When I saw his name in my e-mail “in-box,” I assumed he was writing to verify his address for our class reunion.  We of The Class of 1958, Thomas Jefferson High School, are having our (gasp) 50-year class reunion in April!  But his note was regarding another matter:  he had been checking The News’ web site for obits for his genealogy research, he said, when he noticed my name, and read several of these columns.  He wrote some nice things about my work, as friends do.

Seeing Swiki’s name triggered some vivid memories.

We had been grads of TJHS a couple of years when Swiki Anderson and I ran into each other at a New Year’s Eve party at the Ball Room on Pleasure Island.  One thing led to another, and before the night was over, we had made plans to go duck hunting the next morning.  Very early the next morning. 

Swiki said he knew a place, down the Intracoastal Canal, where he thought they wouldn’t mind too much if we hunted.  But we needed a boat to get there, he said.  No problem, I said.  We can pick up my Dad’s boat in the morning. 

When Swiki arrived the next morning at the garage apartment where we lived, the house was dark, and it was obvious my alarm hadn’t awaken me. Neither did his knocks at the door.  But there was a window near the head of the stairs, and Swiki managed to open it and climb through.

He didn’t know that there was a couch on the other side of that window.  Swiki, a big fellow, came through the window and fell over the back of the couch and onto the sleeping 13-year-old baby sitter, Nita, (my wife Sue’s sister).  I don’t know who frightened whom the most, but the ensuing hysterics woke me right up, as well as everyone else in the house, including Sue and Johnny, our 11-month-old baby. 

I got dressed in record time, grabbed my shotgun and boots, and Swiki and I, both being hugely unpopular in that house at that time, got out of there as quickly as possible.

We put the boat in where Highway 87 crosses the Intracoastal south of Port Arthur, on a night as black as ink, and discovered at that time that we had no spotlight, headlight, flashlight or any other source of illumination other than the running lights on the boat. 

We could have — should have — waited at the launch site for daylight before making the run down the canal, but we were eager to be ready to shoot at first light. Besides, we were 20 years old;  what could happen?  We cranked up and started down the Intracoastal.

I couldn’t see the canal, or either bank of the canal, and every time I tried to get up some speed, I ran the boat up on the bank.  After repeating that maneuver several times, we got in behind a passing tug-boat and followed him, ever so slowly, down the canal..  We got to our hunting spot not long after daylight.

We saw only a few ducks that morning, and hit even fewer than that.  The most memorable thing about that hunt was that we survived the day

Swiki became a professional engineer and moved to Bryan, Texas, where he lives now. 

I hope Swiki can make it to the class reunion in April. If he does, I would be astonished if either one of us suggests getting up early the next morning and going anywhere in a boat, in the dark.  Mr. R.F. Gross, my boss at Gross’ Grocery in Pear Ridge when I was a kid, had a plaque with these words, that I have never forgotten:  “Ve ged too soon olt, und too late schmart.”  It seems appropriate to the story.

Gene Dammon of Port Neches is a contributing writer to the Port Arthur News. His e-mail address is: gene-san@sbcglobal.net.