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At
this writing, turkey season is in full swing. Last year I had no turkey
hunting tales of my own to tell; and, although I did take my first
turkey last year, it was not as unique as some my father used to tell me
when I was young. While the tale of my first turkey is interesting, it
pales in comparison to my dad’s first turkey. One other turkey story
of Dad’s is absolutely hilarious, at least to the members of my
family.
Dad was
born in 1932 in Tallahassee, Florida. Through circumstances beyond his
control, he went to live with his grandparents in northwest Florida when
he was six years old.
This puts
him on the farm at Hinson’s Crossroads in 1938. At this time, the
country was eyeball deep in the depression and times were hard. I don’t
know for sure, but I would bet that in his neck of the woods
Reconstruction was still a fact of life. Dad learned how to plow with
horses and mules, chop cane, milk cows, and raise a crop. He started
bugging "Granddaddy" to take him turkey hunting; he told Dad
that when he could call their domestic turkeys out of the field and into
the yard, he could go. Dad eventually got to where he could call those
turkeys, he went hunting and got his first turkey.
I can
picture dad sitting on the porch of their house stroking that box call
that granddaddy handmade from hickory. I remember when we were children
that call was kept in the top drawer of our buffet and every so often my
brother and I would dig it out and make dad yelp on it for us. Then as
now, I didn’t know a good yelp from a bad one but if dad said that it
would call a turkey, it would.
I
remember watching him take that call in his hand and you could almost
tell it had the feel of an old friend as he held it and settled it into
the palm of his hand. Dad had a habit of sticking his tongue out of the
side of his mouth when he was concentrating on something really hard.
(When he started to wiggle it, you knew he was really bearing down on
something.) He would almost close his eyes as he would get into the
rhythm and start the yelping. If we had known that Merriam’s turkey
even existed, much less lived out west, we would have tried to talk him
into taking us turkey hunting. We knew that when the call came out, the
stories would begin.
One of
his stories concerned my great-grandmother, Granddaddy, Dad and a Sunday
wagon ride.
One fine
spring Sunday afternoon, they all piled into the wagon to go out for a
drive. I am sure that the weather was fine, warm but not too hot, cool,
but not cold. The hardwoods were probably just starting to get their
leaves and the dogwoods were blooming. The wind was probably sighing
through the pine trees.
As he
would tell us the tale, we could almost hear the clump of the horse’s
feet as they went down the sandy dirt roads through the forests of the
farm. I am sure Granddaddy sat on the right and drove and
Great-Grandmother on the left; and if Dad was like we were, he was doing
laps around the inside of the wagon box. Dad said that Granddaddy never
went anywhere in the woods without his shotgun and it was with him that
fine spring day. Somewhere on the place was a catch pen and as they
neared it, Great-Grandmother saw a flock of turkeys. Dad told us that
all they heard was her say, "Jeff, turkeys!"
Granddaddy
raised that trusty old 12 gauge double barrel and fired. Dad said that
Great-Grandmother had some of the best eyes anyone had seen; I can
remember her only wearing glasses to read most of the time.
When he
fired, he dropped one bird and immediately started looking for another
one to shoot. While we would never think of shooting more than one
turkey in a day, as the law allows, they weren’t hunting for fun, they
were hunting for food.
Dad said
that as soon as Granddaddy fired, Great-Grandmother was on the ground
running to the downed bird. Dad was standing in the wagon box looking
for more turkeys while Granddaddy stood in the front.
They were
scanning the woods where the turkeys had gone when they heard the most
awful sound you can imagine. They looked toward the noise and it was
Great-Grandmother. She had run to the "dead" turkey and
grabbed it by the feet and was dragging it back to the wagon when the
bird was no longer "dead."
You would
have to see her to really appreciate it. She was about five feet ten
inches tall, taller than most of the men in my family, and weighed about
110 to 120 pounds soaking wet, as Dad would say, and it was no small
chore for her to carry a 20 plus pound bird. She had gotten hold of this
turkey’s legs and was bringing it back to the wagon when the
apparently stunned bird woke up.
The sound
they heard was Great-Grandmother crying for help. They looked down to
where she was and Dad said (his face is red and tears are beginning to
form at this point in the telling) that there she stood with a turkey
leg in each hand, both arms out straight and a flying turkey at full
bore parallel to the ground and she is screaming her head off,
"Help, Jeff, help!!"
Dad said
that this did absolutely no good at all because Granddaddy was doubled
over on the wagon seat in a fit of laughter. He said that Granddaddy was
laughing so hard he could not sit up, he couldn’t breath and he
certainly couldn’t help Great-Grandmother with her turkey. I don’t
remember how they finally took care of that poor turkey but I can
guarantee that he ended up on the table. Dad said that was the closest
he’d ever seen my Great-Grandmother to killing Granddaddy.
I always
found it interesting that dad told that story only after she had passed
away.
As
beautiful as that spring afternoon was, I bet the ride back home was
long.
Ralph
Ricks is the manager of Quality Cooperative, Inc. in Greenville. |
