WEBVTT - Ep. 306: The Bird Hunter 0:00:05.240 --> 0:00:09.559 Today's podcast is notably different from a typical documentary style 0:00:09.600 --> 0:00:12.400 bear Grease that we usually put out every other Wednesday. 0:00:13.200 --> 0:00:15.640 I was recently asked to be the keynote speaker at 0:00:15.680 --> 0:00:20.440 the pheasant Fest banquet where we celebrated Quel Forever's twentieth anniversary. 0:00:20.920 --> 0:00:22.759 And it might seem odd that they'd ask me to 0:00:22.800 --> 0:00:26.159 speak because I don't own bird dogs or travel the 0:00:26.160 --> 0:00:31.120 country wingshooting. But I'd like to share with you bear 0:00:31.200 --> 0:00:35.600 Grease folks, a slightly elongated version, so it's not the 0:00:35.680 --> 0:00:36.440 actual speech. 0:00:36.680 --> 0:00:39.520 It's a little bit longer, but I want to share. 0:00:39.320 --> 0:00:43.120 That speech with you, and I think that you'll understand 0:00:43.720 --> 0:00:46.800 after you hear it why they asked me to speak. 0:00:47.960 --> 0:00:52.040 I'd say this story is deeply personal, and I titled 0:00:52.040 --> 0:00:53.760 it The Bird Hunter. 0:01:03.640 --> 0:01:05.840 My name is Clay Nukem, and this. 0:01:05.720 --> 0:01:09.800 Is the bear Grease podcast where we'll explore things forgotten 0:01:10.000 --> 0:01:14.200 but relevant, search for insight and unlikely places, and where 0:01:14.319 --> 0:01:18.160 we'll tell the story of Americans who lived their lives 0:01:18.200 --> 0:01:23.840 close to the land. Presented by FHF Gear, American made 0:01:24.120 --> 0:01:27.840 purpose built hunting and fishing gear that's designed to be 0:01:27.920 --> 0:01:39.200 as rugged as the place as we explore. I'd like 0:01:39.240 --> 0:01:43.279 to tell you a story. On the morning of September fifth, 0:01:43.360 --> 0:01:47.080 twenty twenty four, I awoke from a dream so vivid 0:01:47.319 --> 0:01:50.560 I felt like that I'd actually been with him. When 0:01:50.560 --> 0:01:53.280 I got up, I wrote down what I experienced. I 0:01:53.440 --> 0:01:56.960 dated it, I told Misty about it, and actually called 0:01:57.000 --> 0:02:00.760 my mom and dad. He had died on Christmas night 0:02:00.880 --> 0:02:05.760 twenty thirteen, but on that September morning, over ten years later, 0:02:06.400 --> 0:02:09.800 I felt like that I had actually seen him. The 0:02:09.840 --> 0:02:13.320 man in the dream was a school teacher, a pastor, 0:02:13.800 --> 0:02:17.160 and a bird hunter that I knew very well, and 0:02:17.200 --> 0:02:20.120 the shadow and echo of his life has never left me. 0:02:21.320 --> 0:02:31.880 And right now I'd like to tell you his story. 0:02:34.480 --> 0:02:36.680 His name is one you've never heard of. Nothing was 0:02:36.720 --> 0:02:39.240 ever written about him. There's no existing film of his 0:02:39.320 --> 0:02:42.360 dog training, but the ripples of his life are still 0:02:42.400 --> 0:02:45.560 in motion today in the eyes of his peers. 0:02:45.680 --> 0:02:47.680 Perhaps his life was mundane. 0:02:47.320 --> 0:02:50.120 And normal, but it would never be disputed that his 0:02:50.160 --> 0:02:54.239 life was nothing if not noble, disciplined, and others focused. 0:02:55.080 --> 0:02:57.960 The man in my dream was Lewin Nukeom, known to 0:02:58.040 --> 0:03:02.240 me as perhaps he was my grandfather, and he was 0:03:02.280 --> 0:03:06.399 a bird hunter and a dog trainer deluxe. He lived 0:03:06.400 --> 0:03:09.320 the life of dedication and passion for quell hunting until 0:03:09.360 --> 0:03:12.120 the day he died, and his story is foundational to 0:03:12.240 --> 0:03:15.880 my story because before I ever hunted a bear, deer, 0:03:16.120 --> 0:03:19.320 or turkey or road of mule, I was, by default 0:03:19.320 --> 0:03:23.480 of quell hunter, simply by blood. Some of my first 0:03:23.480 --> 0:03:27.040 memories of engagement with wild places were overgrown fields with 0:03:27.120 --> 0:03:31.079 long legged pointers leaving tracks in the frost. Bird dogs 0:03:31.080 --> 0:03:34.760 and quall hunting would be the relational conduit that transferred 0:03:34.800 --> 0:03:37.120 to me a value system that went far beyond the 0:03:37.160 --> 0:03:40.480 boundaries of being a bird hunter. However, to think about 0:03:40.520 --> 0:03:43.560 Lewin's life, that stood out to me that would come 0:03:43.560 --> 0:03:46.840 to almost haunt me and inform the way that I 0:03:46.880 --> 0:03:49.640 lived my life was how he spent the last thirty 0:03:49.640 --> 0:03:53.120 five years of his life in silent grief as Bob 0:03:53.160 --> 0:03:56.280 White quell populations near his home were. 0:03:56.120 --> 0:03:57.520 Reduced to almost nothing. 0:03:58.960 --> 0:04:01.320 I think this story will be familiar to a lot 0:04:01.320 --> 0:04:05.960 of people in America. Perhaps even into his late eighties, 0:04:06.160 --> 0:04:09.040 he trained bird dogs and often hunted five days a 0:04:09.080 --> 0:04:18.640 week with no intention of finding birds. I remember as 0:04:18.640 --> 0:04:22.680 a kid being so impacted by watching paps that I 0:04:22.680 --> 0:04:26.479 would pray for the quail populations, just even as a kid. 0:04:27.240 --> 0:04:30.160 I wouldn't realize how much this impacted me until I 0:04:30.200 --> 0:04:32.560 was an adult, and I didn't want the same thing 0:04:32.560 --> 0:04:35.520 to happen to me with the wild beast that I loved. 0:04:36.680 --> 0:04:39.800 But this story isn't a story of loss. It's one 0:04:39.800 --> 0:04:43.920 of incredible gain. And to understand his story and my story, 0:04:44.360 --> 0:04:47.680 I'd like to take you way back, probably even back 0:04:47.720 --> 0:04:52.760 a little further than you might think. My great great 0:04:52.960 --> 0:04:57.200 great great great grandfather, Thomas Nukeomb came out of Kentucky 0:04:57.200 --> 0:05:00.000 in the eighteen thirties and settled in the east west 0:05:00.120 --> 0:05:04.039 running ridges of the Washington Mountains of Arkansas. They'd settled 0:05:04.040 --> 0:05:08.040 in Montgomery County in the community of Bumblebee, and Thomas 0:05:08.080 --> 0:05:12.400 begat Thomas Joseph who begat Robert who begat, Oscar who 0:05:12.440 --> 0:05:18.040 in nineteen nineteen begat, Lewin Anderson Nukomb who begat Gary 0:05:18.160 --> 0:05:22.520 Believer Nukom in nineteen forty eight. My dad, who begat 0:05:22.560 --> 0:05:26.320 me and I was born approximately twenty three miles east 0:05:26.320 --> 0:05:30.039 of Bumblebee in nineteen seventy nine, just barely in time 0:05:30.160 --> 0:05:33.160 to overlap the fleeting glory days of the Southern Bob 0:05:33.200 --> 0:05:36.960 White quail and the grand hunting culture that surrounded it. 0:05:37.640 --> 0:05:40.240 I wouldn't have recognized it at the time, but there 0:05:40.240 --> 0:05:43.200 have been few wild beasts that have defined an era 0:05:43.400 --> 0:05:47.600 of the American sportsman more than that little whistling bird. 0:05:48.680 --> 0:05:50.760 But I for God to admit my relationship with mister 0:05:50.760 --> 0:05:55.200 Bob White as complicated from me flow's massive respect even 0:05:55.360 --> 0:05:58.080 all of the birds, but I found their presence on 0:05:58.120 --> 0:06:03.960 the landscape irreplaceable. In their absence life altering, the flutter 0:06:04.000 --> 0:06:06.919 of queill wings brings to me an uneasy feeling of 0:06:06.920 --> 0:06:10.400 an eden lost. No other wild beast in my lifetime 0:06:10.440 --> 0:06:14.240 has caused such heartache, which created in me a foundational 0:06:14.320 --> 0:06:18.599 hegemon of the fragility of wild game, causing a gunshinness 0:06:18.640 --> 0:06:21.360 to give my heart to any wild beast, especially a 0:06:21.440 --> 0:06:25.280 dad gum ground nesting bird. But it sure didn't keep 0:06:25.360 --> 0:06:30.279 Lewin from loving them or me. Lewin wouldn't have known it, 0:06:30.320 --> 0:06:32.640 but the date of his birth would be consequential in 0:06:32.680 --> 0:06:35.880 many ways. He spent his teenage years living through the 0:06:35.880 --> 0:06:41.040 Great Depression, building an attitude of resilience, simplicity, and contentment 0:06:41.160 --> 0:06:44.120 that would brand his life. He would turn twenty two 0:06:44.200 --> 0:06:47.640 years old in nineteen forty one, precisely the time when 0:06:47.680 --> 0:06:50.760 our country called for brave young men to arise, and 0:06:50.839 --> 0:06:54.000 he responded to that call, joining the Navy, where he 0:06:54.080 --> 0:06:57.160 led a team of seven men who operated a single 0:06:57.200 --> 0:07:02.279 gun on an American battleship fighting in Okinawa and the Philippines. 0:07:03.000 --> 0:07:07.120 We wouldn't know it until after Perhaps's death in twenty thirteen, 0:07:07.720 --> 0:07:11.320 but he won a Bronze Star for heroism in action. 0:07:12.320 --> 0:07:14.960 No one knows exactly what he did, but he once 0:07:15.080 --> 0:07:18.960 told me with his own mouth that he was credited 0:07:19.320 --> 0:07:23.200 with shooting down an enemy aircraft, but he completely left 0:07:23.240 --> 0:07:26.160 the war medal out of the story. We found that 0:07:26.320 --> 0:07:29.680 out after someone gave us a news clipping at his funeral. 0:07:30.960 --> 0:07:33.360 But in a display of humility to a nine year 0:07:33.360 --> 0:07:36.480 old boy, he confided in me that he wasn't sure 0:07:36.840 --> 0:07:40.720 if he and his team actually had shot down the plane. 0:07:40.760 --> 0:07:44.400 He wasn't interested in stolen valor. He was mainly interested 0:07:44.400 --> 0:07:48.400 in people and bird dogs. After the war, he moved 0:07:48.400 --> 0:07:51.760 to Hot Springs, Arkansas, east of Bumblebee, and in nineteen 0:07:51.840 --> 0:07:56.160 forty three married my grandmother, Emmaline, known to me decades 0:07:56.240 --> 0:07:59.760 later as Mimi. As many people did in these poor 0:07:59.760 --> 0:08:03.600 soul othern states, they chose to leave to make a living, So, 0:08:03.760 --> 0:08:06.920 like the Beverly Hillbillies, they loaded up and moved to 0:08:06.920 --> 0:08:10.480 Port Chicago, California, in nineteen forty seven to find work. 0:08:11.240 --> 0:08:14.160 It was in California in nineteen forty eight that my 0:08:14.280 --> 0:08:17.760 father Gary was born. But it was also here that 0:08:17.800 --> 0:08:20.440 something happened that would define Lewin's life more than the 0:08:20.440 --> 0:08:24.160 Great Depression, the accolades of war or ground nests and birds. 0:08:24.920 --> 0:08:28.080 In a revival meeting in the late nineteen forties, he 0:08:28.160 --> 0:08:31.800 got saved and his life was radically transformed. 0:08:32.600 --> 0:08:33.480 He looked and. 0:08:33.520 --> 0:08:36.760 Acted different, and words spread about his experience to the 0:08:36.760 --> 0:08:40.520 point that people literally just wanted to come meet paps 0:08:40.880 --> 0:08:42.239 and look in his eyes. 0:08:42.120 --> 0:08:43.679 After they heard his story. 0:08:44.520 --> 0:08:47.360 And I don't know the details, but shortly after this 0:08:47.840 --> 0:08:51.040 he believed that God communicated to him that he and 0:08:51.080 --> 0:08:54.520 his family should move back to Arkansas, which he did, 0:08:55.200 --> 0:08:59.960 and that's a decision I'm forever grateful for nothing against California. 0:09:00.040 --> 0:09:00.600 It would be in. 0:09:00.679 --> 0:09:03.520 Arkansas that he would raise his family, be the first 0:09:03.559 --> 0:09:05.920 in his lineage to go to college, and he'd become 0:09:05.960 --> 0:09:08.640 a biology teacher at a public school, and in the 0:09:08.640 --> 0:09:12.720 early nineteen fifties he became a Pastor Paps would be 0:09:12.800 --> 0:09:15.880 known in his community as a man of impeccable integrity 0:09:16.160 --> 0:09:19.960 who studied the Bible with passion and discipline. He spent 0:09:20.040 --> 0:09:23.400 multiple nights per week for decades visiting the sick at 0:09:23.440 --> 0:09:26.600 the local hospital, which he viewed as a core tenant 0:09:26.640 --> 0:09:28.839 of his faith. And it would also be in the 0:09:28.880 --> 0:09:32.240 early nineteen fifties, when he was in his early thirties, 0:09:32.559 --> 0:09:35.360 that he got his first bird dogs in the beginning 0:09:35.520 --> 0:09:39.040 of the American glory days of quail. One of his 0:09:39.080 --> 0:09:42.720 first dogs was named Elvis. I bet if you track back, 0:09:42.760 --> 0:09:46.280 you'd find somebody in your bird hunting lineage that had 0:09:46.280 --> 0:09:49.720 a dog named Elvis. It would still be thirty five 0:09:49.840 --> 0:09:53.320 years before I'd ever hunt with Paps. But during this 0:09:53.440 --> 0:09:56.360 time he went to a training seminar in Oklahoma put 0:09:56.400 --> 0:09:59.720 on by Delmer Smith and perhaps became a master bird 0:09:59.760 --> 0:10:04.840 dog trainer, training small numbers of dogs, always registered pointers 0:10:04.840 --> 0:10:08.600 in English setters, always having dogs and training, rarely selling 0:10:08.640 --> 0:10:11.440 a dog, but giving them away to the right people. 0:10:12.760 --> 0:10:15.160 To say that bird hunting and dog training was his 0:10:15.240 --> 0:10:19.600 hobby would be a slap in the face of his discipline, seriousness, 0:10:19.600 --> 0:10:22.800 and passion. It was a lifestyle it was part of 0:10:22.800 --> 0:10:27.040 who he was. My first memories of hunting with Paps 0:10:27.040 --> 0:10:29.760 were in the late nineteen eighties. I was under ten 0:10:29.840 --> 0:10:32.800 years old and he was in his late sixties. To 0:10:32.880 --> 0:10:34.920 go with him was a big deal, maybe even a 0:10:34.960 --> 0:10:38.880 little bit risky, not because he was unsafe, but because 0:10:38.920 --> 0:10:41.240 he was known to walk grown men to death in 0:10:41.240 --> 0:10:44.200 his daylight till dark death marches in search of birds, 0:10:44.800 --> 0:10:48.040 and many well meaning hunting companions were lost to the cold, 0:10:48.440 --> 0:10:51.960 to the heat, or just playing weariness of heart, following 0:10:52.080 --> 0:10:53.760 who many of them called Brother Nukele. 0:10:54.440 --> 0:10:55.640 Few people could hang. 0:10:55.480 --> 0:10:57.920 With Paths, and you knew it was cold when he 0:10:57.960 --> 0:11:00.720 broke out his long underwear. It was like he was 0:11:00.760 --> 0:11:04.800 made of tempered steel and rawhide. As a young boy 0:11:04.880 --> 0:11:08.120 on that first hunt, rising what seemed like weeks before daylight, 0:11:08.640 --> 0:11:12.400 my grandmother would make us sausage, biscuits, gravy, and eggs, 0:11:12.400 --> 0:11:14.480 and it was here that Paps tutored me and the 0:11:14.559 --> 0:11:18.400 finer things. If a man raised in depression era Arkansas, 0:11:19.160 --> 0:11:21.959 sorgum molasses mixed with butter and put on a biscuit 0:11:22.040 --> 0:11:25.280 with a tall glass of buttermilk was his filet mignon. 0:11:26.280 --> 0:11:30.520 The molasses I loved the buttermilk I could not tolerate. 0:11:32.040 --> 0:11:35.440 My grandmother would make us blowney sandwiches on whitebread wrapped 0:11:35.440 --> 0:11:38.760 in aluminum foil for our lunch. She even wrapped our 0:11:38.880 --> 0:11:42.640 cokes and foil too, which I never quite understood, but 0:11:42.760 --> 0:11:46.120 somehow I knew it meant that she loved us. He 0:11:46.200 --> 0:11:48.640 took me Honting, near the home place of Robert Nukem, 0:11:48.920 --> 0:11:52.160 his grandfather, which the house then was nothing more than 0:11:52.160 --> 0:11:56.199 a falling down oakombe built on rock pillars. I wish 0:11:56.240 --> 0:11:59.240 I could remember what Paps told me about Robert. He 0:11:59.320 --> 0:12:02.840 said something about him. It was minimal, but it summed 0:12:02.920 --> 0:12:06.000 up the man's life in a sentence. I don't remember 0:12:06.040 --> 0:12:09.520 what he said, but it planted in me in awareness 0:12:09.679 --> 0:12:12.800 the brevity of man's existence. Who lives at the mercy 0:12:12.880 --> 0:12:17.319 of the voracious appetite of time, rolling over men, reducing 0:12:17.360 --> 0:12:21.680 them to dust in their life into a sentence. To 0:12:21.720 --> 0:12:24.200 this day, I rarely passed an old, falling down home 0:12:24.240 --> 0:12:27.559 without thinking about the people that lived there, often wondering 0:12:27.760 --> 0:12:32.440 if anyone even remembers their names. Perhaps remembered Roberts though. 0:12:33.600 --> 0:12:37.120 As we hunted, we walked sage grass covered cattle fields 0:12:37.520 --> 0:12:40.240 and I followed Paps in his army green briar briches 0:12:40.679 --> 0:12:43.400 while he shouted commands to a long legged liver spot 0:12:43.440 --> 0:12:46.240 porter that would have curled the hair of a lesser dog. 0:12:47.160 --> 0:12:50.960 Later in my life, at Paaps's funeral, a family friend 0:12:51.240 --> 0:12:53.480 told me that he never knew how a man so 0:12:53.679 --> 0:12:58.319 kind could scold a bird dog so harshly. He demanded performance. 0:12:59.200 --> 0:13:01.520 Perhaps told me that a dog's name should be one 0:13:01.559 --> 0:13:06.040 syllable and project from the chest, not the mouth. Acceptable 0:13:06.120 --> 0:13:11.440 names were like Buck, or Goldie or Elvis. I never 0:13:11.480 --> 0:13:15.520 fully understood what an unacceptable name would be, and sometimes 0:13:15.559 --> 0:13:18.319 I felt like some of his names had two syllables, 0:13:18.520 --> 0:13:21.520 at least one and a half. At lunch, we sat 0:13:21.559 --> 0:13:23.640 on the tailgate of his red two wheel drive S 0:13:23.679 --> 0:13:25.599 ten with the wooden dog box in the back, and 0:13:25.760 --> 0:13:28.160 ate our lunch. I never saw the man eat a 0:13:28.160 --> 0:13:30.840 blowney sandwich without laughing out loud as he called it 0:13:30.880 --> 0:13:33.840 preacher's ham. It was a hat tip to the life 0:13:33.840 --> 0:13:37.480 of poverty of a poor country preacher. The humor of 0:13:37.520 --> 0:13:40.160 the joke never lost its luster to him, and he 0:13:40.240 --> 0:13:43.560 said it to me each time, laughing out loud, as 0:13:43.600 --> 0:13:46.400 if he nor I had ever heard the joke before. 0:13:47.240 --> 0:13:50.400 On that first hunt, we didn't find any quail, but 0:13:50.480 --> 0:13:52.920 I'll never forget picking up out of the dirt of 0:13:52.960 --> 0:13:58.320 a cattle trail a beautiful, white, fully intact stone point 0:13:58.880 --> 0:14:03.040 an arrahead. The images frozen in my mind in perpetuity. 0:14:03.760 --> 0:14:05.959 I wouldn't have realized it, but this would be the 0:14:05.960 --> 0:14:09.280 moment that my fascination with the deep antiquity of human 0:14:09.400 --> 0:14:12.680 hunting in North America started, which carries on in my 0:14:12.840 --> 0:14:30.920 work today on the Bear Grease podcast. We lived about 0:14:30.920 --> 0:14:32.840 an hour and a half from Paps, but he would 0:14:32.840 --> 0:14:35.160 come to Mina to hunt with Dad and I and 0:14:35.240 --> 0:14:37.920 of all the grandkids. He noticed in me in interest 0:14:37.960 --> 0:14:40.320 in bird hunting, and when I was in the sixth 0:14:40.320 --> 0:14:43.600 grade in nineteen ninety two, he gave me something that 0:14:43.720 --> 0:14:46.720 impacts my life to this day. There was a dog 0:14:46.800 --> 0:14:50.600 named Lucy. She was a fully trained registered English center. 0:14:50.920 --> 0:14:53.520 She was three years old, white with a black head, 0:14:53.920 --> 0:14:56.760 and had been through the lew And Neukom training Academy. 0:14:57.480 --> 0:14:59.560 The beauty of where we lived was that we had 0:14:59.600 --> 0:15:02.360 access twenty seven acres behind our house that was a 0:15:02.400 --> 0:15:06.120 grown up field dissected by multiple grown up fence lines 0:15:06.400 --> 0:15:10.000 that oddly held multiple covees of quail. It was kind 0:15:10.000 --> 0:15:13.400 of an anomaly, maybe even a microcosm of the glory 0:15:13.520 --> 0:15:14.440 days of quail. 0:15:14.840 --> 0:15:16.840 But I couldn't hunt it. I just had permission to 0:15:16.920 --> 0:15:17.240 roam it. 0:15:18.000 --> 0:15:21.880 Roam it we did between nineteen ninety two and nineteen 0:15:21.960 --> 0:15:25.560 ninety six. They're telling how many different times we pointed 0:15:25.600 --> 0:15:29.080 and flushed those covees, and then we'd go after the singles. 0:15:29.560 --> 0:15:32.480 Those quail had nightmares about Lucy and I. We kept 0:15:32.480 --> 0:15:35.520 them on the run, but never killed a single one. 0:15:35.640 --> 0:15:37.720 It was during this time that Paps gave me a 0:15:37.720 --> 0:15:40.760 book on the Delmer Smith method of training, which I 0:15:40.840 --> 0:15:43.640 read cover to cover. I got a long check cord 0:15:43.680 --> 0:15:46.880 with a brass buckle, and I still used this foundational 0:15:46.960 --> 0:15:50.680 knowledge of animal training on my mules, squirrel dogs, and 0:15:50.800 --> 0:15:59.960 coon dogs today. Soon, perhaps this confidence in me grew, 0:16:00.400 --> 0:16:03.240 and he gave me another dog, a black handed pointer 0:16:03.360 --> 0:16:06.240 puppy named Nick, from the bloodlines of a dog called 0:16:06.280 --> 0:16:09.400 Fiddler's Ace. I didn't know anything about the dog, but 0:16:09.480 --> 0:16:12.760 he sounded really good. The goal was for me to 0:16:12.920 --> 0:16:17.720 train Nick myself, and I tried, but like so many 0:16:17.800 --> 0:16:22.640 things in life, moments are fleeting and dreams died easier 0:16:22.680 --> 0:16:25.840 than they realized, and after four years of bird hunting, 0:16:26.120 --> 0:16:30.400 I gave Lucy and Nick back to Paps. Always felt 0:16:30.400 --> 0:16:32.760 like I failed the old man and my efforts with 0:16:32.840 --> 0:16:35.560 the bird dogs, and I felt bad about it, but 0:16:35.600 --> 0:16:38.640 I never picked up that it bothered him. He knew 0:16:38.640 --> 0:16:42.200 it was like fighting an incoming tide. There just weren't 0:16:42.240 --> 0:16:47.800 any birds. Without birds, people didn't need bird dogs. I 0:16:47.840 --> 0:16:50.480 wish so badly Paps could see what's happening today in 0:16:50.560 --> 0:16:53.680 quail conservation, and how in many parts of the country 0:16:54.120 --> 0:16:57.640 wild quail are coming back due to the efforts of 0:16:58.240 --> 0:17:04.080 many people in organications like twel Forever. After I gave 0:17:04.119 --> 0:17:07.280 back the dogs to Paps, we still had a yearly hunt. 0:17:08.080 --> 0:17:12.919 I only remember actually finding birds one time. It was 0:17:13.000 --> 0:17:17.520 February nineteen ninety six or nineteen ninety seven. I was 0:17:17.560 --> 0:17:21.160 around seventeen and perhaps was seventy seven, and we turned 0:17:21.160 --> 0:17:24.919 Loose's dog Goldie, out on a small logging road that 0:17:25.040 --> 0:17:28.600 divided a clear cut on public land in southwest Arkansas, 0:17:28.720 --> 0:17:30.800 where my dad had flushed a big covey of quail. 0:17:31.760 --> 0:17:34.240 The little butterscotch setter had hunted in front of the 0:17:34.240 --> 0:17:37.440 truck for less than a quarter mile before her run 0:17:37.520 --> 0:17:41.320 turned to a catwalk and her nose lowered. Her tail 0:17:41.400 --> 0:17:45.800 went from making big circles to small circles to a 0:17:45.960 --> 0:17:48.919 staunch as an O Sage fence post as she'd locked 0:17:48.960 --> 0:17:52.439 down on point, like her body had been suddenly filled 0:17:52.440 --> 0:17:55.919 with concrete. I'm not sure who was more surprised, me, 0:17:56.480 --> 0:18:00.560 Paps or Goldie. We jumped from the truck and scrambled 0:18:00.560 --> 0:18:04.560 to load our guns. Paps's voice changed octaves and he 0:18:04.760 --> 0:18:08.480 whispered as he gave me precise instructions on how to 0:18:08.520 --> 0:18:12.359 approach the pointed dog. I wished his instructions from my 0:18:12.520 --> 0:18:15.960 life had been a straightforward I used to ask him 0:18:16.040 --> 0:18:19.119 questions I was afraid to ask my dad, like is 0:18:19.160 --> 0:18:22.800 it okay to chew tobacco? I dabbled with that dirty 0:18:22.880 --> 0:18:26.960 voodoo for a few years, but his non confrontational wisdom 0:18:27.080 --> 0:18:32.439 to quote stay away from it eventually took lifelong route. 0:18:32.480 --> 0:18:35.000 He always used to tell me that God will lead 0:18:35.080 --> 0:18:38.280 you step by step, Clay, just like he did me. 0:18:39.480 --> 0:18:42.520 To this day, I still take comfort in those words, 0:18:43.200 --> 0:18:46.959 and I say the same thing to my kids. And 0:18:47.000 --> 0:18:49.760 I haven't forgotten that Goldie is on point. But I 0:18:49.840 --> 0:18:52.080 just want to tell you one more story that showed 0:18:52.200 --> 0:18:56.440 Paps's input into my life. He told me the same 0:18:56.480 --> 0:18:59.920 story on multiple occasions that was such a high octane 0:19:00.200 --> 0:19:03.880 Solomon like parable that as an adult, I've wondered if 0:19:03.920 --> 0:19:06.800 he actually did this or if this was an old 0:19:06.840 --> 0:19:08.919 story told by a lot of different people that he 0:19:09.000 --> 0:19:12.000 just repeated to me. But I've never heard this story 0:19:12.040 --> 0:19:15.240 anywhere else, and I've come to the conclusion that he 0:19:15.480 --> 0:19:18.399 was the one that actually did this. The story is 0:19:18.440 --> 0:19:21.919 about two roosters, one old and one young, that he 0:19:22.000 --> 0:19:23.840 had on the farm when he was a kid. The 0:19:23.920 --> 0:19:27.439 older white rooster was the top dog and literally ruled 0:19:27.480 --> 0:19:31.480 the roost, dominating the younger but bigger rooster that was 0:19:31.560 --> 0:19:34.560 daily put in his place by coming in runner up 0:19:34.760 --> 0:19:39.880 during the pair's daily spur and contest. Young Lewin always 0:19:39.880 --> 0:19:42.440 thought that the young rooster could probably whip the old one, 0:19:42.640 --> 0:19:45.040 but he just didn't know that he could. One day, 0:19:45.080 --> 0:19:48.360 perhaps decided to put his theory to the test, so 0:19:48.400 --> 0:19:51.840 he caught the old white rooster and covered him in 0:19:52.000 --> 0:19:57.040 black soot, changing his color temporarily to charcoal gray, making 0:19:57.080 --> 0:20:01.720 him unrecognizable to the young rooster. Perhaps then pitched the 0:20:01.800 --> 0:20:05.080 old rooster back into the chicken yard, and a young rooster, 0:20:05.480 --> 0:20:08.520 not recognizing him and believing it was a new rooster, 0:20:09.080 --> 0:20:12.640 promptly came over and in a whizbang tussle of feathers, 0:20:12.720 --> 0:20:16.359 spurs and clucks, the young one whipped the old one 0:20:16.600 --> 0:20:20.320 with ease. The old rooster must have been in shock 0:20:20.359 --> 0:20:24.120 at the youngster's confidence, and as the soot slowly faded 0:20:24.200 --> 0:20:28.280 back to white, the young rooster remained dominant the pair's 0:20:28.680 --> 0:20:34.000 entire life. Like Solomon passing the sluggard's field and noting 0:20:34.040 --> 0:20:37.760 the work ethic of the ants, perhaps his parable almost 0:20:37.800 --> 0:20:42.159 didn't need explanation. It's clear that our biggest enemy is 0:20:42.200 --> 0:20:45.560 often our own self confidence, and much of life is 0:20:45.600 --> 0:20:53.639 simply an exercise in renewing our minds. This I have 0:20:53.800 --> 0:20:57.520 never forgotten, and I've also not forgotten that I'm telling 0:20:57.560 --> 0:21:00.399 you a story about us walking up on a covey 0:21:00.400 --> 0:21:04.680 of birds. He always told me, on the covey rise 0:21:04.800 --> 0:21:08.040 to pick out one single bird and block it out 0:21:08.080 --> 0:21:11.040 with the end of the gun barrel and flow through it. 0:21:11.080 --> 0:21:14.880 Don't stop as you squeeze the trigger, and when it falls, 0:21:15.240 --> 0:21:18.280 just move on to the next one. I think that's 0:21:18.280 --> 0:21:21.400 what he learned on that gunship in World War Two. 0:21:23.320 --> 0:21:26.760 We eased forward, Paps with his bret of twelve gauge 0:21:26.760 --> 0:21:29.040 and me with the Remington eleven hundred and twenty gauge, 0:21:29.640 --> 0:21:34.840 ready for the explosion. Just as I passed Goldie on 0:21:34.920 --> 0:21:37.200 my left, and perhaps was just on the other side 0:21:37.200 --> 0:21:40.760 of Goldie, a sound like someone opening a bottle with 0:21:40.800 --> 0:21:44.000 the hoof beats of one hundred horses erupted. As the 0:21:44.080 --> 0:21:47.960 covey rose. At least twelve birds got up before us. 0:21:48.560 --> 0:21:53.840 Pap shot twice. I shot three times, so five shots 0:21:53.880 --> 0:21:59.520 total were fired and three birds fell. In all these years. 0:22:00.080 --> 0:22:04.640 It was the only covey we'd ever found while hunting together. 0:22:05.760 --> 0:22:10.480 But Paps didn't take credit for hitting any of the birds, 0:22:10.520 --> 0:22:13.679 Just like the enemy planes in World War Two, he 0:22:13.800 --> 0:22:17.840 insisted that I'd killed all three, which I'm pretty sure 0:22:18.440 --> 0:22:19.840 to this day that I didn't. 0:22:19.960 --> 0:22:20.959 I honestly don't know. 0:22:22.200 --> 0:22:24.240 I don't know if he just wanted to believe that 0:22:24.359 --> 0:22:29.000 his grandson had knocked down a triple on wild birds 0:22:29.560 --> 0:22:33.280 really on one of his only covey rises. Five or 0:22:33.320 --> 0:22:36.359 six years later, in two thousand and two, when Perhaps 0:22:36.480 --> 0:22:39.080 was eighty three years old, we went back to the 0:22:39.119 --> 0:22:43.280 same block of public land. Perhaps was still hunting Goldie, 0:22:43.600 --> 0:22:46.879 now in the final leg of her life, but we 0:22:46.920 --> 0:22:49.520 all kind of knew it was Perhaps's final leg. 0:22:49.600 --> 0:22:50.159 Two. 0:22:50.840 --> 0:22:53.840 We didn't find any birds that day. As we walked 0:22:53.840 --> 0:22:56.480 through a clearing, I noticed the shed of a white 0:22:56.520 --> 0:22:59.520 tailed deer lying on the ground and kind of like 0:22:59.560 --> 0:23:03.320 that stone point. I picked it up, showed it to Paps, 0:23:03.800 --> 0:23:07.439 and I took the horn home. Using the sharping marker, 0:23:07.520 --> 0:23:11.200 I wrote on it Clay and Paps Nucomb Bird Hunt 0:23:11.680 --> 0:23:14.560 two thousand and two. I wouldn't have known it at 0:23:14.600 --> 0:23:17.560 the time, but that would be the last time that 0:23:17.640 --> 0:23:20.320 I hunted with him, and it would be the beginning 0:23:20.560 --> 0:23:25.880 of the end of Paps's hunting. My first cousin, Greg Sheets, 0:23:25.920 --> 0:23:28.640 lived close to Paps, and not long after I found 0:23:28.720 --> 0:23:33.040 that shed horn. While driving to work, Greg noticed Paps's 0:23:33.200 --> 0:23:35.840 s ten pulled off the side of the road near 0:23:35.880 --> 0:23:39.000 an overgrown field that he often hunted, and Greg passed 0:23:39.000 --> 0:23:42.000 all the time. Seeing passed his truck there was normal, 0:23:42.280 --> 0:23:45.320 but what caught his eye was that Goldie was by 0:23:45.359 --> 0:23:47.359 the truck with no Paps. 0:23:47.960 --> 0:23:49.320 It was a hot day. 0:23:49.480 --> 0:23:53.880 And Greg, slightly alarmed, turned his truck around and got out, 0:23:54.520 --> 0:23:58.480 called for Paps, and he said that Goldie took off 0:23:58.640 --> 0:24:02.920 out into the brush. Greg followed Goldie, who led him 0:24:03.000 --> 0:24:06.800 straight to a briar thicket where Perhaps was tangled to 0:24:06.880 --> 0:24:10.880 the point that he couldn't move. The day was heating up, 0:24:11.440 --> 0:24:14.639 and Greg said that Perhaps was coherent, but it looked 0:24:14.680 --> 0:24:18.240 like he'd been there for several hours of fighting briars, 0:24:19.119 --> 0:24:20.400 and he just sat down. 0:24:21.080 --> 0:24:23.959 He just couldn't fight him anymore and he was just 0:24:24.240 --> 0:24:25.240 awaiting his fate. 0:24:26.520 --> 0:24:29.960 Greg went in and cut him out, got Perhaps home 0:24:30.000 --> 0:24:33.920 and safe. I'm grateful that Greg turned around that day, 0:24:34.800 --> 0:24:38.119