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cowdoc87
PostPosted: Tue Jun 22, 2010 6:39 am  Reply with quote
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Location: Kelso, Tennessee

I wrote this for my dad this year.Hopefully,it will give someone a pleasant reminder of The Old Man............



I never really knew why my dad took me hunting, or why he hunted. He's still alive and well. I guess I should ask him, but I haven’t. You see, his father never hunted, though he grew up the son of a dirt farmer in the Piedmont of North Carolina, trying to eke out a living on that sandy soil for a big family, in a time when a lot of folks hunted for food. But my grandfather’s goal was always clear-get the heck off the farm as soon as possible-and after working many jobs, in part to provide for some of his siblings' schooling, which prolonged his time at home on the farm, he left ,got married, joined the Army during WW2,and never looked back. And as a boy-I grew up next door to him-he still took great pride in how orderly and straight his garden rows were. Having started life walking for hours behind a mule, sitting on a small tractor for a few hours was easy, but he somehow managed to never look dirty- as I remember him- like he was constantly in a battle between outdoing his poverty as a farmer’s child and somehow keeping a small connection with it through the soil. I never knew him to hunt, and could never picture him hunting.
But my father and his brother both hunted some. My uncle a lot, but my father really just kind of socially, during the Sixties, in the South when using dogs to drive deer a couple of weekends a year was as much a social gathering as eating dinner at the country club. He duck hunted a little, too, but only once or twice a year and always as someone’s guest , and timed with a banquet or an opening weekend ,when the parties were on.
I suppose he must have gotten tired of me asking if I could go with him and figured at ten years old, I was old enough to tag along, because he finally did take me-to the rice fields and flooded timber of Eastern Arkansas! From the early morning gatherings for breakfast ,the café teeming with duck hunters clad in old musty canvas, shoveling down eggs, grits ,sausage and coffee, full of bright- eyed optimism of good hunts to come, and from the pitch black ,starlit boat ride -weaving thru flash light-illumined flooded oak bottoms-wet, cold, and spooky –to the shivering cold water, standing knee deep in old rubber hip boots -size sevens and a little leaky- next to a tree and kicking the water to simulate ducks splashing and feeding- only when the ducks were going away-then being constantly admonished in whispers to “keep your head down” so your face won’t spook’em, and “be still!”, the old timers giving their “comeback” calls on their Chick Majors’ wooden calls, watching the flocks bank hard and return, greeted by soft “feed –chuckles” and “come- on- in” calls, standing as perfectly still as a ten year old boy could while shivering cold, and then to see those big old fat mallards -green heads iridescent in the crystal clear bluebird- winter-morning sky- come floating down through the little opening in the woods, like falling Autumn leaves, right in our laps-and hear the old man say “Take’em”, and to see my first big old fat greenhead fall to my brand new Steven’s single shot twenty gauge, laying “belly up “ in the decoys, orange feet still kicking- well, I was hooked for life.
Maybe by taking me to the coldest , wettest ,spookiest place you could ever take a kid, he thought he might break me from ever wanting to go again? Maybe he wanted to see if I was tough enough? Once I was old enough to take myself, he quit. I’ve invited him several times over the years, but he always politely refused. And I still ask him occasionally, more out of respect than anything, knowing now, he probably won’t ever say yes. I choose to believe he took me hunting because he wanted me to be able try whatever it was I wanted to try, because that was what he always did-from baseball, football, golf, music lessons-whatever. Some things we were “forced” to try because he hoped maybe a few things would stick that were good for us-like music lessons-but most of the time he was just there to provide as many possibilities for us as he could, and as many as we could dream about. And I think he took me hunting to spend time with me . And that’s why, I think, I take my kids hunting. Thanks ,Pop.
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tarpondoc
PostPosted: Tue Jun 22, 2010 9:20 am  Reply with quote
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Cowdoc87,

Thanks for letter about your father. Reminds me of hunting with my dad.
Where did you go to vet school?
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cowdoc87
PostPosted: Tue Jun 22, 2010 9:36 am  Reply with quote
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Manhattan............Kansas,that is Smile
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BarkeyVA
PostPosted: Tue Jun 22, 2010 12:57 pm  Reply with quote
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Wonderful personal story, beautifully written!

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cowdoc87
PostPosted: Tue Jun 11, 2013 11:53 am  Reply with quote
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My annual repost of "the old man". This year , a little early even!
Time to hear some better stories to celebrate Father's Day.
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canvasback
PostPosted: Wed Jun 12, 2013 5:24 am  Reply with quote



Joined: 12 Mar 2012
Posts: 682
Location: Ontario

cowdoc, that was fantastic. I went with my dad starting about age 8 and it wasn't to flooded timberland but Delta Marsh in Manitoba.

But the darkness, the early morning cold, the too big, leaky boots, the "keep your head down" and the adrenaline rush when the big greenheads come rocketing in all bring memories flooding back. My boy is eight. It's about time.

Thank you.

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Two Pipe Shoot
PostPosted: Wed Jun 12, 2013 6:18 am  Reply with quote
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Thanks Doc, I'm struggling to write an epitaph that's long overdue. My pop's no longer with us, and his story is a might troubling, but for my own sake it needs to be told. You've inspired me to tell it the first chance I get to a keyboard. It's time enough.

Reno

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oneeyednine1029
PostPosted: Wed Jun 12, 2013 8:07 am  Reply with quote



Joined: 28 Feb 2011
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Thanks for sharing a wonderful story. I'm sure this brings back memories to everyone who reads it of their first hunts. My father is 65 ,and while we don't go out anywhere near as much as we used to , I cherish the few times a year when we do. My son will be 10 this year , and he's itching to go. I took him out a few times last year rabbit hunting. So he didn't really have to be told sshhhhh or stand still. I'm sure everyone is familiar with the attention span of youngsters these days. I would like to get all three of us out at some point , three generations and a howling beagle........sounds about right. Pop with his twenty , my son with his .410 , and me with a 16....sounds like a plan.

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cowdoc87
PostPosted: Tue Jul 02, 2013 7:24 pm  Reply with quote
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Ok gents .still waiting for more stories of Pops
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Two Pipe Shoot
PostPosted: Tue Jul 16, 2013 6:47 pm  Reply with quote
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My father was the best friend I ever had. He had a stroke when I was nine, and when he learned how to drive again he was there every day after school to pick me up. He had one of those land yachts that had doors that met in the middle, a Chrysler Imperial. The doors weighed hundreds of pounds and I was always scared to get caught in them. The trunk always had long guns and shells in it, and we would go to some land we owned and shoot cans and blue jays.

Pop grew up in the depression, and like most farmers those days the table depended upon game shot to keep from going through the steers and hogs that were slaughtered for sale and the table. Before his health went bad, I was allowed to tag along on hunts for rabbits and quail that were abundant on the farm and on the farms of friends and relatives. People always remarked on how good a shot he was and I witnessed some amazing gun work with rifles, shotguns, and pistols.

Pop married a gal who was one of five sisters; a sad attempt to sire a boy to carry on the name of my grandfather who was a farmer and trapper. He was the man that hooked my dad on turkey hunting and made his own mouth yelpers out of flattened pieces of lead that were folded over a thin piece of latex with a “v” cut in the flat side to let air pass over the reed.

There were very few turkeys around when I was a kid and they were as wild as they came. Pop always told stories about hunting with mom’s dad even when his sight got so bad he couldn’t see a turkey when he called him in, so he took his son-in-laws along to shoot for him. When I started hunting turkeys Pop was too sick to go, but he loved to hear my stories and hear me yelp on my old box call until my mother grew tired of it and would run me out of the house.

I saw both my older brother and sister go through those difficult teen years when they made up their minds that they knew more than Pop about on just about everything. Of course that was in the sixties and questioning your elders had come in vogue. Instead of years spent butting heads with my dad like my brother and sister, we butted heads for an afternoon, got tired of it, smiled at each other, and carried on like it never happened. He was real special and I spent time with him every chance I could.

He grew up a man’s man, a farm boy that could whip his weight in wildcats and was the terror of the football field at halfback. He played ball for Alabama Polytechnic, later to be named Auburn University, and for some reason also played for some college in California whose home field was the Rose Bowl. He was strikingly handsome, had the pick of the girls, and was quite used to the path parting in front of him everywhere he went until he had that stroke. The paralysis and complications changed his whole way of life, and he quickly became depressed and eventually mentally unstable. He lived to spend time with me, and his days became a routine of exercise and running the household so that my mother could return to work as a nurse. I tied his shoes every day that I woke up in his house.

I was pretty independent when I grew up, moving out of the house a week after graduating high school and starting college soon after that. Pop had regained enough use of his left hand to hold the forend of his shotgun, and he killed many a deer in front of my Beagles Moe and Joe. He also had the guts to watch me gravitate towards his brother who stayed on the farm and was man enough to ride heard over the wild young boy that I was. He couldn’t do it himself but he was wise enough to see the benefit and swallow his pride.

I had just finished my first year of graduate school while working part time for Jimmy V at N.C. State when I learned that Pop was in trouble. Some VA doctor was monkeying with his medications, trying new ones and altering the dosages. I was in Atlanta at a concert featuring Neil Young and the International Harvesters when I got the news that Pop had taken his life.

I am a suicide survivor that still uses the gun Pop used on himself. I don’t think about him much anymore, and though I am a functioning adult who lost his best friend at a young age, I think that blocking his memory has been my way of coping with a devastating loss. I read stories about fathers and tributes to dads without much thought of my own, and before I’m judged I want to share one thing with all who read this tale; please secure your firearms. I read the same tales as you in the national news about accidents, rampages, and revenge that sadden me. I own two safes to secure my firearms and I don’t let my children play in the homes of others if there are firearms unsecured. Secured guns would not have kept my father from harm, he was out of control and irrational, but I hope that those who read this and haven’t secured their guns will do so. I tell anyone that will listen how as a teenager that a friend almost shot me with an “unloaded” gun.

I miss you Pop, and I’m not looking forward to telling this story to my children one day, though having written it down does ease my mind a bit.

Reno

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SteveMKentucky
PostPosted: Tue Jul 16, 2013 7:41 pm  Reply with quote



Joined: 22 Jun 2013
Posts: 15

Another well-written post Reno.

My father is the reason that I'm a shooter and have been my entire life. He took me to the range at such an early range that I don't remember any time in my life that shooting wasn't part of it.

The Marlin Mod 90 that I recently refinished was my father's. When I was a young boy my father and I were invited to a dove hunt by my grandfather and a friend of his. My father didn't have a shotgun with him (we were on travel visiting) so he borrowed the old Marlin from my grandfather's hunting buddy. I was just along for the ride. My father hit every dove he shot at with that old Marlin that day. He tried very hard to get the guy to sell the Marlin to him after that hunt to no avail. My grandfather worked on his hunting buddy over the months ultimately buying the shotgun for my father as a Christmas present. My father has since passed away and I've ended up with it.

As I've posted before I shoot better with this old Marlin than any shotgun I've ever shouldered. It must be the fit. Probably the same reason my father shot well with it. We are both built the same. My relatives tell me that I'm my father born again.

Our fathers have a much stronger impact on us than anyone could imagine. Mine was almost a preview of my future life and I have a number of reminders of his legacy. The old Marlin 90 and my Winchester 37 are two of them.
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cowdoc87
PostPosted: Mon Jun 09, 2014 1:24 pm  Reply with quote
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About that time again.Any more stories about "the old man"? Happy Father's Day week to all of you dads and granddads-Doc
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