Growing Up: Tales about Life on the Lake

Southern Scribe
our culture of storytelling

Memoir Review


Growing Up: Tales about Life on the Lake
by Bailey Jones
Morris Publishing, 2002
Trade paperback, $11.95 (159 pages)
LOC: 2002092613

Bailey Jones grew up at Alabama's Lake Martin. Though a self-proclaimed outdoors man, Jones with tongue in cheek, proves to be anything BUT. He profess to be a fisherman, but has never caught a fish --- the beer can doesn't count. Jones is nectar for wasps and hornets, since they will single out him to sting in a crowd. His first vehicle is a 4 wheel-drive truck, that he manages to sink in the mud.

There are many personal essays -- that may have a touch of exaggeration -- such as Bailey and Jimbo swimming to behind their sailboat as it catches a breeze and sails forward. Trying to light a fire with wet wood and burning his sister's comic books -- well, he wasn't cold enough to burn his.

There are classic memories of diving off the Rocks (don't we all have a "Rocks" in our past). Walks to the cemetery at night, only to be scared to death by his mother coming out of an open grave. And the confidence of friends on night fishing trips, who hum the theme of "Gilligan's Island."

Bailey Jones writes for Lake Martin Living, where the essays in this collection were originally published between 1988 and 1991. His creative spirit continues at his web site: http://www.baileyjones.com .

Read "Sirens of Spring," the first essay of this collection, in Porch Tales.

Joyce Dixon
Southern Scribe Reviews