by Gaila Oliver | Jan 26, 2017 | Hunting, sportsmen, Uncategorized, wildlife
The hunter had positioned his tree stand on a little knoll above a well-used deer trail, and upon mounting the stand to survey the area, noticed an old cemetery at the top of the hill behind him. Being a tad superstitious, particularly with Halloween right around the corner, he was considering moving the stand, when a couple of does appeared, feeding up the knoll. Our hero readied his bow in trembling anticipation.
However, just as the does moved into range, he noticed a movement in a switch cane thicket behind them, and a moment later caught a glimpse of antlers. A trophy eight-point was trailing the does, as bucks so often do. The hunter remained frozen as the does fed by him and continued uphill, hoping that the buck would follow in their tracks, which led almost up under his stand.
And so it happened, almost too good to be true. The buck never suspected an alien presence, and the hunter made a great shot at close range, the broadhead piercing the eight-point’s heart. Dead on its feet, the buck broke into its death dash, jumped the low fence, and collapsed in the cemetery, never knowing what had hit him.
Hurriedly scrambling down the ladder and nocking another arrow just in case, our hero approached his fallen trophy, but no coup de grace was needed. That’s when the hunter noticed the fallen tombstone.
In its blind final run, the deer had knocked over one of the old grave markers, a heavy one at that. Not only had the stone been rolled away, so to speak, but the buck’s heartblood had splashed all over the white marble. Glancing around fearfully to see if any ghosts had been disturbed, the man saw that several other tombstones also had telltale red droplets staining their pristine faces. Grunting, he reset the fallen stone.
Obviously, all kind of questions spring to mind when confronted with this type situation: What are the laws concerning graveyard desecration? Would the hunter, or the deceased deer, be charged as an outlaw? Were any of the bloody tombstones marking families that he knew? Or worse, his own family? Were the residents of the cemetery liable to rise up in fury over this intrusion into their peaceful sleep? And most important of all, would darkness catch him before he could make restitution?
Quickly loading his deer on his nearby four-wheeler, the hunter headed full speed for home, where he dumped the trophy in the yard with his bow, grabbed the needed supplies, and high-tailed it back to the scene of the crime.
So, if you were out in the woods just at dusk one evening, passing by an old cemetery, and happened to notice a camouflaged person feverishly scrubbing tombstones while glancing over his shoulders in rising panic at the horrible things that were gathering to wreak vengeance upon him for the desecration of their peaceful resting place – well, now you know.
And by the way, he says a mixture of one part bleach to three parts water works quite well for cleaning tombstones.
However, there was one other problem, he discovered when he visited the scene the next day during full sunlight. One can’t just clean a few of the stones in an old graveyard; the contrast between the newly bleached markers and the rest of the ancient tombstones was too evident. For the rest of the deer season, he cleaned a few more old stones each time he hunted, until now it’s the gleamingest old cemetery in the whole South!
And just to be safe, he moved his stand a couple of hundred yards away, even though it had produced a trophy buck on that spot!
by Gaila Oliver | Jan 19, 2017 | Hunting, sportsmen, Uncategorized, wildlife
I have long maintained that New Year’s Eve doesn’t come on December 31, at least for us Sporting Types Down South. Our New Year begins when Dove Season opens again in September, which is generally over the Labor Day weekend.
We oil and put away our guns in early May, after Turkey Season. Some of us get them back out in late August to shoot a few skeet and sharpen up our shooting eyes (and some of us need more sharpening as we get older!), but that is just playing, not real sport. The real sporting season begins when you can hunt again, and the first time we can do that (legally, anyway) is on Opening Day of Dove Season. That’s the beginning of a New Year, for afterward comes squirrel season, bow season, rabbit season, deer season, bird season, duck season, and then comes turkey season again in the spring.
This past few decades, with the advent of thousands of acres of corn being grown in the Delta, we’ve had problems getting the old-time concentrations of doves, like we used to get. When cotton was king, and you had a 25-acre millet or sunflower field in the middle of 10,000 acres of cotton, you had all the doves on 10,025 acres. Nowadays, the millet field is in the middle of 5,000 acres of cotton and 5,000 acres of corn, the latter being harvested three weeks before Opening Day. That spreads out the concentration.
This fall at Brownspur, we hadn’t had a rain in nearly two months. I could sit out by the Swimming Hole and get a limit morning or evening (did that the last two years, matter of fact). My neighbor, another Sporting Type, had a dried up pond last year that he decided to reactivate for Opening Day, since it was dry last year, too. He took a 1,000 gallon nurse tank, filled it up, and drove it to the dry pond, where he drained it. When he returned with the second tankful, the pond was dry again. It took 10,000 gallons of water before the bottom of that pond was even muddy, and 10,000 more just put maybe an inch of standing water in it for a day. The next morning, it was dry again!
The weekend after Opening Day a couple of years ago, a young friend called to invite me to come down for a hunt. “Uncle Bob, there are TONS of doves in our field!” he exclaimed. “Bring Adam, and Cuz, and the Jakes, too.”
I done that. We showed up with boxes of shells and spread out across the field, which was maybe ten acres. We loaded up and got ready for a hot shoot.
An hour later, most of us were gathered under a shade tree next to the water keg. Collectively, we had seen three doves, none close enough to shoot at. We began an exercise in mathematics for the benefit of our young host, who was still sitting across the field, so we had to figure loud, to include him. We figured that doves, unplucked and on the hoof, so to speak, ran about three to the pound – this was an estimate, since we had neither scales nor three doves, you must understand. This meant that doves would therefore run about 6000 to the ton, and since our host had proclaimed he had “Tons” plural, we figured that a minimum of 12,000 doves were due to come to that field that afternoon. In order to help him confirm his estimate, we began to count off and subtract to help wile away the long evening. “There’s one, Will – only 11,987 more to go!” “Watch, Adam, here comes Number 19 – only 11,981 to go, Will!”
Cuz, a compooter genius (self-proclaimed), whipped out a calculator and helped our host determine that, if he averaged hitting one of every three doves shot at, then it would take 18,000 shells to bring down his ton of doves, which would cost at bargain prices, just under $2000 per ton of doves, unpicked. However, he could then eat 16 doves per day, so would save grocery money in the long run, for his meat for the entire year would run him only about $5.50 per day, unless of course he wanted a steak once in a while for variety.
Understand that all this helpful figuring was at the decibel level of a shout, in order that our young host could hear, for he steadfastly refused to join us at the water cooler, where most of us spent the entire afternoon, doing mathematical exercises. When the evening was over, we were still 11,376 doves shy of the quota, though Cuz pointed out in all fairness that any doves over the first ton might be classed as plural, so we may not have been but 5,377 doves shy of the declared quota for the field.
Whatever. We were trying to be fair, but haven’t been invited back, for some reason. However, our young host has announced his college major change, to a math science – engineering!
Outdoor experiences can be life-changing, can’t they?
by Gaila Oliver | Dec 29, 2016 | Uncategorized
A friend sent me some stuff over the internet last week. While I admit to being an amateur at internet stuff, I’m of the opinion that probably 90% of internet stuff is jokes and funny stories passed along from user to user, until finally each piece of information, no matter how worthless, is exhibited to every compooter owner in the world.
Of course, we’re all familiar with the fact that, using the Hasmatic Code from II Hezikiah, “Internet” is “Ten Satans” spelled backwards. Remember how the country went to pot (literally!) after it was discovered (too late!) that some hard rock bands were producing records that, when played backwards, emitted Satanic messages? Well, I’m not sure how Satanic it might be, but included in what Laura sent me last week was the simple statement that “A duck’s quack does not echo, and no one knows why.”
Does anyone care why? If the statement is true, that is.
It is entirely within the realm of belief to assume that a government study somewhere, funded for millions of dollars, came to this conclusion. If the government has seriously studied cow flatulence, it is easy to see how the Powers-That-Be might also be concerned about duck quacks echoing.
However, the government might have learned, for free, that no duck quacks were echoing in most Southern states this past season, for the simple reason that we had no ducks. Summer didn’t end here in the Delta until January 27th, and Spring commenced on February 9th, so ducks who normally winter down here had a quickie visit. I killed my first duck when I was nine years old, down at the old Swan Lake Club, so I claim a half century of expertise on the subject, and I can’t ever recall a dryer, warmer duck season, the very year we had a closing late enough to allow us to shoot ducks when we had ducks!
Instead of spending untold millions on a study by non-hunting echo-specializing scientists, why couldn’t Uncle Sam have just sent out a survey form to every hunter who bought duck stamps, iron BBs, patched his waders, painted his decoys, and otherwise anticipated a bountiful duck season this year, asking, “Have you, or anyone who occupied a blind with you this season, heard a duck quack? If so, did you hear it echo?”
Heckfire, they could have enclosed a check for ten thousand bucks with each survey, valid only if you sent the questionaire back in. They’d have gotten the answers from experts, saved money, and made the guys who invested uselessly in duck stuff happy.
Yet it’s not the killing of ducks, nor even the hearing of quack echos, that makes us go back to the lakes, rivers, pot holes, and flooded fields every season.
Adam and Cuz never fired a shot on the hunt when they found a full-grown hawk frozen in the ice. They chipped “Iceberg” free, bundled him up in Adam’s coat, and spent the rest of the week nursing him back to health. I’ll never forget the look on Betsy’s face when she walked into the den that day, to see a full-grown hawk sitting by the fireplace, eating bits of fish fillet from her son’s hand!
Mom Raines and I didn’t pop a cap the morning we saw a bald eagle swoop down and try to catch one of our decoys. The sound of his talons on plastic will never be forgotten, nor his accusing shriek when he realized his error. The eagle probably won’t forget the laughter of the two hunters, either.
Richard Taylor and I stood in a Mississippi River bar pit one evening waiting for the wood ducks to come to roost, which they did, but only ten minutes after shooting time was over. We stood concealed next to our willows in waist-deep water until black dark, as woodies poured into that hole, often lighting within arm’s reach. When we waded out at pitch-black dark, trudging duckless back to the boat, I whispered, “Wow!” then, “Why am I whispering?” And Richard whispered back one word: “Reverence!”
Ronny James, Brer Beau, and I sat on stools in a flooded beanfield one afternoon and never fired, just muffled our laughter because of the aerobatics of one hen mallard. That old susie would do a roll on every pass over the decoys, flying upside-down above us! Same hen, every time.
It’s the Being There that counts, not what you kill, nor the non-echoes of quacks!
by Gaila Oliver | Dec 8, 2016 | Uncategorized
It’s a horrible tale, but someone has to tell it, and since it was me what supposedly got et up, I reckon I’m elected. It all started when Adam and I (well, to be honest, mostly Adam – but he’s young and strong) had to drag a big buck out of the woods – a long drag! After all the mullygrubbing was over, Betsy put a deer-dragging harness on our Christmas list.
Now, that drag strap is a wonderful invention: wide nylon straps come over your shoulders to clamp across your chest, and the tail-end harness hangs down to slip over the buck’s antlers. Beats the heck out of having to lean to one side to drag a big buck with your hands, not to mention saving you from a fatal back crick.
We got to try it out on a forkhorn I killed in the Delta, then on a nine-point and huge ten-point that Adam bagged in the hills. The first buck killed on top of a ridge, though, was the monster twelve-point I bagged on Cousin Jack’s place out at Big Hongry, on a day I was hunting by myself. After field-dressing the buck, I harnessed up to drag him out, and had gone a couple hundred yards (long enough to be whupped!) before the ridge ran out. I was really looking forward to starting downhill, figuring it would be a lot easier pull. Boy, was I ever right!
It was fairly steep where I stepped off the ridge, one of those high ones so common to Big Hongry. I noticed that the buck was pulling easier – matter of fact, that old mossyhorn was probably fifty pounds heavier than I was, and I could feel his antlers pricking my legs as he picked up momentum. I lengthened my stride to try to stay ahead of him. That’s when I learned how slippery pine needles are – a gap in my education from hunting the flat, pineless Delta all my life.
As my feet started to slip, I glanced fearfully behind me at the long, sharp, twelve-tined antlers. The buck’s head was propped on his front legs as he slid on his belly; I could see that if I fell backwards, I would be impaled. In a desperate attempt to escape punctured liver and kidneys, I flung myself sideways as my boots lost traction on the steep, slick slope.
I narrowly missed impalement, but had misjudged Mossyhorn’s momentum and weight. He continued to pick up speed headed downhill, only now I was being dragged by him! The harness worked both ways, and I lost my rifle trying to grab a bush to slow myself. There was no quick-release mechanism on the clamp across my chest, so now I was being towed headfirst down the hill by a buck bigger than I was, to which I seemed to be harnessed for the ride. My hat flew off, and both gloves were ripped away when I grabbed a sawbriar vine, which cut my left palm badly. My head bounced painfully off of a stump, so I covered my face with my hands to protect my eyes, unable to stop myself on this wild, humiliating ride. That’s when the blood covered my head from the cut hand. It’s also the reason I didn’t see, and fortunately concealed my identity from, the pair of hunters who were traversing the slope as we passed. But I sure heard their exclamation.
“GOODGAWDAMIGHTY!” screamed one. “That big ole buck’s done kilt him a hunter, and is draggin’ him off to eat!”
“Lord, if you’ll let me git home safe, I’ll take up golf!” prayed his companion. “Let’s git outa here, Fred!”
By the time Mossyhorn and I ended up in a pile at the base of the ridge, and I could get loose from that dadblame drag harness, those guys were long gone. I was too whupped to try to catch them anyway. Didn’t take but a couple of days for word to spread across Big Hongry about the Maneater, and golf courses were reported to be uncommonly full for the rest of the season. It’s been over a month, but I’m still picking pine needles out of my backside.
And I’ve almost perfected a quick-release clamp for that doggone drag harness!
by Gaila Oliver | Nov 28, 2016 | Uncategorized
The big buck seemed to suddenly appear out of the undergrowth, just his chest, neck, head, and antlers visible at the edge of the clearing. The wind was from me to him, so I reckon he scented me as he emerged, causing him to abruptly halt and scan the woods. Whilst he scanned to his left, I eased my Remington 30/06 up and slid the safety off. He obviously caught some of the motion, for he raised his head back to better eye my stand, his horns shining brightly in the sun.
Those antlers were extra white, polished by his activity I had seen on earlier hunts where he had attacked every little cedar tree within a couple hundred yards of where he now stood staring at me. His head went further up, and I knew I’d been made, but the crosshairs of the 2&1/2 power scope had already settled on the white spot where his neck centered his great chest. I pulled the trigger.
At the rifle’s roar, the buck whirled and disappeared into the foliage from whence he had partially emerged seconds before. I didn’t even pump the gun, slinging it over my right shoulder as I evacuated my stand. Out of several hundred deer I have killed, I’ve seldom had to shoot twice at one. Old One-Shot Bob.
Which had worked against me earlier that morning, just as it began to be shooting light. A big buck – he had to be, for me to see horns in the dimness – had stepped into a clearing and walked calmly across, as I raised my rifle, aimed at his front shoulder, and pulled the trigger. He paused briefly, then continued his walk and disappeared into the trees, apparently unhurt. I waited a few minutes for full shooting light, then got down and looked carefully for blood, hair, or any sign that I had hit him, continuing the search for half an hour, first at the spot where I’d shot, then the direction he had gone, then half-circles from where he’d disappeared. Not a sign that I’d hit him, which was unusual.
Then I remembered that, as I was going into the woods in the darkness, the top sling swivel had popped aloose – second time in 25 years – and while I had felt it go, and had managed to catch the rifle by the pistol grip, the barrel still took a nasty whack on a cypress knee. Maybe the scope was affected by that?
Nor was there blood or hair where this buck had been standing, so I followed the direction he had been going as he disappeared into the undergrowth, moving slowly and quietly in case he was wounded and down. That seemed to be the case, sure enough, for 75 yards further along, I suddenly saw antlers stick up, then go back down, only maybe 40 yards ahead. I eased to the side for a clearer view and stepped up on a log, raising my gun to look through the scope. Now I saw the antlers rise again, then go back down. I resolved to try a killing shot at the top of his neck next time he raised his head. He did, and I did. The Remington spoke again, and that part of the woods exploded with deer!
Two more bucks, both smaller than the white-horned deer I had shot at, had been standing in a little swag I’d not known about, with several does in whom they were apparently expressing a carnal interest. I thought I was finishing off a big wounded buck, not firing a warning round over a whitetail orgy! I was not ready for a small herd of deer to flush out of the swag and disappear into the brush.
Had to be the scope, I knew. I unloaded the rifle and left the woods, but when I got home I stepped into the backyard first and fired at a water bottle I set up on the Mammy Grudge ditchbank. Sure enough, at 20 yards, I was shooting 6 inches to the left! I reset and sighted in the scope, convinced I had missed 3 bucks.
And kept my mouth shut about it for a year.
Then I was hunting the same stand last week, and when I came out, followed a scrape line in a different direction than I usually take. That big white-horned buck had 10 points. He had circled, not gone straight, and was 50 yards from where I shot him. His backbone was still intact, a very long spine. Big Buck.
Follow up. Every shot. I didn’t, and wasted a 10-point buck. A sin.
by Gaila Oliver | Nov 15, 2016 | Uncategorized
I noticed a recipe the other day in a cooking section of a paper, and the young lady who was commenting on the chef’s talents had observed that he made his gravy with a lot of pieces of hearts and livers and other less desirable parts, all diced up. The general consensus seemed to be that the chef was trying to put something over on his customers, as well as use up the leftovers from the fowl he was cooking.
I don’t know where the young lady was from, nor where she was going. But I do know that no true Southerner would think of having a Thanksgiving or Christmas turkey-and-dressing feast, without serving giblet gravy. My trusty Funk & Wagnalls defines “Giblets (jib-lets)” as “The edible viscera of a fowl.” My Momma would have defined giblets as the liver, heart, and gizzard of the main course, the turkey. When we hunted wild turkey, we were instructed to carry a zip-lock bag in our pocket, and to save those precious parts when we gutted the gobbler, “and get them on ice right away, too!” Seems like she generally simmered the neck, and maybe even the parson’s nose, in a separate pan to add those juices to the giblet gravy, for a little more “sumption” (sump-shun).
The gizzard had to be split and cleaned out, with the rough, skin-like inside pared out, along with, of course, any contents. I have watched turkeys and ducks swallow pecans and pignuts whole (one wood duck hen shoveled down SEVEN wild pecans in a row! She was only a few feet away from where I hid behind a tree, and I counted.) and strut or swim happily along, content to let their gizzards grind the hard nuts to digestible particles. The old saying, “He’s got grit in his craw,” refers to the need for birds to peck up small pebbles or sand grains, to provide the grinding action inside the gizzard muscle.
I have a Cajun friend who claims the best gumbo in the whole world is made from the gizzards of coots. Coots, for those who aren’t outdoors people, are those little black near’bout ducks, that don’t fly real well and generally raft up in flocks that even feed up onto the banks. I once made the mistake of tasting a coot, and it ain’t a mistake I’m likely to make again. Yet their gizzards are the best gumbo ingredients, Teddy swears.
Before we leave the subject of gizzards and wild turkeys, let me deliver one tip for hunters that definitely affects the meat after you have bagged a gobbler. The first thing you need to do, before you even draw (or gut) the bird is to remove the goozle. That’s the holding sack for food headed down into the gizzard, and to get to it, make a simple slit as the base of the turkey’s neck, about two inches long. Reach your finger in and draw out the clear-looking sack, cut it loose at both ends, check it to see what the turkeys are feeding on in that area so you’ll know where to hunt tomorrow, then throw it away. There is no sumption in a goozle (also called a craw).
I was making a talk last week, and made a reference to the water out at Brownspur being better for you, since it had a little sumption to it. Bless her heart, one young lady in the audience not only didn’t know what sumption was, but she admitted that! Of course, she also admitted right out front to being from New York, so you have to respect her for being willing to reveal her ignorance.
The way I always heard it used, sumption means a little extra, but always applied to food and drink, as opposed to lagniappe, which means a little extra in most anything.
When you got to the bottom of a good pot of soup or stew, and the bone – usually a ham hock – was about the only thing left, you were lucky if the cook would let you have the bone to clean, which included sucking the sumption out of the bone!
The lady in question – as well as a couple of others who were in attendance – looked a little jubous at the prospect of sucking the sumption out of the hambone. I’d bet she’s also jubous about sucking crawdad heads, too.
Let me pause here to assure those editors who accuse me of making up words, to say that “Jubous” (ju-bus) is a word I’ve heard all my life, just like sumption, goozle, and giblets. It seems to be a word made by combining “dubious” with “judicious” and means just that: regarding something as less than likely or desirable. It gets the point across.
At any rate, don’t turn your nose up this Holiday Season if the gravy has giblets in it. Matter of fact, if it doesn’t, I wouldn’t trust it – be jubous about cooks who leave out the good parts simply because they ain’t situated on the outside.
If I had my druthers, I’d druther have gravy with a little sumption to it!
by Gaila Oliver | Nov 3, 2016 | Uncategorized
This didn’t happen to me, but it’s too good a story to pass up, and the friend who told it to me gave me permission to write it.
Seems that a young college couple in love got a dog. The boy duck hunts, and knew that the finest dog in the world is a Labrador Retriever, of course, so that’s what they got. The girl of course fell in love with the Lab, who ended up staying with her that fall while her boyfriend was out of the country for several months on his college co-op job.
As an aside, youngsters, be sure and check your college co-op plans beforehand, to insure that they don’t send YOU overseas during hunting season!
The girl and the Lab became even closer; he went with her everywhere, and that included a visit to friends from down around Natchez. It was there that the tragedy occurred: the Lab was hit by a speeding car. It was fatal.
The coed had to return to school, a college in the Starkville area, almost immediately after the accident, but a friend assured her that he’d retrieve the body and make suitable arrangements. However, the grieving young lady waxed remorseful on the four-hour drive that night. There was a Pet Cemetery close by the college, where several dogs that she knew her Lab had been friends with had been interred, and she realized that’s where her own Lab would be happier in his perpetual rest.
Early that next morning, she called Mama — who lived in Greenville, three hours drive from the college, and a little more than that from Natchez, where the recently deceased Lab was now facing imminent interment. The coed cried on the phone as she told her tale of woe.
She belonged to cry. When one’s friend has been taken in such a terrible manner, it is heart-rending. I understand that some people cry when their dogs other than Labs or beagles die. It’s okay, folks, to cry at such times.
Mama listened.
Mama cried, too.
Mama called Daddy.
Daddy, already at work even at that time of the morn, responded with, “I’ll take care of it. Don’t worry.”
Daddy got into his truck, gassed up, and drove more than three hours to Natchez, to the friend’s home where the deceased had been prepared for burial. They retrieved the body of the retriever and placed it gently in the truck. Then Daddy left for Starkville.
He made the four-hour drive ( he may have taken the Natchez Trace, in which case it should have taken him closer to five hours, with the lower speed limit) and arrived while it was still daylight, to pick up his daughter and friends and be directed to the Pet Cemetery. The procession was fitting, as was the service and interment. Knowing about college daughters myownself, it’s my bet that Daddy bought daughter and friends supper, and they held a proper wake for the Lab. He then took daughter back to her apartment and turned toward home, another three-hour drive away.
That’s ten or eleven hours of driving, very little of it on Interstate Highways, if any.
And it was worth every mile of it.
At first blush, you might say, “Boy, that’s a lot of sugar for a nickel!”
No it ain’t. It is Above and Beyond the Call of Duty, but it’s a rare demonstration of love and understanding of a father for his daughter (and wife!). It’s a respect for the love that daughter shared with her Labrador, not to mention the duck-hunter co-oping absentee boyfriend, who perhaps would have done the same if he had been within 5000 miles, but now has a standard to appreciate and adhere to when he does become a husband, and then a father to a daughter, himself.
I have owned many, many wonderful Labradors, not to mention beagles, as well as a few other breeds, like a Black & Tan hound named Jupiter Pluvius, who inspired a book. I have buried nearly all of them in our own Pet Cemetery out here at Brownspur. On still nights, I can sit out on the balcony with a snifter of Frog Juice and conjure up their voices and personalities, revisiting fine times together, with the whole family they were a part of.
Oh, yeah, Daddy: it was worth the drive. Thanks from all us other daddies.
by Gaila Oliver | Oct 28, 2016 | Uncategorized
When I had just become a grandfather (“Grunked” – “Ganddaddy Uncle Bob” was shortened to “GrandUncle” then to “Grunkle”, ending up “Grunk.”) for the second time, I had a lot of congratulations, as well as a lot of well-wishes for the kid. A couple of friends asked a serious question that started me to cogitating, though: “In these days and times, thinking about raising up a pair of grandsons, what would you wish for them to have, to make their lives as good as yours has been?” As one old classmate observed, “We’ve had a pretty good run at Life, haven’t we?”
Little Dave was right, as usual. We were raised in the best place, in the best times, by the best people that kids could ever have been by. And that includes a whole bunch of good friends who are fast getting long in the tooth right along with me.
So that would be about it: Friends, to go along with Faith and Family, which you’d hope and pray for as they grow. There’s a framed calligraphy in my den saying, “The finest gift a father can leave his children is the knowledge that he loves their mother.” That works, but I’d add to that, “and God.” If you have those two things, you almost got it licked. There could be a lot of frills added, but the main one is, I’d wish for Sean and Leiton to grow up with as good a group of non-blood-kin Uncles and Aunts as I did, and as my own kids did.
Big Robert and Uncle Sam, his brother, did well bringing me up, but I killed my first dove under my Godfather Frank Tindall’s tutelage, and in his field. I acquired the desire and the skill of predator calling from Big Dave Bradham, until a great horned owl almost scalped me one night decades later. I also learned from him an appreciation of being willing and able to try to fix anything, though I never had the knack for it.
Big John Dean was there when I killed my first duck, as well as my first deer, from which he liberally smeared blood on my face first thing. He also sent Little John & me to rake sloughs for crawfish, and purge them before boiling to eat. Uncle Shag Shaifer was magnificent on building a stew, but even more proficient in the hospitality of doing so for a houseful of friends and kids. He also instructed me in the art of coon hunting. Mi’ter Mo’ taught me the art of tight-lining for white perch. Mister Jay looked after me not only in teaching hunting, but the basics of conservation and manners in the outdoors, sometimes enforced forcibly. Mountain Willy reinforced the instruction in firearms I got from Big Robert and Uncle Sam. Unca Tullier (“Too-yay”) taught me all I could ever want to know about salt-water fishing.
I grew up being at home in the houses of all those men and their wives, and they loved me just like they did their own kids, as well as – and this is a biggie, folks – disciplining me right along with theirs when I needed it. Many a Sunday when we’d act up on the Kid’s Pew, there would be a regular belt line before we cleared the church. I was never abused, but I sure got at least what I deserved!
My own kids had the same type of Uncle-&-Aunt fraternity as they grew up: older friends who were no blood kin, with names like James, Dye, McElwee, Daly, Bedford, Steen, Street, Neely, Ross, Crockett, Drake – one of my favorite books, Illusions, says, “You will know your friends better in the first minute you meet them than you will ever know some of your family. The bond that links true family is not one of blood, but of respect and joy in each other’s life. Rarely do members of one family grow up under the same roof.” Of course, that said, I have to acknowledge the value of Br’er Beau and Mountain Willy to my children’s lives.
So that’d be my wish, for those who asked and started this train of thought: For Sir and “Baby Brudder” to have those type Giants in their lives as they grow older; as well as, of course, for The Grunk and Doots to be around for a long time for their GrandBoys.
I’ve been through a lot in this life, and could have given up several times. The one thing that kept me going in the toughest times was knowing that there were friends to whom I could turn when things got too tough; and that they’d be there when I needed them, for whatever I needed. I can only hope and pray that my GrandBoys will have that type upbringing.
Selah.
by Gaila Oliver | Oct 21, 2016 | Uncategorized
SEVEN-DAY GUMBO
We were planning to go elsewhere to watch the 2009 Cotton Bowl Game between Ole Miss and Texas Tech on the day after New Years – which is the day everyone eats themselves to death. Betsy was determined to take something to feed the crowd of Rebel Rousers that they would not have had since Eating Season began last Thanksgiving. She mulled it over, checked the freezer, and it was revealed unto her: “I’m going to make a big pot of Goose Gumbo!” she announced.
“Big Pot” would be the right choice of words. She has one of those what I call, from my Navy days, “K-P Pots” that one can actually crawl into and scrub the bottom of, if one just has to scrub the bottom of the pot. Such a thing is unheard of in the Navy, and at men’s hunting camps, where that pot previously served time. I rescued the Big Pot from outside on The Store (our guest house – the remodeled old plantation commissary Store) porch, where it had last been used possibly for a fish fry, or maybe to boil a deer skull and antlers clean. She did insist that I crawl in and scrub the bottom, which brought to mind a similar pot on one of the Kairos Prison Ministry weekends for ladies, when we men were cooking for 110 women, team and inmates together, for the three-day weekend.
About the middle of the second day when we were cleaning up from lunch in preparation to cook supper, we heard a dank echo from the young man whose designated job, due to his small statue, was Big Pot Bottom Scrubber. Larry croaked loud enough for us to hear, “Cleanliness is ‘WAAAY over-rated!”
However, I even knocked off the dirt dauber nests around the Big Pot, brought it into the kitchen, and mirated over the amount of meat that Betsy had dug out of the freezer, especially since it was the day after Christmas, over a week before the Rebels were due to play. “Hey, those are specklebellies,” I pointed out. We had picked those better-tasting geese, so as to roast them for a dinner. Nay, nay – she dumped those into the pot to thaw, along with the blues, snows, and a Canada goose or two, as well as a few ducks, doves, what I thought was a squirrel or possibly a small coon, a venison loin, and a chicken for the stock.
Mid-day next, I walked into the house to the most wonderful smells. Gumbo was obviously going to be the main course for supper! I salivated throughout the afternoon, but was greeted by fried venison steaks, rice & gravy, black-eyed peas, turnip greens, cornbread, and soggum ‘lasses for dessert on another piece of hot buttered cornbread. Mighty good, but she warned me away from the gumbo.
Too late to make a long story short, but she had decided there was not going to be any discussion like unto: “Wow! This gumbo was really good last night, but tonight it’s absolutely wonderful! How come it’s always better the second (or third or fourth – however long it lasts) day?” Of course, the answer is always, “Because the flavors have more time to blend, if you just give it a few days in the fridge.”
Seven-Day Gumbo! We waited a full week before attacking that Big Pot, and I’m here to tell you that it was the best gumbo anyone anywhere ever put into their mouth. The smell of it all the way over to Dallas inspired the Rebels to play over their heads and soundly defeat a team picked to beat them by two touchdowns even though they started out two touchdowns behind before Betsy actually began to serve the gumbo. Our family Texans, after that first bowl, never cheered whatever it is that Red Raiders cheer, but joined us enthusiastically in “Hotty Toddy” after each worthy Rebel play. The event that Betsy had prepared Seven-Day Gumbo for was worthy of her efforts, and the flavors were perfectly blended.
She might be talked into building you a Seven-Day Gumbo for your next Big Event, if of course you provide the ingredients – that’s her provision. But here’s mine: we ain’t building any more Seven-Day Gumbos around Brownspur. I lost nearly ten pounds just smelling that Big Pot for a week, before she let me put a spoon in it. No doubt the flavors were blended; but I’m gonna at least taste yours!
by Gaila Oliver | Oct 14, 2016 | Uncategorized
SLOB HUNTERS
The Opening Weekend of Dove Season “has came and went,” as Big Robert used to put it, and for many, it was a less than satisfactory opening, being so wet just before. Here at Brownspur, we had ten days of rain before Opening Day, and conditions like that are hard to hunt after even if the birds were flying, which they mostly weren’t.
However, hunters never get to pick the weather anyway. You take your chances, and if the weather doesn’t suit you, then just wait a little while and it will change.
We ran upon a couple of younger hunters who were making the most of the climate, however: they were staying in a dry-on-the-inside, air-conditioned Chevy pickup truck with a Mississippi State license tag. They were getting some birds, too. They were driving along rural roads shooting doves off the power lines!
It was right after lunch, when we suddenly heard shots fairly close to the house – or, rather, fairly close to Lawrence’s house, just down the road. However, we sometimes shoot out in the pasture there, so for a moment we assumed it was just one of the boys shooting doves beyond the Swimming Hole, until two blasts sounded right in front of MY house. “Someone’s shootin’ off the road!” my neighbor exclaimed, and we charged down the driveway, but too late to catch the offender. We watched as the truck stopped a couple more times to shoot doves off the wires, and then it turned around at the Slab Road to start back, doing the same thing!
The two of us ran back down the driveway to get vehicles, and as the truck approached, durned if it didn’t stop again, almost in front of the house, to pick off another dove. But this time, another truck appeared at the end of the driveway, to pull across and block the road. The driver of the shooting truck glanced backwards to check his escape route, but a second truck pulled out of that drive, to block the road. The kid in the back of the truck laid down, thinking he maybe hadn’t been seen, but it was too obvious. He was ordered up and out, and a short discussion was held on the subject of shooting doves off the wires, which is not only illegal, but dangerous.
All of us involved were hunters, but most of us are disgusted at the image some hunters present to the public. “Slob hunters” hurt everyone who loves the sport.
Later, I described the event to our local power company manager, and he nodded sadly. “Every year when dove season opens, we have at least one line shot in two by slob hunters like those two boys,” he declared. “This year is the first time we have not had that happen, I guess because the weather kept hunters out of the field. But we generally have to keep a crew for repairs on Opening weekend, because someone loses power.”
He went on to state that the practice of shooting doves off the wires does a great deal more damage than the times a line is shot slap in two. “Usually what happens is that the shot break some of the aluminum wires which are twisted together to carry the current. Then when it rains next time, the line either shorts out there, or else the current is reduced, because the wires are frayed, so the homes on that line get power surges and low voltage, which can burn out appliances and lights.” Then when rain, winds, and ice come along in the winter, those lines are the first to go out, or to break.
Most shotgunners don’t think about the fact that pellets can break the individual wires, without cutting the line in two, which a rifle bullet would do instantly. However, riflemen are not without guilt in the electric field. The insulators on the poles are favorite targets, for some stupid reason. Why someone would shoot out an insulator on purpose is beyond me, but slob hunters do it. There again, it is illegal and dangerous, but slobs who would do things like that obviously lack brain power.
I once watched a telephone company repairman in a sling-chair-type outfit, in which he gingerly pulled himself along a heavy phone wire swung across a drainage ditch between two poles. When he got almost halfway, he halted and called, “Here it is!” The break was caused a by a rifle bullet, and it took a couple of hours to splice back together. Since my phone was one of the ones that was out, I hung around to thank the guy for fixing it on a Sunday. He shrugged: “This happens during hunting season. Slob hunters. But it really gives me a pucker factor to trust my weight to that line. Who knows if it’s going to be too weak to support me, and may break before I get to the shot place.”
Listen, guys! Shoot doves, not light lines, phones lines, or road signs, like Slobs do.
