First Deer Hunt

It was February 1958 and my Dad thought it was time for my younger brother and me to experience a deer hunt in the Amite Swamp of South Louisiana.  My brother Pat was 18 months my junior.  He always had a few pounds on me and he loved hunting and fishing more than I did.  He wasn't what you call a fanatic, but he did sleep in his "camo" the night before a hunting trip...a few times.  Dad had a seaplane charter service during our formative years, so it was only natural for us to fly from his seaplane base in Houma, LA to the Amite River Swamp on the southwest shores of Lake Maurepas.

 What was unique about this adventure was we flew in the afternoon before the hunt and spent the night in the swamp with a group of old French hunters as he did in his youth.  We landed mid-afternoon and taxied down the inky black waters of a little "bay" off the river.   The water was high over its banks and Dad was careful not to run over the cypress "knees" hidden beneath the surface.  That would be tough on the aluminum float bottoms.  He pulled the little seaplane up tight against the tangle of tree roots and mud and lashed her down for the night. The old hunters came to the waters edge to see what one of those "dang flyin' machines" looked like up close.  They just shook their heads in disapproval and called it "pas bonne canard" (no good duck!).  We left our transportation to the elements and carried our gear to the camp where the Frenchmen had built a large fire.  The site was located on a mound rising several feet higher than the surrounding swamp.  I looked for the hunting "camp" and Dad told me there wasn't a structure anymore as the river flooding swept it away most every year.  The hunters would sleep on the ground in front of the smoldering embers just wrapped in blankets.

Our wonderful jungle hammocks

 Dad had enough of that when he was a kid so the three of us were equipped with WWII vintage jungle hammocks.  We started stringing up our beds from the huge cypress trees and the old farts started laughing and called us "Les écureuils"(squirrels) because we slept in the trees!  Well as luck would have it a front came through that night and we had a real "toad strangler".  The heavens opened, the wind blew and the temp fell hard.  The ground crew fought water from above and from the river rising.  Dad hollered at us to  unhook our roof spreaders and tie the ends together.  The rains continued and we were high and dry.  We looked like cocoons rocking gently in the wind as "la vieille garde" (the old guard) turned their wooded boats upside down and crawled under them.

  In the pre-dawn morning we didn't say a thing about the night's events...well maybe Pat did fake a loud sneeze "TURKEYS" and then a cough "TOADS".  Twice was enough and all Dad had to do was snap his fingers and point and the comments ceased.  The group of us crowded against a new fire, trying to get that morning chill out of our bones, the frost still clinging on the roofs of our hammocks.  Pat noticed the smell first...bacon frying.  No, it was a black iron pot with hog lard melting in the bottom.  It reached a golden color a began to bubble.  One of the old gentleman broke open a can of raw biscuits and threw pieces into the pot.  He looked at me and said,"You know beignets?"  Man they were great!  There's probably still clots of cholesterol in my veins from that meal, but it was good.  While still dark we were assigned to different boats and we shoved off down the river, cold, shivering in the damp air.  I stuck my hands in the tops of my rubber hip boots trying to lessen the sting.  I hid behind my old "crack barrel" 20 gauge shot gun, my only break from the wind as we sped into the dark.  The spray from the bow was the only other sound beside the wine of the outboard motor.  Every so often I'd look up at the old man at the tiller, his headlamp showing the traces of light fog from the still warm river against the cold frontal passage.  We finally stopped and the old man motioned me out of the boat to follow behind my little brother.  We walked into the woody underbrush a few yards and he deposited Pat on a small platform nailed between two trees.  I was next placed on a huge stump, sawed chest high and as wide as I was tall, some 50 yards in or so.  He looked at me square in the eyes and said that he would be back to get me before dark.  He pointed in the direction away from the river and said the dogs will be running the deer to me from that direction, and the light turned away and disappeared.  As the splashing of the departing foot steps faded away, the sounds of the swamp started their crescendo.  I never heard such creaking, whooping and grunting.  Only the sunrise quieted the vocal displays.

  From that point on I didn't see a deer, hear a dog or a gun shot for the entire day.  I couldn't even get my brother to answer me from a half a football field away.  I didn't stop shaking until well after the sun came up.  To this day I really can't remember if was because I was cold or scared...although I did step in a hole and filled my hip boots with water before daylight.  The day wore on and stood on that stump in my skivvies trying to dry out my jeans and socks.  My throat was sore from being so cold...or maybe it was from hollering for somebody...anybody.  My fright turned to anger.  All kinds of things were going through my head.  Ya think they were finally gonna get rid of me?  Was Pat in on it?  That's why he never answered me...he wasn't there...he left!  It started getting dark, real dark and cold.  The critter symphony started again.  Frogs, crickets, whistles, barks...it started getting to me.  Louder and louder.  Then suddenly everything went silent!  The chills started on my legs and went racing up my back, I shuttered again.  I turned on my flashlight and it glowed orange...dead.  I turned and a voice about a foot behind my head said, "You ready?"  I squealed like a little girl!

A Memorial Day Thought....

Before we started school we called him Ronnie. That's him second from the right. At that time in my life it seemed we visited Maw maw every weekend. It wasn't of interest to a six year old why Mom would pile us boys in the back of that '51 Willys Jeep Wagon and drive 90 or so miles every Friday afternoon to spend the week end and leave Dad behind to fly his little seaplane in the oil fields. But as soon as we got there, off would come the shirt and shoes. Ronnie and his little brother, Jr. lived next door and my brother Pat and I wouldn't see my Mom until Sunday afternoon when she dragged us kicking and screaming back into the Jeep for the ride back home. We were the "Four Horseman", the "Sheriff's Posse"...we played hard and Ronnie was our leader. When Ronnie got old enough to start the little country school his Mom told us we couldn't call him Ronnie, any more, (Ronald was his middle name) but Joseph or Joe from now on. "What, can she do that?", my little brother Pat asked when we were alone. We all turned and stared silently at him. "All right, but they ain't changin' my name!" From that day on he remained Joe...Joseph R. Valentine. When we played cowboys he was the Sheriff, football he was the quarter back, army he was the sergeant, our leader, not at anytime did he demand it, it was just understood. He always encouraged civility in our play, word and action. Our best times were when we were young and as we grew older we saw less and less of one another. Our interest took different paths and we didn't know how to maintain a relationship just 90 miles apart.

Vietnam heated up and we both enlisted. He in the Army and I in the Air Force. He was still single and I was married with our first child on the way. He was shipped over first and we got the word he was missing in action the same day I got my orders to 'Nam. They buried him the day of my daughter's birth. Before I shipped out I visited with Papa, my Mom's dad. I always saw him as a hard man, but that day, just he and I, he wept silently. I visited Joe's grave maybe three or four times on the occasions of other funerals. I don't believe in grave sitting...they just aren't there. But there are times when little instances in life bring his memory back. On our last vacation up the east coast I sat and relived some special moments at the long granite wall where his name will live forever with other fallen leaders.

Eight of Ten and his week with the Grandfolks

When I was five and my folks asked me if I would like to spend my annual week with my Namma and Grand, there wasn't even a moment of hesitation. That was the coolest place in the world. Big oak and pecan trees shaded a great big yard of St. Augustine grass and azalea bushes that rung the whole place where there were all kinds of adventures...pirates, cowboys and native Americans, and a large, very large and friendly mutt named Henry who would follow me all day and protect me from all those imaginary wild animals who lived amongst my grandmother's pampered shrubs, flowers and vegetable pods.
But the most wonderful memories are of the times spent in my grandfather's work shop. You had to hurry to finish your breakfast and run through the screen door on the back porch...don't slam that...down the red brick walk, through the gate that leaned a little too much to the south east, across the barn yard to the "workshop" attached to this amazing edifice of cypress and square nails. There were more gadgets, tools, boxes of bolts, screws and nails. I remember a black leather mule collar hanging on the wall, it's master years dead before I was born and standing proudly in the corner, next to the door you came in...just to the left... a giant Jax Beer bottle...four foot tall. It was much taller than I was. He never told me where it came from. We didn't talk about beer cause my Namma said Grand couldn't have any sense his heart attack. I never did tell Mr. Salasi at the cafe what she said when he'd give Grand a cold Regal and I'd have a big orange pop. Such creations and repairs, no one could hold a candle to my Grand. He could fix anything. Many times we had to fix Mrs. Lambert's kick start washing machine...I held the big flash light.
So I wanted to help create a memory for Eight of Ten. He lives in Baton Rouge in one of those "yuppie" subdivisions...really nice. I never can't tell which house belongs to my daughter. I've got to look for the garage with the two Honda Pilots....no I didn't miss it, I just like to back in.
We kept him two years ago. He just turned three and my daughter and son-in-law, (I got two son-in-laws, both named Rick) took his sister, Five of Ten, to see Mickey and Goofy in Florida (Disney), we have no relatives in Florida. No problems, he mostly sat catatonic in front of the TV and really didn't interact with me much. At the time I was gainfully self employed and really couldn't devote much time to preschool entertainment. Nanna always runs interference for me and keeps Grandpa from looking too anti-social. Since then he has developed many things. A temper, a talent for making his sister look guilty, an uncanny knowledge on many subjects and a brutal honesty that would amaze Simon whats-his-name from American Idol. On one visit I saw him defy his father to the point of an earned spanking and between the third and fourth swats, he looked directly in my eyes and grinned. No no, nothing Satanic, just letting me know that he knows what buttons to push. But here, now, he was a real pleasure to be with.
The first day we took care of some unfinished business at the airport where I finished my adventures in aviation. We walked among the many types and classes of flying machines. I told him something that he probably never heard before in his five years of exploration. "You can touch, flip, turn, push or pull anything you want to." He smiled and exercised unexpected restraint. Clearly please with the way things went, he agreed to retreat to his Nanna's care and custody, pool side with Three, Four, Six and Seven of Ten. During the next couple of days he spent time in the yard riding on Nanna's golf cart, sitting in my lap as we rode the mower across the three acres and climbing on Grampa's collections that are tactfully stored from public view behind the "workshop". One thing that really brought joy to my heart...I momentarily lost track of him and found him standing in my open "workshop door", hands in his pockets, just admiring forty-six years of collectibles that have taken residence.
Today we gave him his first boat ride, bought him his own custom fitted life jacket and fishing rod. Not deterred by a fish-less boat ride, he returned to the back yard practicing his casting and finding me after every third or forth attempt to remove the "bird's nest"from his reel.
Tomorrow we'll return him, hopefully better than we received him. More than the fishing gear, pizza, chicken nuggets, nightly baths and carrying this little sleeping super hero wannabe all decked out in "Spider man" jammies to bed, I hope he takes home... a memory.

First blog, first retirement - need training wheels

I was sitting out on the sun porch this afternoon watching "8 of 10"....I usually favor my grand kids with numbers like the Borg (Star Trek 1990) mainly because "resistance is futile"... and wondered about this first week of my long anticipated retirement. I've spent most of it camping on a lake just south of Hattiesburg, Mississippi, sitting in a lawn chair watching squirrels watch me throw pine cones in the lake. Some of it has been running back a forth to the airport, loaning tools and troubleshooting various maladies while outfitted in my oldest cargo shorts and "Costa Rica beer's the best" tee shirt. I guess it's going to be a weening process at best. I figured it was February forty six years ago I received my first real paycheck for labor expended on an actual flying machine. So now I'm all hyped up to do those projects of mine that I've put off, be able to attend all those dance recitals, help SWMBO (she who must be obeyed) with the shopping, wash the house.... you get my drift. I had planned to do some salt water fly fishing for those illusive red fish until the Brits filled the Gulf Coast with enough crude oil to pay for "Obamacare" ...like Rosanna Rosanna-Danna said, "It's always somthin' "