January 2012 Newsletter

Ramblings, Remembrances, and Resolutions (or lack thereof): A January Miscellany

January as I remember it was always a month for doing several of the things which run as strong and consistent threads in the fabric of my life. In the North Carolina high country of my boyhood January was usually the coldest month of the year and often the one with the most inclement weather. That didn’t bother me a bit, because I always had books as companions. That has not changed at all in adulthood. Seldom indeed does a day pass when I don’t read at least 100 pages, and I usually have two or three books going simultaneously. That’s just my habit.

As for reading tastes, they lean heavily in the direction of the things I cherish in life —history (currently working through a scholarly treatment, Scott Giltner’s Hunting and Fishing in the New South: Black Labor and White Leisure after the Civil War—guess I can’t totally escape the old Ivory Tower days); biography (recent reads include Ron Chernow’s interesting one-volume treatment of George Washington; a life of little known Appalachian writer Emma Bell Miles, who wrote Spirit of the Mountains; and Andrew Vietze’s Becoming Teddy Roosevelt: How a Maine Guide Inspired America’s 26^th President); books on hunting and fishing (recently completed the late Kenny Morgan’s wonderful work, America, Wild Turkeys and Mongrel Dogs and am presently well into a sparkling regional memoir by Bo Cash, Water Under the Bridge: A Journey Through a Life in the Outdoors), and most anything to do with natural history and Appalachia.

Add to that a steady dose of mysteries and adventure tales (favorites include John Buchan, Agatha Christie, Wilbur Smith, and Trevanian), and you have the heart of it. Of course I long since exhausted all of the stuff from the likes of Zane Grey and Louis L’Amour, and I read Ruark’s The Old Man and the Boy at least once a year. In my view it’s that good; in fact, I consider it the greatest American book on the outdoors.

Along with reading, January days have always meant small game hunting in my world. I actually cherished any heavy snowfall when I was a youngster, because it meant a day or two off from school and the chance to wander around all day imagining I was a mountain man or at least a hardy pioneer. It was also a grand time to read sign, because a soft snow meant you could check out everything from well-used rabbit runs to places frequented by muskrats and ‘coons. I was never a particularly savvy or successful trapper, but I ran a small line and caught a fair number of muskrats, the rare mink, ‘coons, ‘possums, and the occasional feral cat. Similarly, I made my own rabbit gums (Grandpa Joe showed me how to craft a simple trigger-and-drop-door mechanism).

Trapping was a daylight activity though, checking the line, resetting or moving traps as I saw fit, and carrying anything in the way of a catch home or to a friend’s place for skinning. The remaining hours in free days would be devoted to wandering, wondering, and walking a number of miles which would be beyond me today. I always had a gun in hand and sometimes our beagles along as companions. Often though I was alone, and once out of sight of houses and the sounds of town it was easy to imagine I was back of beyond. More often than not I’d bag a rabbit or two, maybe get a bushytail, and periodically a grouse or quail. Seldom indeed did I head home in the gloaming without heft of some kind in the game bag of my old Duxbak hunting coat.

An integral and important part of those carefree days of boyhood adventure, not only when alone but when groups of us headed out on Saturday for an all-day rabbit hunt, focused on food. Like most active teenagers, I was a trencherman of no mean ability, and the aforementioned Duxbak jacket, whatever it carried at day’s end, always held plenty of food at the start of an outing. Sandwiches featuring whatever was available—leftover chicken, meatloaf, country ham, fried eggs and baloney, peanut butter and jelly—were standard. So was a tin of Vienna sausages or sardines, with a sleeve of soda crackers to accompany them. Often there would be a chunk of cornbread, and a small raw onion or turnip went just fine with it. Another favorite was a cold sweet potato. Add a couple of apples from Dad’s small orchard, still crisp and sweet thanks to cool storage in the basement; maybe an orange; some Chinese chestnuts from our tree or store-bought nuts left from Christmas; and all that remained necessary to ward off any hints of peckishness were treats for the sweet tooth—and did I ever have one (still do, for that matter).

My two favorites, and it would have been a tossup as to which I preferred, were homemade fried pies and hefty slices of Mom’s apple sauce cake. Usually one or the other was available, at least early in January when the blessings of Christmas bounty had not been exhausted. Fruit cake was another choice, because invariably Daddy had one or two given to him each year. Throw in assorted cookies, hard candy, leftover holiday gum drops and orange slices, and I had all that a greedy-gut boy could want for a field lunch or a mid-afternoon sugar boost. Occasionally I would carry a thermos of milk or hot chocolate, but more often I just drank from a spring or branch. Both were available pretty much everywhere you turned in the Smokies, and in those days I didn’t even know what giardia was, much less worry about it.

Another standard January activity, and one I look back on with great fondness, involved listening to the radio on Saturday and Sunday evenings. We didn’t have a television (almost certainly that was a blessing), but the entire family would listen to some of the popular radio shows of the day. I particularly remember Amos and Andy (which would never pass political correctness muster in today’s world), Gunsmoke, Gene Autry, the Arthur Godfrey Show, Death Valley Days, the Grand Old Opry, and the Wayne Raney Show on WCKY out of Cincinnati. We also listened faithfully to North Carolina basketball in the glory days of Lenny Rosenbluth and, a few years later, the Kangaroo Kid, Billy Cunningham.

More often than not, while we were listening to the radio, there would also be an intense session of picking walnut meats. The nuts would have been gathered back in late October or November, allowed to dry and cure so that the husks could be easily removed, and at some point Daddy would spend a few hours cracking them atop an anvil. Everyone would pitch in to get the meats, and as anyone who has ever dealt with walnuts knows, it is a chore requiring patience and care. In the end though, the rewards were well worth it. Mom used the nuts in all sorts of baking. Her chocolate chip-and-walnut cookies, when still warm from the oven and served with a tall glass of milk, were pure Nirvana. The nuts also went into her version of Waldorf salad, applesauce and orange slice cakes, banana nut bread, walnut bars, and a host of other treats.

News

Before getting to the meat of the matter in the form of my monthly newsletter, let’s touch on a few topics which will hopefully be of interest.

For starters, I have a brand new and considerably expanded list of books by or about Archibald Rutledge. “Old Flintlock,” as he was known, ranks in my view among the greatest American outdoor writers. His tales are redolent of the Old South and he was a masterful wordsmith and storyteller.

Visit my web site to view the Rutledge list and note that it includes a special offer of four of the Rutledge anthologies I have edited for $115 postpaid (regularly $120 plus postage). Those four books contain well over 100 stories, plus lots of extras in the form of my introductions, classic Christmas recipes, bibliographical notes, and more.

I’ll be attending the National Wild Turkey Federation’s annual convention in Nashville in February (February 10-12).

I don’t plan to have a booth at the show (far too pricey) but if you are planning to attend and would like for me to bring along a book (or several) of interest to you, I’ll be glad to do so. It will save you shipping, and we can swap e-mails to figure out a time and place to meet.

It would be a good time to pick up my newest book, The Literature of Turkey Hunting: An Annotated Bibliography and the Random Scribblings of a Sporting Bibliophile (limited edition work of 750 numbered and signed copies with slipcase and all the hallmarks of a quality book; $100 each). If nothing else, we can shake and howdy.

Speaking of books, my next big project, likely to be completed in late 2012, will be Remembering the Greats: Profiles of Turkey Hunting’s Old Masters.

Many of you will be familiar with the ongoing series of biographical vignettes I have done on the sport’s great hunters from yesteryear for Turkey & Turkey Hunting magazine. This book will see those profiles expanded, supported by illustrations as available, with bibliographical notes on each hunter.

It will be a hardbound trade edition probably selling in the $30-$40 range. If you are interested in being added to the list of those who would like to be notified when becomes available, just send me an e-mail.

Also in the book arena, my turkey list was recently updated and expanded, with many new offerings.

I also have procured three real gems in the world of wild turkey literature in recent months—all of them among the rarest, most prized, and most collectible books in the field. They include:

• A first edition of the incomparable Tom Kelly’s Tenth Legion. Only 555 copies of the book were printed. This one has the dust jacket intact and is in fine shape.

• I also have a copy, again fine (in a good dust jacket), of Jack Dudley’s modern classic, The Greatest Moments of My Life. This book is virtually impossible to find (1000 copies were likely published).

• Finally, I have a first edition of the very first work devoted exclusively to turkey hunting, E. A. McIlhenny’s The Wild Turkey and Its Hunting.

All of these books are extremely difficult to find—I’ve sold precisely three of the Kelly, two of the Dudley, and two of the McIlhenny in two decades of handling turkey hunting books. If interested, contact me for fuller descriptions and prices.

Finally, I thought I’d share a bit of a recent adventure into a world we have pretty much lost—that of quail hunting.

Early in December I ventured down to Alabama for three delightful days in the Black Belt region of that state. In a farsighted, and to my way of thinking eminently sensible move, the state of Alabama has partnered with a slew of outfitters operating in the region to create a promotional entity known as Alabama Black Belt Adventures. In company with a fellow photographer/writer Glenn Wheeler, I enjoyed stays and a day of hunting with three different outfitters. Mind you, it wasn’t wild quail, but in terms of the overall experience—birds that flew well, dogs that worked their special canine wonders, hospitality and geniality of the kind uniquely associated with the sport, and sumptuous food—things came as close as one can really expect in today’s world.

Better still, each day’s hunt brought something different:

• One day of walking the whole time;

• Another of riding carts while following big, rangy dogs in beautifully groomed pines and sedge of the sort seen in classic art work;

• And finally the old-time mule-drawn wagon and horseback riding approach.

It was a grand adventure. My little Remington 1100 28 gauge shot, as my father would have put it, “better than I knew how,” and the camaraderie and canine wizardry were all one could ask.

If you are looking for a trip back to yesteryear, or at least a road that leads invitingly in that direction, take a gander at the web sites of the trio of places where Glenn and I hunted—PA-KO Plantation, High Log Creek, and Greenway Sportsman Club. You won’t be disappointed.