A Hunting Story

[TYRVR]

Being as how I was born in Virginia back in the forties, I learned hunting as same as I learned breathing. Started with an old single shot Remington 33 in .22 Cal. cold mornings was the signal to start looking for scrapes and such, I did not have a real deer rifle, I had an old "Hog" rifle, .40Cal. fullstock rifle that had carried six or seven different locks and two or three different barrels in it's life, still shot true though, used powder from a red drum that had a lead cap that screwed and unscrewed to get powder out, still got that drum. Everybody in the area hunted along the eastern slope of the Blue Ridge, in either Amherst or Nelson county, all the deer east of us were midgits! won't enough meat on their bodies to justify shooting them. I had always had a hunting buddy, from the time My rifle was a tobacco stick with a baleing twine sling until the day I went to the Army. He had four legs and His name was Dinky, We hunted every kind of game on earth early on,"Hikkerpotamusses" to "Panters", me and old Dink slayed them, and when I got a real gun, We hunted squirrels and rabbits, groundhogs and even bagged a Bobcat once! But, Dink got old, and could not hike the hills without getting stove up real bad, so I used to take the rifle, bag and horn and hang them outside the night before we hunted deer, that way, when I got up early I could fool old Dink into thinking I was gonna work or go to school or do some other foolish thing that did not require His attention. I would get up about 3 O' Clock and get dressed, old Dink would lie in his box by the chimney and watch Me, I knew if I opened the closet door where the guns was kept, He would stand and stretch, and ease over to stand by the door. So I lied to the old Dog, told Him I was going to cut some wood, He would sit in his bed and wag his half bald tail, He knew I was lying, I leaned over and kissed the top of His head and scratched an ear for Him, Ol Dink died while I was in the Army, I still miss him.

[ironramrod]

Tyrvr,

An excellent story; nice to be able to grow up in a good environment like that. Hope you still have the full stock .40 cal to go with your red drum powder container with the lead cap.

Regards

[wwben47]

Tyrvr..Thanks for sharing that..Brought back a lot of memories...I grew up on the west side of the mountains from you..West of where the New River cuts through the "Narrows" and on into the Gorge. My mom and dad had a friend who lived with his mom in a log house built in 1840 by her [/i]mom and dad. Dad and I would park in the driveway before daylight and in later years after the man had quit hunting we would ease up the hill behind the house and squirrel hunt till about 11...Dad would "suggest" we go down and "see what Alfred was doing"...As you got close to the house..the smell of woodsmoke meant he had the stove going with slabs of ham frying, taters, cornbread, beans. I was a lot older before I realized my Dad had great timing lol. When I was little I would sit on the arm of his moms chair and listen to her stories about "painters" and bobcats following them when she was a little girl...The house was eventually donated by his sisters to the Raleigh County Historical Society and moved over there..Today its part of a recreated "homestead"...Sometimes...I can still smell that smoke.

[BuckeyeShooter]

That story put's me in mind of the movie "Where the Red Fern Grows". If ever a movie could bring a tear to a grow mans eyes that is one of them. Especially if you had memories like yours to reflect back on.

[buffalocannon]

Dear Ole Tye of the BEGC

Great story! Those were the good old days. Will they ever return? Take care.

Steve

[Omak Cowboy]

Ty, I too am a 40s vintage. In one of the houses I lived in, built probably in the mid to late 1800s, I had an upstairs "bedroom", actually it the attic but someone put a floor on it and two winders. Good news is that I had an old cast iron bed RIGHT next to the kitchen chimney. On cold mornings it kept me toasty..thanks to the featherbed on it.

As for Dink, there isn't much to say except we rarely see unconditional love in life, except maybe on four legs and a tail.

By in large, with the exception of my son, when I'm done with this life it won't break my heart a bit.
I"m pretty sure Dink's watching over you, as is my Hannah. It'll be good to see 'em again, won't it?

[TYRVR]

Boys.... I reckon as how most everybody that growed up in the country in the 40-50s was the most fortunate folks there is, I carried a gun to school near everyday after all the crops was up, hunted my way home, an old 33 Remington and a box of Kleenbores 22s fed my family many a night. squirrels, rabbits and grouse made for a welcome change to our usual fare of canned meats and salted pork, and if I was lucky I had enough to share with my Great Gandma and my Aunt, they loved fresh rabbit and I always came home with cookies or some cake in exchange for a couple dressed bunny rabbits, Granma Ellen didn't like her rabbits old and tough, so I always held the young rabbits back when skinning and dressing the days kill to take to Granma Ellen. I reckon we was considered poor by todays standards but not the way we seen it, plenty to eat, a warm stove or fireplace, feather or straw tick mattresses, or my personal favourite ...a corn shuck mattress! Man that old bed just wrapped itself around you and kept you warm on even the coldest nights, couple hand sewed quilts made of sacks from the local milling company,( I still have one with "Lynchburg Milling Co." inked on the back in two places.) A family that was always there, and it was an honour to have your parents or Grand parents come and live with you, made you feel safe as a kid to know that your mom and dad and Granpa or Granma were just a room away, not a thousand miles off in some condo in Florida or locked away and forgot in a rest home.
We might have been poor in pocket.....but we was richer than old Croesus in heart. I would give nigh anything to see my old dog jump off the porch, wagging his tail and his tongue lapped out ...... almost turning inside out in his joy to see me walk up the road . I still hunt, but I will never know the joy I knew when I had a good rifle and a good dog to share the day with, and a house full of love just a few hills away.

Ol'Tye,......with something in his eye.