Smokin' Pop - Nez

 

In the 1940s and ‘50s Pop Davis was a perennial Lyman town council member. He always ran “un-opposed” for re-election. For all the time we lived there he was on the town’s council. Apparently nobody else wanted the job or everyone thought he did a good job at it. Pop lived in the third house around the corner from us. His real name was Fred, but everyone called him “Pop”. Pop was old, probably in his sixties, and his hair was white, what there was of it, and he had reddish complexion. He was officially retired. He didn’t work at a paying job anymore and pretty much did whatever he wanted with his time, which was usually working on a home project or fishing.

Pop was a resourceful old guy and we often saw him driving his pickup home with a load of materials that he had gotten somewhere for free. He stored those treasures either in his garage attic, or in his old barn or behind it. He was really handy and very adept at using tools, and usually had a project going where he utilized his handyman skills for plumbing, electrical, masonry and/or carpentry. But Pop’s real passion was fishing. So, he always finished his projects quickly so he had more time to enjoy nature while fishing.

Although Pop was a longtime Baptist church member he only attended weddings and funerals, more funerals than weddings. For him, Sundays were for  fishing. Nature and the riverbank were his church, or sometimes his boat was. His  flat-bottomed river skiff with its outboard Evinrude motor was always on its trailer parked on the street near his garage. It was gassed up and ready to go. It was named Lilia, named after his daughter, and it rarely went anywhere. The Skagit River was close by and Pop usually walked the hundred yards or so from his house to the riverbank.

Pop was an expert fisherman, one of many in Lyman. We seemed to have more than our share in those days. Pop did most of his fishing from the riverbank, as a lot of our Lyman anglers did rather than from their boats, which most of them had. Pop usually came home with a fish or two, mostly steelhead or salmon. Bullheads and catfish were always thrown back in or thrown away. They were bottom-feeders and considered inedible.

But I guess Pop got tired of eating fried, broiled or baked fish all the time, although each species has its own taste, and decided it was time to change things up a little. For years he had collected used brick and cleaned them and piled them out behind his barn. Deciding he liked the idea of smoking salmon, he used that brick collection to construct an outsized smokehouse with a thick birchwood door. He installed big racks in it and could smoke half a dozen large fish on each rack at the same time. He would rotate the fish vertically from rack to rack so they all got equal amounts of heat and smoke. And he varied the types of wood and seasoning to create slightly different flavors.

In a relatively short time Pop became really expert in the art of smoking salmon, and other fish, and beef and pork. And Pop didn’t particularly like to share. He wouldn’t give away or sell any of his smoked meats, but sometimes he did allow people sample them. And they were delectable and he got lots of requests for his smoked meats. So finally, what he did was he suggested that people could bring him their fish or meat and he would smoke it for them. They could either pay him in cash or his payment would be half of what they brought him to be smoked. And boy did they take him up on that offer!

For that next year or so Pop was constantly busy tending his smokehouse and smoking fish and meat all the time. He found himself busier than he wanted to be. He was so busy he didn’t have time to enjoy his passion, fishing. Yet, it wasn’t like he had a lack of fish or meat. In fact, he had so much smoked meat as payment that his family couldn’t possibly eat all of it and he ended up having to give a lot of it away, which really perturbed him. Many of his neighbors were fortunate recipients and we got used to enjoying that free smoked meat. He also didn’t like that we loved it.

All of this added up to an exasperated Pop growing so tired of tending the smokehouse all the time and spreading his payments around so freely that he made major decision. He decided that he wouldn’t stop smoking fish and meats for others, but he changed his practice and only accepted cash as payment. No more would he accept fish or meat as payment for smoking theirs. And from then on he didn’t do as much smoking business, but that was just fine with Pop. He had time for fishing again.

Speaking of Cemeteries...Weren't We? - Nez

 

Growing up in the 1940s and 1950s several of our Lyman neighbors were in their retirement ages. Avery and Maggie Bryson, Nate and Bicie Watson, Pop and Mrs. Davis, Eula and Ruth Aiken, and my great-grandparents J.G. and Mary Buckner were all enjoying their “golden” years. And, eventually, some of them passed away. It was hard as a young child to really understand what was happening, to understand death. Especially since no one explained it. I wasn’t devastated or sad when any of them died. I think the death of Grandpa Buckner, my great-grandfather, was the first time I got it, when I began to understand.

We attended Sunday school and church, and we knew that people from church had died, but I think the way we processed it was that they just stopped coming to church. Of course, I knew that Mr. Self, Mrs. Price, both Mr. and Mrs. Buchanan, and Mr. Bryson had “died”, but I didn’t really know what that meant. And I actually knew Mr. Bryson, he was our next door neighbor. The others were simply church people to me. As young kids we weren’t permitted to attend any of the funerals or burials. And most of them were buried in Lyman Cemetery, just a block away.

I was barely six years old when Grandpa Buckner died. Mom and Dad were divorcing at the time and we lived with our great-grandparents. His death is how I learned what death really meant. It wasn’t explained to me though. He died on December 29, 1949. My sister, brother and I had been sent to our other grandparents in Seattle a few days earlier. We knew Grandpa was sick and in the hospital. But we didn’t know he was dying. We didn’t know that he wasn’t going to get better and come home. We were kept in Seattle until after the funeral. After we got back home nothing was said or explained to us. It took a couple of days for us to learn that he wouldn’t be coming back home but there was no mention of his having died. And we missed him. That Spring Mom took us to the cemetery to his grave and we learned that he was buried there in the ground. I thought that was horrible. It made me so sad I cried. And I didn’t get to tell him “good-bye”.

We were constantly in Lyman Cemetery as kids. It’s contiguous to the city park with no fence between them. We kids took a shortcut through the cemetery to school. It had a gate and path so we wouldn’t walk on graves and we even played in it, usually disregarding the graves. It had/has several prominent tombstones we hid behind to scare girls on their way to school. We also used it for cowboys and Indians, other games and even snowball fights.

As a kid I had several pets at different times. I never had good luck with them. We had a couple outdoor cats. But my first pet was Blacky, a black cocker spaniel puppy that I got from Pop Davis. I was eight or nine. We didn’t have any leash laws in Lyman and dogs pretty much ran free but always came back home. I had him for about a year and a half.  A neighbor out near the highway killed Blacky by poisoning  him. A year later I got a real cute female Beagle puppy and named her Trixie. After she had her first litter of six, I gave four away but I wanted to keep two of them. Mom declared we could not keep three dogs, so one would have to go. When the puppies were about three months old I decided to give Trixie away. I put notices in all over town in stores, the post office, churches, schools and tavern. I talked with everyone but couldn’t find anyone who would take another dog. I told Mom it looked like we were keeping three, and she declared that if I didn’t get rid of at least one she would get rid of them all. She said if nobody would take one, then I would have to terminate one. Days later, I ended up tying Trixie to a tree in the woods to shoot her. I was a really good shot, but after eight shots at her and not coming close I took her back home and told Mom I couldn’t do it. Two days later my Dad showed up and said, ” get your gun and dog and let’s go.” He seemed a little perturbed at me. We went to the dump where I tied her up again. Dad told me to shoot her. When I told him I couldn’t he took my gun and shot her, in one shot, and told me to go remove her collar and with tears in my eyes I did so, while promising myself that I would never own another dog. When I asked if we could bury her Dad picked her up and tossed her over the edge of the dump. That only hardened my promise to myself. I told Dad to take the two puppies with him. I didn’t want them anymore. He did. The next time I went to his place I was surprised to see the two puppies were there but I wouldn’t play with them. His new wife said she wouldn’t let him get rid of them and said if I wanted one or both I could have them. I told her “no thanks”  so she said she would keep them for herself. I was okay with that.

When our kids wanted pets we went to the pound and let them each pick out their choice. Our son picked out a year-old Border Collie and named her Pepper. Our daughter picked out a Chow-African Ridgeback mix puppy with huge paws, which she named Snickers. Snickers grew to about eighty-five pounds. At thirty-five pounds Pepper was in charge. They were really close. Both dogs eventually became Judy’s. Then at seven years old Snickers became ill and the vet diagnosed her with diabetes, and said,” bring her back tomorrow and we’ll have insulin for her.” She died at home that night. Judy was crushed. Pepper was despondent for some time but mostly recovered. Then Pepper was Judy’s only dog. We had her for a total of eighteen years before she was humanely euthanized. Pepper was Judy’s dog but she became adopted me against my will, but I have resisted doing so with others. I don’t know that I ever will. They are buried in a pet cemetery outside of Bowie, Texas.

I’m not comfortable at pet cemeteries. I find them creepy. We visited a couple before deciding on one. Playing in our cemetery as a kid I don’t mind visiting deceased loved ones, but I’m not keen to attend a burial. I know that I will do so again at some point, maybe my own, but I’m certainly not looking forward to it.

Pop's Projects - Nez

 

My Mom’s mother was Letha Davison. I never got to meet my grandmother. She died when Mom was sixteen, several years before I was even thought of. She is buried in the Lyman cemetery in the adjoining grave to her eldest daughter, mom’s sister, my Aunt Thelma, who I also never got to meet. Aunt Thelma had died two years earlier than grandmother while giving birth to  Milton, her only child. Their graves are beside the north fence of the cemetery, right where Pop Davis could keep an eye on them. Except for a barbed-wire fence they were basically in his front yard. That fence divided all of Pop’s property and the cemetery, about a hundred yards wide.

Pop Davis place was just three houses around the corner from us, yet our families weren’t particularly close. Though he was retired Pop was always busy. I guess he wasn’t anxious to claim a spot across the fence just yet. He kept a really nice looking place. And you rarely found him sitting around unless he was in town talking to voters and families. Pop was a longtime town council member. Oftentimes, you found him home working in the yard or on a project or fishing. But every few weeks you could find him in town talking with people and building relationships. I thought he was old, but he was probably only in his sixties, and he still climbed ladders, worked in his orchard and built anything he wanted.

Pop’s small old unpainted barn sat about twenty yards from his house and about as far from the cemetery, among the fruit trees in his large orchard. If you weren’t paying attention you didn’t even notice the barn. He used it for storage and kept it locked. We figured there were all kinds of treasures in there. The orchard was several acres and had walnut, hazelnut, apple, plum, cherry, and pear trees. There were at least fifteen trees, several quite large, and they all produced every season. Each season he harvested all he needed, then he invited others come and take what they needed for their personal use. Pop kept baskets of apples for his cider and applejack. The still was in his basement. He could have taken his fruits to local stores and sold them but he chose to share. He had a big smokehouse between two big cherry trees.

His only other field was treeless, was beyond the orchard and was contiguous to our school grounds. At times we cut through his fields as a shortcut to school. He didn’t like it and would yell at us to go around, which meant through the cemetery. But if we were already in the second field we just kept going. Pop rented out that field. There were three semi-wild horses there for years. They were never ridden or worked. Nobody got near them. If we tried they ran away. I never understood why they were there.

I never understood this either. I thought houses were normally built facing the street, but not our neighbor’s, Pop Davis. His house should have faced east toward the street. He certainly had the space. But no, his house faced south, toward the cemetery, just across the fence from his front yard. His neighbor, George Davidson, directly across the street, was just the opposite. George should have built his house facing west, but it faced north toward the hills. Every other house in Lyman faced the street. Two neighbors houses facing the wrong way from each other was weird. No one knew why and it remains a mystery to this day.

Another project Pop did was when he tore down his old single car garage all by himself, preserving all of the old lumber from which he built the footings, had a concrete floor poured and then built a modern two-car garage and workshop, which he painted white both inside and out. The attic was extra tall for storage and he installed windows and hay-loft type doors on each end. He put red shutters on the windows. He could reach those doors from the bed of his pickup. He had stairs up to the attic in his workshop. Except for pouring the concrete floor Pop did all the work himself in just a few months. Other than a table saw he didn’t have power tools. The garage matched the look of his house. He was that good.

Pop kept a pristine front yard and lawn facing the cemetery. It was like a flower garden with several trees. But one Spring  he tore it up and dug a large hole in the yard. At first people thought he might be digging a grave, but it was too large for that. You could have put a whole family in there. Then we thought maybe it was going to be a swimming pool, but it wasn’t deep enough. After a couple of weeks with this new project taking shape, it was done. He had built a big, beautiful koi pond with big golden koi right in front of my aunt’s and grandmother’s graves.  He surrounded it with flower beds and placed Adirondak chairs looking across the pond at the cemetery. Their graves were not ten feet from his koi pond. When my Mom visited her mother’s and sister's graves she really enjoyed Pop’s koi pond and told him so. Pop replied, “It’s for your family. You should sit and relax in the chairs.”

 

Nez Nesmith

October 2024

 

Note: Though we only lived in Lyman for sixteen formative years, I walked or ran or bicycled to every nook and cranny of the town. That whole town was my playground and growing up there in the 1940s and 1950s I still remember every road, street, alley, barn, building and house in Lyman during those years. It was a tiny town of only 435 people and while I may no longer always remember what I did yesterday, I still have those memories from long ago.