Essays by students at Bright Star High School
"My First Encounter with the Sulphur River"
I woke up one Saturday morning. It was a hot sunny summer day, so I decided to put on my black and purple bathing suit and a pair of blue jean shorts. I went into the kitchen where my mom was and she was wearing a tank top and some shorts. My mom was packing up some cokes in our big red and white ice chest, along with some lunch meats. She had two paper bags full of other picnic foods such as chips, cupcakes, bread, mustard, napkins, plates, and ice. She told me to go and get my brother Tommy up out of bed, that it was 10:15 a.m. and to go get some earthworms with Clifford, my mom's boyfriend, so we could go to the Sulphur River fishing. We got a bucket full of worms and dirt and we stuck four fishing poles in the back of the truck. Then we hopped in the truck and headed to the Sulphur River. When we arrived there were a lot of people there fishing. I remember one little girl saying, "Mom! Dad! I caught a fis!" I caught four fish and I really don't remember how many my mom, Tommy, or Clifford caught. I also saw a snake. It scared me to death. It was swimming toward the bank. I had a lot of fun fishing. At 12:30 we took a break, washed our hands, and ate us a snack. We fished until 2 p.m. and then we went home, and as soon as we did I called my granny and told her all about our little adventure and that I caught four fish. I was proud of myself.
Heather Caldwell
"My First Encounter with the Sulphur River"
My first encounter with the Sulphur River was the summer of 1995. I was 13 years old and it was a Sunday afternoon. We had just gotten back from church and had eaten lunch. I asked my dad if we could go fishing, and had to talk him into it, but finally he said yes. We went down to Smith Park. I loved the trees and woods down there. I especially like the cypress trees that grow in the water; they make the river look more like a swamp. We went down to a secluded part of the river. It looked more like a lake and there was nobody else around so it was real quiet. You could hear the b irds clearly, the sky was blue, and the river was a muddy brown color. I was wearing blue jean shorts and an old tee shirt. I would stomp around in the mud, splattering it everywhere while the mosquitoes chased me, trying to bite my legs. I remember my dad telling me to be quiet so he could catch some fish so I kind of sat on my knee, playing in the water, when I saw a frog. I went to catch him and he jumped in the water. I thought I had lost him when I saw a little head that looked like a frog head but as I was going to pick him up he slithered away. That's when I realized it was a snake, not a frog!
I go up there to play basketball or if it's windy, I like to walk through the woods. It's kind of enchanting, like something out of a book, or maybe that's just how it seems to daydream with the Sulphur River.
Amanda Smith
"My First Encounter with the Sulphur River"
My encounter with the Sulphur River was when I was little. My aunt, my uncle, my little brother, and myself went there. We went fishing. Then we waded in the water. Just about half way between ankle-deep and knee-deep, we fished. We fished for about two hours. Then we went and got something to drink and eat. We went to a store. Then we went back with our boat. Then we went and put the boat in the water and got our rods and we turned on the boat and went on down the river and fished. On th way back, we saw an alligator on the bank on the other side. I don't remember what it was doing anymore but we had lots of fun that day. When we came home we talked about it until we went to bed that night.
The next day we went back. We went fishing again but I didn't catch any a gain. My brought caught one, though. My uncle caught three fish. My aunt caught four. Then we went out on the boat and went down the river a little ways and we saw a bunch more b oats than we did the day before. After we got back we met my cousin and her uncle and talked forever, it seemed like. But then we loaded up our boat and went home.
Amber Wisinger
"My First Encounter with the Sulphur River"
My encounter with the Sulphur River was last summer when my brother and I went to the game reserve that's a part of the Sulphur River. We would go to the river at night and carry big lights to the water. We would bring bows with reels on them. The reels would have trotline string on them and there would be special-made arrows that were made of fiberglass that had a hole in the middle of it to put the string through. There were special-made tips on the arrows so when it went through the fish it wouldn't come out and the fish couldn't get away. On the bow, there were not any sights because if you had sights the string would get tangled around it. You had to guess where to aim and then shoot. The water was too shallow and hot for bass or other fish to live in it. The only two types were gar and carp. While we were down there, we had to watch out for the alligators. While we were shining our lights we had to look out for red eyes. That was the color of the alligators' eyes. There was a culvert that the water came out of. Sometimes the game warden would come down and open up the floodgates and let the water fill the place up. The fishing was always better when the water was higher. One time when we went to the rivver, Allen Potts came with us and the water had dropped real low and a lot of the fish had died because there were too many fish and not enough oxygen in the water to support them all. There were about sixty fish that had died because of the low water and not enough oxygen. And this was my first encounter with the Sulphur River.
Jarrod Brown
"My First Encounter with the Sulphur River"
My first encounter with the Sulphur River was a long time ago. I was real little the first time I went down there to fish. I was scared because the river was high. My dad had some nets out. We were going to run the nets. I was scared when we first went out on the river. I put my life jacket on. There was a lot of trees and limbs floating around down the river. There was a storm coming up and we were way down the river. It started pouring down rain and we started back. We narly got to the landing and it started hailing. We held life jackets over our heads to keep it from hitting us in the head. I was so proud that we got back to the landing safely.
Then the older I got, the more I stayed on the river. I have fallen in the river one time and like to have drowned. My dad grabbed me and pulled me back. It didn't bother me that much. Every summer we go down there and rod-and-reel fish. We catch the little individuals. They are just right to eat. There are a few gators it in, not very many. During the winter we duck-hunt it every year. We watch the water and see how much it is coming up. When the river gets real high, it gets into the bayou and it messes the fishing up in the bayou. I have been on it all my life.
Kenny Whitecotton
"My First Encounter with the Sulphur River"
My first encounter with the Sulphur River was when my dad took me fishing about a year ago. It took a lot of persuasion to get me into that flat bottom boat. I was so afraid the boat was going to tip over and I would go head first into the muddy water. Then my dad told me that flat bottom boats are very unlikely to turn over (but I was still just as cautious).
It was a very pretty day outside and the scenery was very beautiful. But it also smelled like rotten fish and that is the most unpleasant smell on the face of this earth. With the rotten fish, I decided that I had had enough, so we turned the boat around and I have never been again, nor do I want to.
Mandy Love
"My First Encounter with the Sulphur River"
My first experience that I remember is the time that we took our new speed boat out on Lake Wright Patman. We bought the speed boat in 1994. We started working on it and replacing bad parts. By 1995, the boat was ready for its first try. We took it out and ran it for about five minutes and it started sputtering and sputtering until it finally died. We took it back home and replaced the fuel pump. We took it back out to the lake again. It still did the same thing again. We took it back home for a final check-up before we gave up. We replaced the starter and another thing in the fuel system. We took out out for the third try. This time it ran great and pretty fast, too. We rode around all over the lake. It was lots of fun. We ran around looking at different islands. We finally found a good enough island to cook lunch on. We cooked hamburgers, hot dogs, and potato chips. Then we went wading out into the lake. We didn't wat to get our heads under the water because it's so filthy. After we ate lunch then we went out to the other side of the lake and saw the place where Texarkana gets its water out of the lake. It was like a bunch of huge pipes running out of the water and on the land. Then we started riding around the lake looking at the different islands and seeing if we could find another island to cook supper on. After we found an island, we rode a tube behind the boat for awhile until they got supper cooked. This time we grilled steaks. That was first encounter and a very fun one at that.
Jeremy Franklin
"My First Encounter with the Sulphur River"
My experiences with the Sulphur River are not very detailed because I have never had an honest to goodness interaction with this river. I drive over it on the way to and from Texarkana at least twice a week. Truly though, I hate going over that stretch of road. It looks like a straight drop off the road. One driver error and there you go! I've always felt uneasy as though I will fall off. I even saw a car on its side down there where it had fallen.
I've also gone to Smith Park and peeked around a little. My family and I saw a ton of dead fish and a boat with two men in it. Over all, as I said earlier, I've not done much on or near the Sulphur. Furthermore, the little I have done was not altogether pleasant.
Meagan White
"My First Encounter with the Sulphur River"
I really never have done anything on the Sulphur River. The only thing I can think of is something that I saw one day when I was crossing it. I was only about six or seven years old. I was going across the river on my way to Texarkana when I looked out the window and saw something in the water. It must have been ten or fifteen feet long. I was so scared when I saw it because I didn't know what it was. I only saw it for a second but it had that type of impact on me. On the way home from Texarkana I looked over the bridge for it, but I didn't see a thing. Until this day, I have never seen anything like that again.
Scott Simington
"My First Encounter with the Sulphur River"
My first encounter with the Sulphur River is when I was about four. I went fishing for catfish and I saw an alligator that popped his head up looking at things around him. Every once in a while I would play at the bank of the river and watch logs float across the water. When I looked at the things around me it minded me of what Indians used to do back when they settled on this land. I saw ducks fly over but some landed and the colors of the ducks were green, brown, blue and some parts of their bodies were yellow. I also saw a crane. It had long legs that went up under the water and it caught fish for its food. I really enjoyed looking at the wild and the other things at the river. And I hope maybe when I am 90 I will not be a stranger to the river.
Jason Eaglebarger
"My First Encounter with the Sulphur River"
My first encounter with the Sulphur River was when it froze over and we went down on the ferry. I was young and I still remember to this day how I wore a fuzzy red sweater with white stars all over it and a big teddy bear on it. I also remember how when I came down that big hill I couldn't see the curve on the road and I thought we were going to run into the river. I also remember how the trees were weighed down with ice and snow. The Sulphur River was iced over for the first time I could ever remember. It looked so different from the Sulphur River I had always been around and grown up on. We had always gone fishing and camping on it since I was very young and have done so often since that visit with the river when it was frozen. My Grandma and Grandpa went with us and we really had fun. We carried a picnic basket full of sandwiches and fruit. We carried it down by the river and sat in the trees where we spread out a quilt and ate our good lunch. I had made a card for my Grandpa because it was his birthday and I gave it to him down there. After we got done eating, we hiked up the hill to the pine grove that overlooks the fork where the Red and the Sulphur join. That was the first time I noticed the colors of the water. The Sulphur is a different color than the Red and when they join it looks like you are mixing colors of paint. It's really pretty.
Sarah Bumgardner
"My First Encounter with the Sulphur River"
My first encounter with the Sulphur River was when my dad, my brother, and I went and tried out our new boat. We rode up and down the river a bunch of times after we did that our boat quit on us and we got it started again. It quit because I hit the key and I accidentally turned it off. I was probably about 10. It was the first time I had been there and my first time to drive a boat (I didn't wreck it), but I had driven over the river about 100 or more times on our way to Texarkana with my parents. We went fishing and I didn't catch not one, but my dad and my brother caught a bunch. We were riding beside some people and they were waving at us We had so much fun, especially without trash all over the place. Back then people took care of the river but now people don't care. Right now it is so polluted it is awful. People ought to be ashamed of themselves for throwing beer cans and trash in there. Some people need to grow up!! If they want to fish in there they need to take care of it or it will get so polluted that the fish and all of the other animals will die because they drank the water. If you want to fish there like we did when I was little, you ought to take care of it. When you drive by nowadays you ought to see how people are polluting it and how bad it smells.
Jodee Martin
© Red River Rural Schools Partnership 1998
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