Last Friday on Katie Couric’s CBS news program I watched a feature that brought back a memory. Steve Hartman has been doing similar things on the show that Charles Kuralt used to do before he passed away, and he revisited a place called Sopchoppy, Florida. Kuralt had talked to people who did “worm grunting,” whereby a wooden stake was driven into the ground and a steel bar was rubbed across the end grains to produce a loud vibrating or grunting sound. The racket caused night crawler worms to come out of their holes where they could be picked up by would-be fish bait salesmen. It is thought the worms feared a mole was burrowing for them, so they climbed up into the daylight to escape the predator. During Kuralt’s interview with one of the hunters he got him to admit making about $200 per week gathering the little critters. Unfortunately, for him and others like him it got the attention of the IRS people who came and made them claim the income. When Hartman repeated the same question 25-30 years later, no one would confess to the income they made. They had become “media-savvy,” but they were still rasping the steel across the end grain and gathering buckets of the bait.
The memory revived in me had to do with gathering night crawlers, too. We were students at Valley City State when someone suggested we gather some bait. Immediately, I had visions of “snipe hunting” and feared they would try to make me the butt of some outlandish joke. I’m pretty sure we were fueled and fired up with beer in our bellies so I let myself get talked into the adventure. The city park became the scene, and we were cautioned to walk quietly watching the ground carefully while the experienced one shone a flashlight down. Here’s where I suspected the snipe-hunt: we were told that when we saw a night crawler stretched across the ground, yet anchored with one end of his body in his hole, that we were to dive for it, that they were very quick. Disbelief and skepticism overtook me then. How could a worm move quickly? “There’s one, see ’im? You were too slow! He disappeared.” Not seeing it, I knew then I was being toyed with. But a couple of the others kept diving to the ground on their knees and, sure enough, they were coming up with the prize. The whole episode struck me as being so ludicrous and funny that all I could do was double up with laughter; I doubt that I ever did catch one. Gradually, as the night wore on, I became a believer, but it’s an episode from carefree youth that brings a smile to my face each time I think back on it.
