Reunion, memorial for classmate bring back fond memories

Classmates from South Panola’s 1966 vintage will gather at the First United Methodist Church this Saturday for a luncheon reunion from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. Members of the Class of 1965 have found the luncheon format suits them so well that they continue it annually the last Saturday of each June.
The 1966 reunion coincides with the weekend of a memorial service the following day for classmate William Marter Trussell — Bill.
Bill passed away Sept. 2 at his home in Richardson, TX. We published his obituary with mention that an October memorial service was planned in Batesville. It will be Sunday, Oct. 29, at 2 p.m. at Wells Funeral Home. His obit involved email correspondence with his widow, Crowder native Robbie Gee Trussell, and the rekindling of memories of fun times Bill and I shared as boys.
Bill and his family — father James, mother Marie and brother Jimmy — lived in Johnson Subdivision when I first knew him. Then they moved waaayy out into the country on Highway 6, just across from where the Mt. Olivet Road now intersects Highway 6. The move allowed his dad, who was a supervisor at what we then knew as the hosiery mill, to acquire enough acreage to raise cattle. It also gave him enough room to allow Bill and me to roam freely over pasture, gullies and woods. We took full advantage of it.
The Trussell farm shared a large pond with the neighboring Chunn family, including Benny Chunn, who was one year younger. We spent many hours fishing and camping around that pond.
One day when Bill and I had grown tired of modest or no success at fishing, we pulled out a large Lucky 13 topwater lure that my dad had once used with a casting rod. It was the biggest, heaviest lure in the tackle box and we would attach it to our lighter spinning rods just to see how far out into the pond we could cast it.
For some reason there was at the time a friendly rivalry between Bill and Benny. We were thus engaged casting that Lucky 13 when came Benny walking up on the pond levee. Of course, he wanted to try, and after awhile we agreed to let him cast it just once. He did and promptly said he’d hung it up on something. About the time we were ready to start criticizing his careless aim, we all realized that what he had hung up was fish many times larger than anything we’d ever hoped to pull from that pond.
When Benny finally got it reeled in, he had caught what must have been the Boss Bass of that pond. Closer examination showed us that the bass was not hooked in his mouth but had been snagged in his side, and somehow that added insult to injury.
Benny walked back toward his house with the huge bass slung over his shoulder, a happy fellow.
Bill, on the other hand, was not so happy. That his younger upstart neighbor would come along and with one cast of the fishing rod so upstage us in their ongoing game of one-upsmanship he would have been, had we known the meaning of the word, apoplectic.