This weekend we have the annual Harvey County Cooter Cook. I know these old boys who will jump in a river and feel along the banks under the water for snapping turtles. They grab ’em by the tail and toss them onto the bank where another man waits with a burlap bag. You have to make sure to grab the right end of the turtle. A few of those boys have some nubs for fingers that will attest to that fact. Those cooters are powerful, and could snap a broomstick in two.
Make fun if you like, but if I’m in a foxhole I want one of those boys with me. All I know is how to write prescriptions and play the mandolin. Neither is a basic survival skill, although the mandolin comes close to that for me.
They’ll have cooter stew and deer ribs, and groundhog and quail. For the more conventional visitors there will be all sorts of fish and fried chicken. They’ll also will have home fries, onion rings and hush puppies, and there’ll be gallons of sweet tea. One of the ladies will cook up hot dogs and hamburgers for the young’uns.
After we eat we’ll gather around the campfire and pick some tunes. Maybe I didn’t make a ton of money as a picker, but that little mandolin got me into all the best parties, and I wouldn’t trade lives with anyone. Because of it, and my doctoring on those guys, I get into the annual Cooter party free and don’t have to grope around the river bank to earn an invitation. For that privilege, I am forever grateful.
Dr. B
Dr. Tom Bibey: Stories of the Bluegrass Music Road 