In Greek mythology, River Styx is the “river of hate” separating the underworld of Hades from the world of the living. Across it, the old boatman Charon was said to ferry the dead. Upon reaching the far shore, all souls were allowed to enter Hades’ realm and afterward forbidden to leave, held there by Cerberus, the dragon-tailed dog that guarded the gate.

In another world (my own), River Styx flows not past the underworld, connotes anything but hate, and is plied by no grim ferryman. Its banks lie unguarded, unless one counts the unchanged and unchanging presence of ancient cypress sentinels silently bearing witness to his passage.

My River Styx is, however, no less mythological. It is cloaked in legend of my own conjuring. It is burned into memory. It is a shrine, a holy place where ancestor worship is a revered, unashamed rite. Here, my censer is a fishing pole, my smoldering incense a fat, pink earthworm, my relic an old, rusty metal tacklebox.

“Let’s go to River Styx,” Buck says. “You, me, and Slats. Tomorrow. Want to?”

“Yes, sir!” My assent is way too rapid, containing not a trace of my maternal grandfather’s under-stated decorum. I am 10. Understand and forgive, please. I sleep in my clothes that night, black hi-top Keds and all.

I have been invited to enter into heaven. In my 10-year-old’s universe that is a scant few miles of dark, tepid slough flowing lan- guidly into the Apalachicola River, in Liberty County, Fla., through a northwestern sector of what is now the Apalachicola National Forest. There will be wild hogs on the riverbank. Perhaps a shy black bear. Water moccasins, alligators. Wildness. Heaven. My guides, my St. Peter and my Gabriel, are two old fishing buddies, both of whom I love. One of whom I worship.

The journey is sacred. I knew it would be. The bluegills and shellcrackers are large and many. The potted meat and crackers are manna. The praise is praise from on high.

“You got him, boy,” says Buck as I haul in my first River Styx bream.

“I got him, Daddy Buck!” I reply.

Buck winks at me. Mr. Slats belches and smiles.

“Is this the place?” my new kinsman Larry asked nearly 50 years later. “Is this where you and Daddy Buck put in?”

I shook my head, first in negative reply then inwardly, noting that he called him “Daddy Buck,” too. These ties are somehow important to him, I thought, and he never even met the man. I always liked Larry, but now felt a decided deepening of that affection.

“No,” I said. “This is just a landing. We had no boat. Had to rent one. Old wooden johnboat, it was. $1.50 a day.”

I saw a light come on.

“Get in the jeep,” he said. “I bet I know where it is.”

And he did. Exactly. I confirmedthe fact the moment I laid eyes on the old dock, where the rental boats were once moored. I knew precisely where I was as I looked downstream at the inexorable flow of tannic, tea-colored water moving slowly past the boles of the ancient cypresses toward River Styx.

“You’re dead on, buddy,” I said. “This is the place. Some things a fella never forgets.”

“Go get your camera,” Larry said. “Take all the time you want.”

Through the lens I could see him; my grandfather, my first-ever fishing buddy. The old coveralls, the battered felt fedora, the 14 million cane fishing poles I thought he’d never finish loading into the boat. I heard him, too. He sang “Corina,” the old Bob Wills classic. He settled himself into the stern, lit up a Salem cigarette, started that old worn-out 5-horse Firestone outboard and said, “C’mon, get in, Bobolink. We ain’t got all day.”

None of that showed up in the photos later. Damn shame.

It’s funny, ain’t it? A fella totes around a nearly fivedecades old memory that until now has just shown up in little bits and pieces. Then, bang! It all comes back in a flash; every nuance, every minute detail.

“Let’s go to River Styx,” said an old, familiar voice behind me as we walked back up the steep incline toward our vehicle.

I slept in my clothes that night, black hi-top Keds and all.