CityView Magazine

10 | November/December 2016 McFadyen's Musings The Winter Wasp M y plantation-owning friend in Raeford was most gra- cious in saying "yes" to my request to float about her pond that summer aernoon. Her lovely acre rested behind an earthen dam, fed by a timeless thread of spring water. My greatest admiration of it swam just below that surface in the form of the fat bluegills that proved so very will- ing to eat the crickets I suspended on small hooks above the bottom of the pond. As I shared pleasantries with her that aernoon prior to launching my john boat, she considered what a lovely thing it would be for me to clean out her wood duck box. I would be floating around it anyway, and because no ducks were using it, it seemed a reasonable time for her to impose a small use tax for all the fun I enjoyed on, and just below, her water's surface. While I unhalt- ingly agreed, from somewhere in the dark recesses of my 50 years of experience, I heard a tinkling bell. Unfortunately, it did not ring loudly or clearly enough. My angling career began in the mid- 60s on Devonwood pond when Uncle Reg had free reign there and total say over who fished and who did not. Lord only knows how many bream and bass he hauled from there, transferring their swim from tranquil water to boiling oil. ere was in that pond a turtle trap. It was a wooden structure standing above the water level with a board onto which the turtles would climb. Prior to my arrival on the scene, it had worked like a teeter-totter, depositing the reptiles into a fenced holding bin. e terrapins were eliminated without ceremony. e snapping turtles became the main ingredient for a now mostly-forgotten soup prepared by the hired hands at Uncle Reg's egg farm. By the time I was entrusted with my very own cane pole and boat paddle, the turtle trap was non-functioning. In poetic justice, it was a place where other turtles lounged in sort of a peaceful memorial to those fallen heroes who previously ventured out too far on the plank. It was also a place where you could count on a bluegill bite or two. I was warned not to dri too close; it was also the BY BILL MCFADYEN place where wasps nested and reared their squiggly white larvae into full members of winged society. ere are a lot of wood duck boxes in the world today; there are very few functional or even non-functional turtle traps. Still, they share the qualities of not only being above the water line but also being mostly undisturbed. Both attract critters of vari- ous forms that prefer not to interact with humanity. On the aforementioned summer aer- noon in Raeford, I had boated 10 or so fat panfish. I was ready to make my exit, so it was time to pay my tax to this generous landowner. I paddled slowly to the box, which had as its face a hinged door. My course was perfectly true, and I never even grazed the pole in the water. Yet I saw upon closer inspection that the door was screwed shut. So I gently back-stroked away, found and opened my little kit for a screwdriver, and repeated the approach. Only this time, my aim was not as true. In just the slightest of nautical mis- calculations, my bow barely bumped the wooden pole on which the wood duck box was mounted. Instantly, the sky in front of me darkened with a rancorous cloud of black wasps. It is noteworthy how quickly several things happened from there. First, I marveled at how quickly those wasps devel- oped a violent hatred toward me. Secondly, I am retroactively fascinated at how quickly I processed in my mind that the $300 phone in my pocket eliminated diving into the wa- ter as an option for escape. irdly, it was painfully apparent (and I mean literally painfully) that nothing in my high school, college or professional experiences prepared me for effectively deciding whether to fight or run when "run" was defined as "paddling slowly backwards while getting repeatedly stung by angry wasps" and "fight" was de- fined as "swing your paddle back and forth in the air as fast as you can in an effort to swat wasps out of mid-air." I did both, but neither did I do well. at tinkling bell I heard in my mind earlier was saying, "Wood duck boxes should be cleaned out in winter!" FOR ALL OF YOUR SODA POP AND CANDY CRAVINGS The gigantic selection will launch you back in time to when you were a kid! Marketfair Mall • 1916 Skibo Rd. • Unit A7 Fayetteville, NC 28314 910.867.6032 • www.rocketfizz.com Tickets online at www.cfrt.org or call 910-323-4233 ON STAGE @ MAKE YOUR HOLIDAY COMPLETE WITH BY BARBARA ROBINSON PRESENTS T h e H e r d m a n s a r e B A C K I N T O W N ! DECEMBEr 2 - 18, 2016 Tickets at cfrt.org JAN 19 - FEB 12 HOLIDAY GIFT TIX ON SALE NOV. 25TH!

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