Shirttail Cousins

Three other farm kids: The girl in the middle is Nancy, who taught me to hunt bullfrogs.

Like most little kids, I didn’t always know exactly how I was related to people in my hillbilly family. Between great uncles, second cousins, and once removed kinfolk, I had trouble keeping them all straight. Sometimes even my mother or grandmother couldn’t recall how various Allens, Davises, or Holmes’ fit into the family tree.

I soon found a category of relatives that made a good catch-all when I wasn’t sure how we were related. A “shirttail cousin” was unrelated by blood, but possibly by marriage.

When I spent a week at Uncle Ralph and Aunt Louise’s farm in 1957, I met a girl named Nancy, who lived nearby. I never really understood what relation she was to Aunt Louise, so I thought of her as my shirttail cousin. Nancy was a little older than I, but I quickly developed a crush on her. At Aunt Louise’s suggestion, Nancy took me frog hunting.

“You kids should do real good tonight,” Louise pronounced, as she handed Nancy the glowing lantern. “Tonight’s the dark of the moon. You come right back when I ring the bell.”

The girl and I walked past a cloud of fireflies, into the shadowy cane brake. Nancy held the lantern, lighting the dirt path that led to Bull Creek Bayou. I followed, holding a gunny sack in one hand, and a stick with a sharp nail in the other. The deep resonant croaking of the giant bullfrogs became louder.

The successful hunt and the delectable meal that followed is one of the clearest memories I have, even though that night was over sixty years ago. If you would like to read about how how Nancy and I provided supper for the family, click here: Cold’Coon & Collards.