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Groundhogs were thick back in the 1950s. We hunted them back theneven barbecued a few.
Ronnie Tebbe and I hunted them more than most. Of course, we were always hunting something, building something, or planning something grand, which made our mothers nervous and our neighbors cautious.
Ronnie had most of the bright ideas. In fact, he usually announced them by exclaiming with his eyes widened and his voice elevated: "Hey, I've got a bright idea."

We weren't even teenagers yet, but we were always looking for ways to make a little money. Most of these grand schemes centered around outdoor pursuits, but they never produced much beyond the price of more shells.
Groundhog hunting along the Shoal Creek Bottoms, however, was most lucrative.
Shoal Creek was a flat-land drainage that jumped its banks with a muddy torrent every time a few drops of rain fell. Along portions of it, however, farmers had hired bulldozers to build long, high levees. These were expensive projects, but the fields they protected contained rich, dark soil that had washed in over the ages. They were some of the most fertile fields in the county.
Unfortunately for the farmers, and fortunately for us, groundhogs loved these earthen levees. Burrowing was a breeze, and the fertile fields made them fat and prolific. The problem was that the burrows eventually caused leaks. A farmer could loose an entire crop to groundhog excavations, so they were willing to do almost anything to get rid of them, including letting a couple of wide-eyed kids hunt them.
Much to my surprise, Ronnie convinced one of these farmers to pay us 25 cents for every groundhog we could collect. This was back when candy cost a penny and a bottle of Coke cost a nickle. We were nearly rich after the first day of hunting.
"I've got to hand it to you," I told him. "This was a bright idea."
A couple of weeks later the rains came and the creek rose high behind the levee. As soon as the weather cleared we hid in a blind we had made from cut branches and waited for a groundhog or two to appear. By then we had thinned the population considerably, but we were still making good money.
I was wondering what caviar might taste like, when all of a sudden Ronnie's eyes got wide and he said: "I've got a bright idea. We can get a couple of buckets and drown em out."
"Lower your voice, will ya. You'll scare the groundhogs."
"It ll be easy," he exclaimed. "The water's close. In no time we'll have more groundhogs than we could get all summer."

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