Uncle Cano's Lagoon

My birth certificate states that I was born in Blue Town, Texas, but it’s wrong. I was really born between four small towns and Uncle Cano’s Lagoon was my place of birth. It stayed just like the little patch of woods that it was for many years. Cano was the last name of the man whom used to let my parents use the land around those parts. The real name is a translation from the Spanish name La Laguna De Tio Cano (English translation is Uncle Cano’s Lagoon). On the map, you wouldn’t find it because it does not exist in that form.
None of the four towns around it has the same name, you have to understand that this was way back then that I hate to tell you how many years. The patch of woods was ideal for my parents and ourselves. My grandfather was one of the first one’s to inhabit this area. He didn’t have a job outside other than he grew many vegtables and traded them off to the neighbors for some other kinds of crops.
As for many of the meats that we ate consisted of wild animals. Rabbits, javelinas, or wild pigs were plentiful. Turkeys, opposiums, wild chickens, deer, and fish from the Lagoon also contributed to our diets. My grandfather and father were good marksmen and fishermen that the table was never empty of some wild animal. Of course, they only shot what we ate, and if there was going to be some left over, it was traded for something else.
There was a lot of privacy due to the fact that neither of my father or grandfather own or drove a car. The horse and donkey were their means of transportation until my father took us from there and into a town outside of Uncle Cano’s Lagoon. It was my mother who learned to drive later on when we lived in the city.
This place was a paradise if you ask me. If you love the outdoors, than this was the place for you too. The trees were mostly mesqite trees that don’t need alot of water. They strive under very hot conditions and they put out a fruit that we suck the juice out of after chewing it for a while. You can also make candy of it as Mexican people from Mexico did and up to this day still do.
The tree itself when chopped down and dried is a great for cooking outdoors. It burns fast and the bark serves as a great tenderizer. Just putting the bark in the burning flames helps the meat get softer, but many people don’t even know that. We had no heaters so the coals served a dual purpose.
Whitewing doves loved to be around these trees and sometimes built nest on them. We in turn would raid their nest and used the babies as pets. They would make a singing noise that we would love to listen to. Very romatic birds and they make for some very fine cusine cooking too.
Cano’s Lagoon also was a good place for frogs. They would grow very large and we would hit them on the head with a wooden stick and bring them home. We would cut off the legs because it was the only part you could eat. Then we would wash them and flour them before deep frying them. Wow, almost taste like chicken and when in season we would stock up on them too.
In the Lagoon their were many catfish and jarfish. Those jarfish would grow over five feet long and their snouts were like crocodiles. However, the meat had no torns as we used to call them in spanish. Nothing but good meat even though the outside of that fish was very thick and scaley. In our culture the bones of the fish were called torns because they could cut you up if you were not very careful.
The soil around there was a nice dark black color. There was no need for fertilizer because it was rich to grown in. Wild chilly picante were all over and there was no cultivating. The dark green and vivid red colors were a beauty to see. Even the birds would swallow them whole. We just went out there with a paper sack and collect them for our mother to grind down along with the tomatoes and can then in those glass jar masons.
I loved that place and I was hoping to some day go back and make it my home. When I came back from the army and my tour of duty in Viet-nam I just had to see it again. The sorry part about it is that it is no longer this pardise I speak about. No sir, the woods were torn down to make room for modern civilization. Houses now line the old woods and the lagoon, I hear, grew dry and is no longer there. Uncle Cano’s Lagoon has disappeared, but not from my memory, it will live inside my head till the day I die.

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