During my younger years, one Spanish-American War veteran in our neighborhood usually referred to himself as "Old Soldier." Though the old man seemed to be suspicious of most adults, he loved children.

Children often sat for hours hearing "Old Soldier's" tales of his war-time adventures. Adults sometimes listened to his stories, but only to have a good laugh and sometimes remark, "Tell us another big lie, Old Soldier!"

One story "Old Soldier" told was about the time he was preparing to boil an egg, while he was in Cuba. He placed the egg on the ground, while he went and gathered wood to build a fire to boil the egg.

When he returned with the wood, he discovered that two snakes had found the egg and were quarreling over the possession of it. The quarrel then developed into a fight. The two snakes managed to grab each other's tails and started swallowing each other.

"Old Soldier" then just stood and watched each snake swallow the other. Soon, each snake disappeared into the stomach of the other and there were no snakes to be seen anywhere. "Old Soldier" then built the fire and boiled the egg.

Then there was "Old Soldier's" story about the big mosquitoes in Cuba. The mosquitoes were as big as wild turkeys. Their blood-sucking bills were a good foot long, and one mosquito could suck a person dry of blood in two minutes!

One day, "Old Soldier" was left at camp to build a cooking shelter. While he nailed shingles on the shelter, he heard an awful loud whining sound. He looked and saw a swarm of those big mosquitoes coming his way.

Knowing if one of those insects got hold of him, there wouldn't be a drop of blood left in his body, "Old Soldier" took refuge underneath a big cast iron Army kettle. But the iron kettle didn't even phase the big Cuban mosquitoes. With their footlong bloodsucking bills, they bored holes right through the iron kettle, then stuck their bills through the holes and went probing for "Old Soldier."

It was lucky that "Old Soldier" had his hammer with him. Using the hammer, he bent the bills and clinched them inside the kettle. The bloodthirsty insects couldn't pull their bills out of holes, nor could they suck blood through them. So the mosquitoes just up and flew away with the kettle, leaving "Old Soldier" to finish his work.

One day, the boys brought "Old Soldier" a mess of catfish they had caught out of the river. Even though the catfish had been out of the water several hours, they were still alive. The boy thought that was odd, but "Old Soldier" told them catfish could learn to live out of water; that when he was a boy, he owned a pet catfish that couldn't live in the water at all.

Everywhere he went, his pet catfish followed him. It always flopped and wiggled along on the ground behind him.

"I tell you, that catfish even followed me to school and back," Old Soldier said. "I shore missed him when he was gone."

"What happened to him?" one boy asked.

"We had a walk-log across a big creek," Old Soldier said. "One day, the catfish was following me across that walk-log, and the poor thing fell off the log into the creek and drowned!"