As I arrived at our cabin a couple weeks ago, almost the first thing that my brother greeted me with was the story of his big catch.

A whopper, it weighed eight pounds. He’d gutted it, scraped off the scales, and set it in the fridge, ready for our evening’s feast.

My sister went to a fair amount of trouble to cook the leviathan, good sport that she is, and a properly appreciative audience since she’s the other fisherman in the family.

Trouble is, it was a Drum. And Drums are, at best, plain eating. Despite half a dozen spices and sauces with which she’d doctored it, the flesh was tasteless. And overcooked. Too big to fry, it’d been sawn into chunks and stuffed into Grandmother’s sturdy turkey pan, the lid of which fit too well. So basically it got boiled to rubber.

And, lordamighty, was it ugly. Thick and greasy skin covering a thick white meat in which were embedded the curving ribs, large enough to have fit the chest of a small dog. Not to mention those pockets of jellied goo that I kept unearthing, and a couple of scales that looked a lot like curled up toenails.

My siblings were eating, if not with gusto, at least without discernible distaste. I tried not to grimace or to groan aloud, but I have a lousy poker face, and when I asked for ketchup (to drown the thing), I’m sure the game was up.

No ketchup.

I soldiered on. But felt bad that they could have no doubts of how I felt about her cooking and his prize catch.

Driving home, a few days later, and still mad at myself for my lack of manners, I thought of C.P. Lee.

Cousin C.P. Lee. Rhodes scholar. And hero of one of my favorite family tales.

First time the name had floated through my brain in decades. I wasn’t even sure if I recalled it right. How many folks have names that rhyme in triplicate?

Don’t know if Clarence Pendleton really was a cousin. Might have been a mere connection on the family tree. But I sure do remember my father’s gleeful face when he dropped that punchline at the dinner table on us gagging kids.

The way dad told the story, C.P. Lee had been invited to some sort of baronial manor during, I suppose, his stay in England. Or perhaps it was in Greece, where he spent a year as a Fulbright professor.

My mind conjured up a handsome table set with silver, candelabra, linen napkins. Each course served by liveried footmen, beginning with the traditional bowl of steaming soup.

C.P. Lee looked down and noticed that floating in his bowl was a roach.

A dead roach, presumably well-cooked, so there was no need to swat the thing. Still, it presented a problem.

What, C.P. wondered, should one do next?

Fish it out and cover it with a wedge of toast?

Eat all around the tiny tidbit, leaving half an inch of broth, prod the critter to the bottom, its feelers drooping, and hope that no one noticed?

But if they did, one’s hostess would be mortified!

My dad paused dramatically.

There was one thing only that a gentleman could do.

Which was, of course, to keep a pleasant expression on his face.

As he ate it.

----

Ryland Bruhwiler lives on a farm in McNairy County, Tenn. A special columnist for the Daily Corinthian, she can be contacted by email at downyonder@wildblue.net.