I got one of those milestone photo/text messages from Adrian about 6 p.m. Monday evening. There was our grandson, Van, smiling at the cell phone camera pleased with himself. He was grasping the toes on his left foot. The message from Adrian said, “Van found his foot.” He made that major accomplishment at 21 weeks and two days.

Kimball nor I have any idea when Adrian and Davis made that big find. I do know that Adrian cut her first tooth at 4 months and two days and promptly bit Momma one time. Davis waited until 15 months to join the toothy critters about the time he weaned himself and went to the bottle. Adrian never did. At two years, she asked for it by name, “Nurtz,” after a bad cold had sidelined her for some time. Momma said, “All gone,” and that was it.

I received a photo earlier on Monday that was even more special. Cain had to be the one who took it. There were Adrian and Van on a sofa, I guess. She had him in sort of a nest in front of her and his attention was totally fixed on a book in front of them from which she was reading to him. I know from my horse breaking days, that you need to capitalize when you have the full attention of a young ‘un like that.

– Someone was on the Osage snagging last Wednesday morning when they made a gruesome find – a floating body. They did the proper thing – called the St. Clair County Sheriff’s office and stayed with the body. Authorities have got an ID on the body and said the person was not local. If someone dumped the body in the Osage thinking it would not be found, they didn’t know much about snagging season.

– Davis asked me the other day if I wanted to go snagging. Kinda. That’s a lot of work. I know what Davis wants – my expertise at tying the hooks for the snagging rig. I’ve seen it up at Schell when he could lose them about as fast as I could tie them.

Down at Osceola below the dam, I’ve seen guys retrieve bed springs after snagging season was over that they apparently had put in the river to catch snaggers. I think they probably waited until no one was around to pull their haul of hooks and snagging sinkers out of the river or there might have been something else to witness.

When I was a big kid, it was exciting times on the river below the Osceola Dam when somebody hollered “Fire in the hole” signaling a hookup with a big spoonbill. Invariably, several fellow snaggers rushed to help the lucky one land the fish.

The fishing is less concentrated now, but the helping spirit still is exhibited if you are in the right place at the right time. Just be sure you have a fishing license or are over 65 so your good deed will go unpunished. KL