Old Friend, Donnie (Doc) Lee

I first met Doc around 1958 when his older brother Bob bought a farm from my mom and dad. This old farm was around the Tillman area. We became close friends and ran togather through the years. I graduated from BCHS in 1962 and Doc a couple years later. When I was in the 11th grade a new girl by the name of Billie Day Zimmerman moved in and started school there. Her and Doc started going togather and after they graduated got married. At this time we went seprate ways for a few years, Doc went north for a while and eventually returned and went to work on the railroad. I went into the Army and after 4 years returned to Bell City. I married Dorothy (Payne) Long and we rented a small house in BC. Well about this time Doc rented a house in BC about 100 ft from where we lived. Around this time in our lives we couldn't do much of anything without a 12 pack of beer, that is after we had already drank the tavern dry. Well one day after a few suds we ran into another lifelong friend by the name of Howard (shotgun) Abner. It was in the spring/summer and frog season was in so we deceided to go frog gigging that night. Naturally we had to have the old 12 pk to get started. Around 9 or 10 oclock we set out to some places we knew would have frogs. Now Doc and Shotgun were pretty good at frogging. They would wade out in the ponds and gig back into the bank. When a snake would get into their light they would take the gig and throw him out toward the bank and yell Finney here one for you. They ran me around the pond banks about all night. We eventually got around 60 frogs and had sobered up enough to go home. We took the frogs to Doc"s and started cleaning them. Well we were not in to good of a shape and was not really paying attention to what was happening. Some of the frogs that were not dead got loose and us not knowing it hid in the house. Well a couple days later Billie Day was cleaning the house and started the vacum which set off some of the frogs to bellowing. Now this scared the hell out of Billie, so she proceeded to call Doc and chew him out. The best I can remember Doc had to move all the furniture and do some house cleaning. We all got a big laugh out of this. About this time me and Doc deceided to go into the hog business. We rented a couple acres and built some fence and a hog pen. Well we didn't dnow anything about hogs and bought an old sow that was getting ready to have pigs from Cal Hoover. (I have written about Cal before.) Now the old sow had a disease called rhinitis, her old nose was turned up and she couldn't gain a pound if you fed her lead. Well she had a fine litter of pigs, about 10 but they were just like the old sow as they couldn"t gain any weight. So one day while I was at work Doc deceided we should sell the old sow and pigs so he loaded them up and started to to the sale barn at Poplar Bluff. Now naturally he had to stop by the old water"n hole at the old Hilltop tavern. After a visit there he moved a little farther south to another place we visited quiet often. Well after a few at each place he finally got to the sale barn, with an old sow and one little pig. To this day he swears he don't know what happened to the other pigs. But I always thought he traded them off for something. His dad Ted Lee said we didn't know enough about hogs to go to the store and buy a pound of bacon. A couple years later Doc bought a place out in the hills west of Bell City and one day deceided to have a BBQ. So all that came brought something to contribute to the party. His uncle Red Sears and his wife were there and his wife could really hold her drinks. Well Dearl and Toots Hess were there and Toots said she was going to keep up with Reds wife on the drinks. So it wasn"t long until Tots was out laying in the back of their car with her toes pointed up. We BBQ"D two goats that day and had a blast along with a huge hangover. Doc had a bad tractor accident about 3 months ago and we about lost him a couple times but I always knew he was to tough for a little thing like to stop him. Doc if you read this I hope it brings back some good memories and a few good chuckles.