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This is another story in a series being done for my dad.

Young, invincible and a little bit outlaw

Times were different then. Being a hunter in the late fifties didn’t mean the same thing it does today. Technology, regulations, restrictions, and having to deal with the environmental whackos that hound hunting and fishing takes a little fun out of being in the woods. Back when my dad was a young man, strong, invincible, and full of that wild fun that bubbles out of you no matter how hard to try to hold it in, he ran the woods and fields like a year old puppy chasing his first rabbit. He hunted and fished everywhere at anytime, call him he’s there, think about calling him and he’ll probably show up with a shotgun or fishing rod stuck in the trunk just in case. Those were enchanted times, and too often, because of our youth we don’t realize until later just how special it was.

The only thing that can make it better for a young hunter is to have family and friends share the same love. This is especially so if the young man can find a best friend. Not just a hunting buddy, but that guy who will stick by you, thick or thin, for the rest of your life. You know who I’m talking about. Like the saying goes, “A good friend will bail you out of jail… A best friend will be sitting beside you saying, “Damn, that was fun!”

Dad was lucky. During his last days in the service or shortly thereafter he met Carl who turned out to be his best friend, hunting buddy and fellow outlaw. Not that they were bad guys, it was just back in those days you might bend the limit a time or two, and needed someone who was as dedicated as you were to slip by “the man.”

Carl Sr duck hunting in Perry

Ray Sr glassing for bird off an abandoned cabin roof

During the late fifties, Dad and Carl and both of their dads lived in the Jacksonville area. They roamed the north end of Florida and the south part of Georgia hunting ducks, quail, deer and anything else in season. They made regular trips to the area around Perry Florida in the Panhandle hunting ducks. Dad tells the story almost every time we pass through the I-10 area of I-75. He goes, “Wish, did I ever tell you the time Carl and me went duck hunting?” “Sure, but tell me again.” Dad smiles as his mind drifts back in time.

“Well, Carl, he was a damn good shot. He grew up around Jacksonville trapping and hunting as a kid. He went to Korea as a sniper. When he was over there, he got frustrated about not being able to tell if he was hitting the North Korean soldier. So he writes his daddy and asks him to send some ’06 sporting ammo. He gets a couple of boxes and starts using them. Boy, he said that made a big difference! He said he’d shoot the guy with the old ammo and he’d just drop out of sight. With the new stuff, POOF! The guy’s head would explode. Carl figured he was doing the right thing until one day his commander called him in and reamed him out good. He had found out about Carl’s “adjustments” and told him if the NK’s got a hold of him, they’d shoot him on the spot. Carl said, “I don’t know why y’all is so upset. You guys taught me how to kill; I was just improvin’ on the method.” Dad would laugh out loud. “Wish, that man could shoot. I saw him spin around in a fire break one time and shoot a running deer at better than a hundred yards. That damned deer hit the ground like a sack of potatoes! When I got up to it, I saw the bullet had passed right through the heart!”

Carl and Dad with their ducks (less one)

Dad pointed his finger at me. “Now, me and Carl, we loved duck hunting. Went every chance we could. One time we went hunting out by Perry. We had a good day and when we got done we found out we had shot a little over the limit. Back then it wasn’t a big deal, but we were young and broke and couldn’t afford the ticket if we got caught. So, Carl figured out we could get back to Jax okay if we could hide the extra ducks. Carl had this old sedan, so we began stuffing ducks all over the place, under the seat, in the engine compartment, under the tire, just everywhere. We drive back and everything is fine. A couple of days later, Carl goes on a date with this nurse he was chasing. He liked her a lot and was working the angles pretty hard.” (You have to remember, this was the late fifties.) “It was winter and cold. So, when Carl picks up his date, he decides to start up the heater. The whole car explodes with this foul smell. I mean gagging bad! Carl had noticed something was wrong earlier, but couldn’t figure out where the smell was coming from. Now, he could hardly stand it! His date is retching, Carl can barely breathe, and he’s at a loss to figure out what was wrong. That was until he reached up under the heater vent and pulled out a decomposed duck. In our haste to hide the ducks we miscounted. So when we pulled them back out of the car, we thought we had them all. Needless, to say a smelly rotted duck made the nurse decide Carl wasn’t the one for her.” Dad laughed at the memory. “He was pretty upset, but me, I thought it was hilarious. Just goes to show though. If you try to get away with something, it will always come back to get you in the end. That’s a good lesson to remember, son.”

I promised I would and filed the story away to tell my kids one day when we drove together through the same area. And I have a time or two. They laugh every time I tell it. Kids think dead smelly birds making anyone gag is funny. But, they get the lesson to, cheating may be fun, but you’ll always pay in the end.

My wife as "Jeannie"

I have decided on occasion to pass along stories of my wife. A good hunter has either a good wife backing him, or a wife that encourages escape from the rigors of matrimony into the woods where peace and common sense apply. My wife doesn’t mind me going because when I’m gone the silly things she does go unnoticed. I was there for this one.

———-

For all of you that know my wife, she is a lovely woman, now forty-five years of age, who acts and models on occasion. She is in the process of building her portfolio with photographers and agents. She is constantly either modeling (as she did last week on the East coast and when driving back ended up in Orlando. Which is odd because we don’t live there… but I digress) or going to photo shoots. I’m not really sure about all of that; it’s an “artist” thing.

Another thing you have to know about my wife, if you don’t already, is she is a blonde. Tragically, it has gotten worse over the years, to the point now where I just do a “Jerry Sheffield” and shrug my shoulders. What else can you do? (Jerry is my father in law and the most patient man I know. He has had years of experience doing the shrug with a wife and three daughters. My wife antics resemble her mother’s more than she wants to admit and has led to more than one argument over the years between us. Truth is that apple not only didn’t fall far from the tree, it rolled back up against the trunk!!)

Now, yesterday she tells me she is going to Sarasota to do a photo shoot at a beach with some photographer she met on-line. Yes, the whole serial killer thing pops up, but she’s insured and hell you can’t tell her anything anyhow. So off she goes. Of course you might all want to point out that the current weather on the West Coast is unsettled at best and downright ornery at worse right now, and the chances of getting a nice sunset on a beach (I know, again the serial killer thing) is remote. But you can’t tell her that. So I do what I do, and shrug.

Marty and our double circa 1999

Marty makes it back around dark. It is raining, as it has every day for the last week and a half. She comes running in. Now try to picture this. She is dress in a light blue (turquoise maybe?) string bikini and three inch clog shoes. (I have to add tastefully; she had some “improvements” made this last year and in a bikini they are quite evident.) She has her hair up (actually it is a “fall” so accurately it is someone else’s hair, but that’s not important) and makeup on. She is running from her car to the house trying to drag everything in. She asks for an umbrella and says she is freezing to death. So now she’s running back and forth, in the dark, in the rain, in a turquoise string bikini, carrying a leopard print umbrella, freezing to death. She claimed later the reason for the umbrella was she that the rain running in her face “blinded her.” So more accurately she is running back and forth, blinded by the rain, in the dark (using some kind of sonar system like a bat?), in a bikini, carrying a leopard print umbrella, on clogs, and of course freezing to death. I asked her later why she was wearing the bikini driving back instead of, I don’t know, clothes, and her response was “The only other outfit I had was my Jeannie (from “I dream of Jeannie” TV show) outfit and the dress I wore up. The dress was wet from the rain.” I asked her wasn’t her bikini wet? “Yes, but that’s different.” (I know scratch your head moment) How I’m not sure, but I had visions of her in a car wreck or on a traffic stop with some trooper going, “Ma’am those are sure nice, but I’m going to have to write you a ticket anyhow.” Or “Jeannie? You gonna try and blink yourself out of the ticket?” An extra change of clothes would have been nice. That’s all I’m saying.

Now, some of you know me. I’m the guy who says “Y’know, I don’t think this is working out so well”, and tries to regroup and rethink the situation. My dad had a deer hunting dog like that once. If she got confused, she’d sit down and just mull things over for a minute or two and try to figure out what was going wrong. A hound dog. A dog… On the other hand, my wife tends to get an idea in her head and go with it, regardless of how bumpy the road gets, or if in fact there is even a road left after a while. She just keeps plowing along. Me, I would have probably come inside, changed into dry clothes, put on a raincoat, picked another umbrella other than leopard print- but that’s just a personal taste issue- and went back out to get ONLY the things I needed, not try to unload the whole car. Or, I would have done all of the above and then waited until the rain stopped before going back out. Really, I mean, does it have to happen right now?? Not my wife. Nope. She had to run back and forth like some kind of crazed Playboy bunny in a scene from Hefner’s highlights, complaining the whole way just how miserable she is.

Of course, as I watch this all go by I do what any good husband will do, I told my daughter to go and get the camera so I could get a picture of it all, which was about when my wife started cussing me.

Go figure. All that and no sense of humor….