and ship them to New Jersey (with dry ice, of course).
From a former resident and a person who lives for the resurrection of good memories, please rebuild Big Pines.
Don't try and make it bigger, prettier, better. Just use an old snapshot and follow your heart.
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