A Crawfish Cook Calamity

That warm, spring Mississippi Delta Saturday was ideal for doing anything outdoors, but the calamitous way it turned out was far from ideal. Nobody outperformed my lifelong best friend and mentor Jaybird in preparing delicious, deep-South cuisine, especially crawfish. When my friends and I asked the old black man to boil several hundred pounds of them, he said, “Boys, that will be a great way to spend this glorious day. Y’all load up my big cooking pot; let’s enjoy some country-style cutting up.” Our favorite place to undertake excursions into crustacean culinary conviviality was at a grass airstrip known locally as Redneck International Airport. We men set up cooking equipment, while the women arranged tables and chairs. My airplane, a Piper Cub, was hangared at the strip. Providence was peering over Mr. Piper’s shoulder when he designed the tiny tandem-seat trainer. No aircraft is more fun to fly. The Cub was nicknamed “Freddie” in memory of my flight instructor, Mr. Fred Frazier, a legendary crop duster, who used Cubs to train military pilots.

When word got out that Jaybird was cooking crawfish, eaters from all over showed up, and merrymaking was the order of the day

As always, when word got out that Jaybird was cooking crawfish, eaters from all over showed up, and merrymaking was the order of the day. While parents kicked back and enjoyed the warm spring weather, kids tossed a football. Every pickup had shotguns in its rear window rack, and one of my hunting buddies came up with the idea of using empty cans tossed out of the Cub for target practice. After strapping a can-filled bucket in Freddie’s front seat, I would ascend several hundred feet and dump them above the waiting can killers. Since Cubs are piloted from the rear seat and the doors can remain open in flight, dumping the bucket was easy. When the cans floated within range of my armed amigos, they blazed away. Mr. Fred wore a huge ring that he rapped on students’ heads if they made dumb mistakes, one of which was failing to apply carburetor heat when landing to avoid interruption of fuel flow to the engine. That day, my noggin would have gotten a painful rap. Returning to refill the bucket, I forgot to apply carburetor heat. When the aircraft was a mere two hundred feet above ground, the engine died. My only hope was that altitude — a pilot’s best friend — wouldn’t desert me before reaching the end of the grass strip, precisely where the revelers were reveling. Its engine quiet and propeller motionless, the airplane swooped toward the partiers, causing them to flee in panic, like prairie dogs beset upon by a hungry hawk. After banging the ground and missing by mere inches a crowd of celebrants, the aircraft, now deprived of thrust and lift, surrendered to gravity, flopped to the ground, ping-ponged a few hops, and lurched to a stop. A gale of laughter replaced dumbstruck silence when Jaybird quipped, “Well, famed flyboy, at least you didn’t knock over the cooking pot. Then it really would have been what it almost was: a crawfish cook calamity.”

This story is a selection from Jimmy Reed’s upcoming book, entitled The Jaybird Tales. The book will be available before the holiday season. Copies, including personalized autographs, can be reserved by notifying the author via email (jimmycecilreedjr@gmail.com).