Tag: Sporting Life

Sporting Life

SPORTING LIFE

Restoring the Soul

Pausing for a solitary side trip

By Tom Bryant

It’s ironic that three days before Thanksgiving in 2024, a time of celebration and great revelry, I was told that I almost died.

It all started in July of that year. Now I’m pretty much a healthy, in-good-shape guy. Always have been from early childhood to what is often laughingly referred to in today’s society as geezerhood. Played sports in high school and college, joined the Marines in a fit of finding myself. I found myself alright. The Marine Corps taught me in a short time to look after my body. I’ve fished and hunted and camped from Florida to Alaska always in good condition and good humor. I take a multivitamin and a 10-milligram Simvastatin daily, and that’s the extent of my pills.

So what happened? Coming home from the beach one Sunday morning, I noticed a recurring sharp pain in my lower abdomen. It went away and I thought no more about it. I had my annual physical coming up in a week or so, and I figured I’d tell the doctor about it then.

After several tests, my local physician referred me to the urology department at First Health. The results from an exploratory surgical operation weren’t that good. Linda, my bride, was there with me in the recovery room and she told me tearfully that I had cancer.

There. Those three magic words that will turn anyone’s world upside down. “You Have Cancer.”

I remember I was kind of dopey recovering from the anesthesia, and the first thing that entered my mind was, “This is gonna play hell with early fall fishing.”

Later, as the reality of the situation began to sink in, I was upset that not only was I in for a bad time, but Linda was going to have to suffer with me. I remembered some of the stages that a new cancer patient goes through: fear, anxiety, sadness, anger. Sure, I had some of those feelings but I made up my mind that just like many other adventures in my life, I was gonna consider this another hazardous occurrence, a learning experience, and play it to the hilt.

The folks at First Health referred me to the specialists at Duke, and I was off and running. Linda and I made appointments to meet with the recommended oncologist and surgeon bright and early on a Tuesday morning in August. I remember the day because we cancelled a beach trip scheduled for that week.

The people at Duke have a cancer center bigger than any health facility I’ve ever been in. The entire building, all five floors, is dedicated to cancer patients, and from the valet folks who park your car to the individuals in charge of information who point you in the right direction, we never felt out of place.

We met with the oncologist first, and she laid out a program of chemotherapy, about two months’ worth, that would take place before the surgery. We then met with the surgeon who explained the procedure and what I could expect during the recovery period. When I asked what would happen if I decided to let nature take its course, he simply replied, “You’ll have about nine months.”

We made arrangements and appointments, going along with all the recommendations from the experts, collected our car from valet parking and headed home.

“We’ve got a couple weeks before the chemo stuff starts. What say we go to the beach?” I asked Linda as I dodged in and out of the breakneck drivers who seem to hang around the high-speed highways.

“I vote for that,” she replied. I could tell that our recent experience with the doctors was a lot for her to take in. Me too.

The beach was wonderful. I didn’t even carry fishing equipment, and we left the little Airstream at home. All we did was hang out, reminisce about old times, and enjoy good seafood. We stayed at one of our favorite hotels right on the beach. We talked and talked and talked. Always in the back of our minds was the upcoming ordeal and the best way to handle it.

My brother had passed away two years before from lung cancer, so we were not entering our upcoming travail totally unprepared. We knew what could happen.

Our son, Tommy, was constantly in touch, not wanting to be too far from all the decisions. By now, the word was out about my health situation and the phone started ringing off the hook — not my phone, mostly Linda’s. Family and friends wanted to know what they could do to help. I was amazed at all the good wishes that came in from friends everywhere.

In September our ordeal began. Although I didn’t have a lot of side effects, chemotherapy exhausted me. I didn’t lose all my hair but I did lose a lot of weight. The folks at Duke were amazing. Never have I met such caring people.

I had to bail from chemo right before the last infusion. It seems that the chemicals in the stuff not only kill cancer but can also destroy hearing. The oncologist said enough’s enough. The surgery was in about two weeks.

The next day I decided to ride out to the old tobacco farm that my good friend Joe Rosy owns. He lets me have access to the farm to bird hunt. The part of the land I use is about 150 acres located close to Drowning Creek. It’s where I go to restore my soul and remember what living is all about.

Usually I’ll park the Cruiser and walk, but with my energy at ebb I rolled down the windows and, at crawl speed, drove around the familiar property. There was the cut in the pines that led to where a used up sawmill once stood. Mackie, my little yellow lab jumped a pair of quail every time we went to the spot. I never did shoot — just seeing them fly was enough.

On the corner of the pine stand that Joe uses to harvest pine straw was a tall longleaf that I would sit under, waiting for the evening flight of dove. I drove on around the harvested soybeans and took the minuscule path that serves as a road between the two barns. At the end of the road, surrounded by pines, is a small field of maybe 10 acres. I got my first turkey there, hunkered down at the tree line. He was a big one, 21 pounds.

I pulled the truck up under a big white oak, took a water bottle from the cooler. I always carry a portable folding chair in the back of the Cruiser, and I decided to sit for a spell. Several years ago, I sat in this same spot on the day I carried Mackie to the vet to have her put down. She was past help, in her old age, hips gone and suffering. The vet said it was time. My dogs have always been family and that special, sad time was locked in my memory. On that day there had been a big red-tailed hawk circling the woods down close to the pond and, as I sat there kicked back, sipping water, I saw a red-tail flying in exactly the same location. Wonder if that’s the same bird, I thought. Naw, too long ago. Could be an offspring though.

In a little while, watching and taking in the peacefulness of the little farm, I became worried that Linda might be concerned, and I decided to head on back home. The big cancer operation was scheduled and our hands would be full.

As I eased out to the main road and got out to close the gate, I could still see the hawk. He was wheeling about, out over the fields now, climbing higher and higher. I watched until he was almost out of sight, then I got in the Cruiser and headed down the road toward home.

Sporting Life

SPORTING LIFE

Moonstruck

Kicking back at Mattamuskeet

By Tom Bryant

It was as if the good Lord heard we were going to get together for a weekend and decided to make it easy on a pair of outdoor geezers who sometimes, at the ripe old age they’re enduring, bite off a little more than they can chew. It was a duck hunting trip for early migrating teal that drew old friends together for the first time in a while.

We booked a hunt at our favorite waterfowl hunting spot, Mattamuskeet, where when the weather is right and the fall flight is at its peak, the blue wing teal will knock your hat off if you aren’t careful and are leaning just right.

We go back a ways, Bubba and me. We started hunting — duck hunting, that is — when we were still frisky and would climb over any obstacle rather than walk around it just to prove something. Neither of us can remember what we were trying to prove, and besides, who would even care? Experience and age educate, but sometimes they’re harsh teachers.

As usual, I got to the lodge first. Just as I was finishing up hauling groceries to the kitchen, my cellphone began its annoying chirping. It took me a bit to find it, as I had stored the blame thing in a bag between the crunchy bread and tonic water.

“Hey Bubba, where are you?”

“I’m just leaving Little Washington. Should be there a little past dark, if I can keep this thing on the road. I’ve got good news and bad news. Whatcha wanna hear first?”

“Give me whatever first. Most of the time your good news is bad news anyway.”

“I threw my back out this morning hauling a blasted flooded canoe out of the pond. I had to take three or four Advil just so I could drive. There ain’t no way I’m gonna be able to hunt tomorrow. You need to call Willard and tell him. You can hunt. There’s nothing wrong with your back.”

Willard and his father had long been guides on the Pamlico, and we’ve been hunting and fishing with him for years.

“No, man. I’m not gonna hunt without you. Who would listen to my wonderful stories?”

“Yeah, I know. Last time Willard threatened to leave us in the blind after hearing your stories for the 97th time.”

“I’ll call him. You need to come on. I picked up some Rose Bay oysters. I’m gonna start steaming them as soon as I take care of Willard.”

“Hey, now, don’t you eat all of ’em. I’ll be there as soon as I can.”

Willard was his usual gracious self and said that he would just move our deposit to a later date in the season and not charge us extra. He wanted to go fishing anyway. The blues were running, and if there’s anything Willard likes better than duck hunting, it’s fishing.

We were supposed to have a full moon that evening. “Not good for duck hunting,” Willard would say. “The ducks will move and feed with the light of the moon. You might as well stay home.”

I finished unloading all the groceries and decided to fire up the grill to be ready when Bubba arrived. There’s a swing on the deck under the living area. That’s where the grill is located so everything’s handy. I turned on my battery-powered lantern, lit a couple of candles and put them on the table beside the grill. Then I got the oysters ready to steam when Bubba arrived.

The moon was just beginning to rise from the Pamlico. As usual, it was a spectacular sight. I turned off the lantern, blew out the candles and kicked back in the swing. I’ve never seen two moon rises exactly the same. Each one seems to have its own character. For whatever reason, the most memorable I’ve had the great good fortune to witness have occurred over water.

There was an evening nightfall show I witnessed on Hyco Lake after a day duck hunting. Paddle, my little yellow Lab, and I were in my minuscule duck skiff skimming across the lake at full throttle. We were in a hurry, hoping to get back to the landing before black dark. As I skittered out of the small opening where we had been hunting and turned west, I was staring right into a dazzling sunset. But even more breathtaking was a sensational full moon rising in the east right behind us. Paddle and I were caught between sunset and moonrise, a sight I’ve only witnessed once and may never see again.

I’ve noticed in all my travels across this great country of ours that the moon seems to be different in certain regions. On our first big camping trip, we pulled our compact 19-foot Airstream from Southern Pines to Fairbanks, Alaska. We were gone a little over two months and drove 11,000 miles taking in the scenery, and sunrises and moonrises, along the way. Since we were in Alaska during June and July, when it hardly even gets dark, the moon we saw was just a sliver of a waning moon a time or two, and that was it.

Just the opposite in Montana. They call it the Big Sky Country for a reason. Camped at a little parking lot of a campground right outside Shelby, preparing to enter Canada the next morning, we witnessed a brilliant golden, luminescent moonrise over the horizon. It was so big and seemed so close to the ground, it was as if it we could touch it. I had the strangest feeling that I was witnessing one of God’s great undertakings that was put there just for Linda and me.

I could see the headlights of Bubba’s truck as he wheeled in off the main road and headed down the long drive to the cabin. When he pulled up right behind the lodge, I walked out to help him unload. He was slow getting out of his truck.

“Hey Bubba, how you moving?”

“Slow, son. Mighty slow. My back is giving me a fit. But I plan on fixing it with a good slug of Scotch and some of those oysters you’ve got laid out on that table. Some moon, huh?”

“Yep, a real harvest moon. Come on, I’ll help you unload and we’ll have some libation.”

In no time, we stowed all of Bubba’s gear in the second bedroom, fixed ourselves drinks, and steamed a bunch of oysters, saving some for the second night. Bubba had brought along a couple of deer tenderloin steaks but, full of oysters, we were in no hurry to cook.

We relaxed on the deck under the cabin, Bubba in the swing and me kicked back in a cushioned Adirondack chair. As usual, when we get together, stories and remember-whens dominate the conversation. This night was no different.

“That mule deer hunt we had in Utah featured a moon about like this one, don’t you think?” Bubba pointed up to our bright rising moon that was well into the sky.

“You know, Tom,” he continued softly as if the bright moon discouraged loud noises, “sort of like when we’re duck hunting — you and I have really had some adventures.”

I paused in answering, looking up at the moon.

“Yeah Bubba, that’s the truth, for sure, and I hope we have a few more ahead of us.”

He laughed and said, “Let’s start by grilling those steaks.”

2025 Department Sporting Life

Sporting Life

SPORTING LIFE

Beating the Heat

A conversation in the shade

By Tom Bryant

The sun seemed to be stuck, hanging right at the top of the tree line as if to say, “You think it’s hot now? Wait, there’s another three hours of daylight, and I’m gonna make it a smoker.”

Shadows had moved away from my shady spot at the edge of the pines, so I decided to truck it to the barn for some libation and conversation. I could see from a distance I was not alone in escaping the heat.

It was Labor Day and the opening of dove season. The usual group was invited for the festivities: a barbecue, good company and a dove shoot that opened the season for a bird hunter.

We seem to forget that early September in North Carolina sometimes rivals the middle of July in heat. But you get used to it. I remembered other dove shoot occasions when the heat was bearing down and the doves didn’t fly until that persistent sun settled a little lower behind the trees.

The boys from Slim’s put the hunt together. Boys meaning longtime customers who used Slim’s country store as a meeting spot to catch up with news from around the neighborhood.

We were hunting a field I was familiar with. Many years before, our Ducks Unlimited group had used the same acreage for our annual hunt after all the festivities celebrating DU the weekend before. The field remained basically the same, about a hundred acres of cut-over corn, maybe too big for our little group to cover, but most of us were there for the camaraderie, not necessarily to shoot doves, though we were convinced that doves were the best eating in the bird wild game repertoire.

I stopped by the truck on the way up to the barn, unloaded my shotgun, stuck it in the back and pulled out the old camp chair I keep in the rear cargo area with my cooler.

“Well, just ask Bryant,” Johnson said.

I picked out a shady spot under the tin overhang of the old tobacco barn, leaned back against the ancient log walls and said, “Ask Bryant what, old friend? You know I will reply even if I don’t know the answer. But with my plethora of knowledge, it’ll be good.”

The good old boys had a chuckle, and Johnson followed up with, “You were in the newspaper business forever, even owning one. How come they’re vanishing like ripe persimmons in the middle of possum country?”

If anything, Johnson had a way with words.

“It’s simple,” I replied. “Check out that smartphone you’ve got in your back pocket.”

“It’s in the truck. I don’t carry that fool thing with me everywhere I go.”

“Good for you, Johnson. But let’s see how many of us have that ‘fool thing’ on our person.”

Five out of the seven of us had phones. I was like Johnson. Mine was in the truck.

“Well, they’s good in emergencies, like if old Andy over there . . . ” and he pointed at Andy, who was dozing, his head lolling a bit. Andy perked up, saying, “What are y’all talking about?”

“Like I was saying,” Johnson replied. “If that old geezer over there went out to the far end of the dove field, tripped and shot himself in the foot, he could use his phone to call for help.”

“Speak for yourself,” Andy said, “And I ain’t a geezer. I’m just a little older than you, as I recall.”

“Technology,” I said, reaching in the cooler for a bottle of water. “That was the final nail in the old coffin. Your phones, your computers, and above all else, the internet ushered in the demise of newspapers as we once knew them. But . . . ” I paused for effect, “there was one other thing that shut the industry down, including the big boys. Newspapers you would have thought would be here forever. Gone. And the reason?” I stood up and grabbed a ham biscuit from the communal cooler that Johnson had put together the evening before.

“What?” Andy said. “What?”

“Money, greed and the unalterable knowledge that the business has been here forever and that’s where it will remain.”

Johnson said, “You’ve been in the newspaper business a long time. What’s your reasoning the industry failed so fast?”

“Hey, guys,” I said, “we here to shoot birds or talk about newspapers?”

“It’s still too hot. The birds aren’t gonna fly until almost sundown. Give us your opinion, Tom. I’ve been reading the N&O for nigh on 40 years, and now they don’t even publish it anymore.”

“OK, OK. Here’s what I think, the short version. I started in the business right out of the Marine Corps, just married and a student at Elon. I worked part time catching the press, then moved into the circulation department, then the advertising section as an ad executive. After a while they made me the advertising director. The years I spent doing those jobs convinced me that a medium-sized monopoly newspaper in a small metropolitan area almost has a license to print money. They were extremely successful.”

“If they were a money-making machine, why did they fall so fast?” Johnson asked.

“Just because they were so good at what they did. The big boys came in and bought them all, and then promptly killed the goose that was laying all those golden eggs. They called it economy of scale or something like that. They consolidated all the ancillary efforts to their home base, fired all the old-timers, the folks who had been working at the papers for a long time and had built up a good base of pay, and put the squeeze on expenses, so much so that to get a few more pencils or note paper, a multitude of requisitions had to be filled out in duplicate. They didn’t realize that their cost-cutting was cutting them right out of business.”

I got up, stretched and checked out the spot on the field where I would hunt. It was still a scorching afternoon although the sun was slowly dropping behind the pines. The boys were unusually quiet as I stood there looking to the tree line.

Even I was surprised that I was so depressingly down on the business I had dedicated my life to. But there was one redeeming piece of information I felt compelled to relay to the good old boys. I turned and stood there like a schoolmaster preaching to his wards.

“Boys, there is one great promising revelation I’m gonna tell you about. For the last 10 years of my career, as y’all well know, I worked for a group of people who were not afraid to spend a little money to revise the way we did business. It was led by a young fellow who worked hard and smart. He created a business plan that is now the envy of the industry. This gentleman saw exactly where newspapers were heading and decided to get off the train that was rapidly approaching the destroyed bridge. I can hear him right now saying, ‘If anyone in our community wants local news, they will come to us.’ Now, with the newspaper doing well, with four magazines in major markets and a statewide business magazine, he doesn’t rest on his laurels. He’s always planning.”

I folded up the old camp chair.

“OK, enough of the lecture. I see birds moving, and I’m gonna make for my corner. Y’all be careful, and Andy, make sure you take your phone in case you shoot yourself in the foot.”

The boys laughed and headed out in the field.

2025 Department Sporting Life

Sporting Life

SPORTING LIFE

When Tobacco Was King

And the days were hard, hot and dirty

By Tom Bryant

“Hey, you guys. Did y’all see that special last night on tobacco barns? I think it was on PBS.” Bill Burger was holding forth. As the leader of our church men’s breakfast club that meets twice monthly at the venerable Sizzlin’ Steak or Eggs restaurant, he always has a good question to bring the conversation to the forefront, with everybody usually joining in.

The everybody includes seven or eight guys, or geezers if you will, with most of us in our 80s pushing forward, hoping to hit 90.

My ears perked up at Bill’s question because tobacco played a huge part in my formative years.

My grandfather was a big tobacco farmer in the early days. Early meaning when tobacco was king on most farms in the South. In my pre-teen years, I would spend a lot of each summer on the farm in South Carolina. Then, everything rotated around the tobacco crop. A labor-intensive cultivation, when planting time came, it was all hands on deck.

It was fun listening to the guys around the breakfast table talk about their experiences with tobacco. Bill Dixon, a retired Air Force colonel, said, “What about tobacco barns? I grew up near Wilson, the tobacco capital of the country. I know tobacco farms and barns.”

“Well,” Berger replied, “the TV report said that a lot of folks are remodeling the old barns into new houses. But since tobacco farming has gone away, there are not many barns left.”

It got me thinking about tobacco, my Grandad’s farm, and my education as a hunter and fisherman. All began right there in the swamps and Lowcountry of South Carolina. First, it was the acres of green tobacco, the money crop, special to the South, which brought wealth back to farms and enabled my outdoor learning.

Most folks who have hands-on experience with the harvesting of tobacco agree on one thing: It’s a hard, hot, dirty, intensive period of farming that requires constant attention. In those days, there was no room for error or slackness.

Bill Hamel, sitting right across from me, said, “Man, when harvest time came, it was everybody working, even the women and children. Nobody could sit at home. The ladies did the tying of the tobacco to the sticks, and then the sticks were hung in the barn where the curing took place.”

“Yeah,” Dixon said. “Once the fire was started, constant care was required to keep heat at a certain temperature necessary for curing. Many barns went up in smoke because of a fire stoker falling asleep.”

I was more an observer than a worker during harvest season, although Granddad did let me get dirty, literally, trying different jobs involved with bringing in the tobacco. A day of priming tobacco will make a person wonder if he will ever get clean again. Priming the stalks means breaking the leaves off the bottom of the stalk, leaving the rest to ripen further. There’s a real art to it, and after a day of back-breaking, dirty work, I decided I needed to do something else to help lighten the load. So, I asked if I could drive the sled pulled by Peanut, one of the farm mules.

Now a tobacco sled is about 16 feet long and 3 feet wide, with high sides and runners underneath. The sled fits perfectly in the tobacco row and holds all the leaves put there by the primers. When full, the sled is pulled to the barn by the mule, under the direction of the handler. Then the leaves are ready to be tied on tobacco sticks and hung in the rafters to cure.

When I asked Granddad about driving one of the sleds, he hesitated but then said, “OK, you can handle Peanut, but get one of the boys to make a couple of runs with you to make sure Peanut is doing right.”

One of the boys was Beau-weevil, the son of one of the tenant farmers who lived on the farm. I don’t know how he got his nickname, but he lived up to it. He was excited about showing me the ropes of mule driving because it got him away from priming for a bit. I also think Beau-weevil had a little evil in his heart. When I asked him about any peculiar traits ol’ Peanut might have, he said, “Naw man, he’s as reliable as an old dog. You just tell him what to do.”

He failed to tell me that you had better be on the way to the barn when sundown came, because Peanut was gonna go that way, like it or not. And worse than that, if it meant crossing a few rows of tobacco, so be it. Peanut knew when it was quitting time.

As a result, I ruined a few stalks of tobacco, but not enough to bother Grandad. He did say a few words to Beau after the fact, and I relished that.

My favorite time of tobacco season was July. The crop was in the ground and as Grandad said, “There’s not much more for us to do around here, son. We’ll leave the growing to the good Lord and let’s us go fishing. You run down to the tobacco patch right across from the barn and pick us a mess of tobacco worms. I’ll check out the catalpa trees and get some worms off them.”

Tobacco and catalpa worms were great fish lures. My Uncle Tom showed me how to turn a tobacco worm inside out to make it more attractive to a big bream. I’ll admit I really didn’t use that bit of advice, especially after eating a sardine sandwich. I was a straight worm-to-hook guy. And there’s no telling how many redbreast fish I hauled out of that fast flowing river using the worms for bait. “We’ll get Grandma to rustle us up some groceries, and we’ll be to the river by nightfall,” he said.

Now Granddad had a river cabin on the Little Pee Dee River. Not much as a cabin goes, just one room with bunk beds on one side and a corner, more or less, dedicated as a kitchen. An ancient sink dumped directly outside the cabin. And whatever water we had for washing dishes and ourselves we hauled from the artesian well located close to the river. The boats were pulled up on shore and chained to cypress trees to keep them away from wandering thieves and summertime floods after thunderstorm downpours.

We would usually be there for about a week, then Grandad would get a little antsy about seeing how the crops
were doing.

“Get a good night’s sleep, son. It’s back to the real world tomorrow,” he’d say. “We got to leave some fish in this old river for the next time.”

I was reading an article recently in SC Farming, a magazine put out by the South Carolina Farm Bureau, and a statistic in the story caught my attention: in 1987 there were 90,000 tobacco farms in the country; in 2022 the number had dropped to 3,000.

Tobacco farming has gone away, especially the way my grandfather did it, but it’s as fresh in my mind as if it happened yesterday. Peanut, the mule, my nemesis, has long been dead and buried close to the fields where he toiled for so many years. I haven’t touched a cigarette in over 40 years, can’t even stand to smell them. But they were part of my life experiences.

I can still remember going to sleep on the cot in the screened-in sleeping porch of the ancient farmhouse after a blistering hot day in the fields, listening to the night sounds as a barred owl called down close to the barn where Peanut rested. And I would think about the river and the big bass that got away and wonder what tomorrow would bring and if it could possibly get any better.

2025 Department Sporting Life

Sporting Life

SPORTING LIFE

Treasured Memories

Old companions can be the best medicine

By Tom Bryant

“The storehouse of our memories is like an unused room in which lay aside the odds and ends of many treasured things.”
— Roland Clark, Gunner’s Dawn

For the last several months a debilitating illness seemed to dominate all my thinking. It felt as if it had been an interminable time since I had roamed the woods and streams hunting and fishing. The calendar that Linda, my bride, kept of assorted obligations was filled with doctor appointments. My life was centered around pills and stethoscopes.

It was a depressing time. So what to do?

“Quit whining,” I told myself. “Head to the woods. That’ll make things better, or at least improve your outlook.”

I hollered to Linda, who was in the laundry room putting on a load of wash, “Hey, Babe, I’m gonna ride down to the farm and check things out.”

It had been several months since I had been to “the farm,” as I call the old tobacco workings to which my friend Joe Rosy lets me have access. It’s a wonderful corner of the Drowning Creek swamp area, teeming with deer, doves and turkeys. Back toward the swamp, there’s a beaver dam, and wood ducks live, nest and enjoy a habitat that is hard to find in our so-called modern world.

“You be careful,” Linda responded. “Take your phone.”

“OK,” I replied. “I’ll be back a little after dark.”

I grabbed my hunting bag, a battered old Orvis pack that I’ve had forever. I keep it stuffed with items I’ve learned over the years would, in a rush, come in handy — everything from a Swiss Army knife to shotgun loads of all gauges from 28 to 12. Depending on the gun I happen to be using, I’ll not run out of ammunition.

It’s a short ride down to the farm, and I usually take a little detour through Pinebluff, where I spent many happy years growing up. The old house where we lived is still there. After my father died, Mother sold it and moved to the farm in South Carolina that’s been in the family for years.

The Pinebluff house is a little worse for wear, but every time I drive by, memories come flooding back. Ironically, on this particular day, my first in weeks out of the house, just as I got to the corner, a black dog came bursting out of the pines and ran right in front of the truck.

“Smut,” I thought for a quick second of my old canine friend. But no, this dog was more like a pointer than a retriever, just with a black coat. Smut was my first dog, a curly-coated retriever, black as the ace of spades. Dad got him for me when I was in the third grade, and he became my constant companion until I went off to college. Smut was not a champion hunting dog by any means, but he had a natural instinct that helped him overcome his lack of obedience. Not his fault, more mine and my lack of knowledge about training a working dog. Our timing was perfect, though. We were both untamed when it came to the woods, and we spent many a day and night roaming that Pinebluff area of the Sandhills looking for adventure.

When Mother protested the little pup coming to live with us, complaining that she would be the one responsible for him, my father said, “A boy and a dog should grow up together.” In looking back, I can see how she loved the impish, tiny puppy almost as much as I did.

I continued on down Pinebluff Lake Road and decided to pull into the small gravel parking lot and maybe eat a snack from my gunning bag. It was good to have an appetite again. Food hadn’t meant a lot lately. I grabbed a pack of nabs and walked to the pier of the little lake where many years before I had learned to swim.

As a youngster before the town outlawed dogs in the lake, Smut and I would swim from the pier to the dam. He was more at home in the water than I was. As a matter of fact, he roamed Pinebluff and the lake area as if it was his domain, to be enjoyed at his leisure.

It was a quiet morning, and I watched a sheriff deputy’s car roll around the near curve and head toward town, and I decided to meander on to the farm. Remembering Smut brought to mind another furry best friend that lived with me during my early years of hunting — Paddle, a little female yellow Lab. I learned more about training a dog, or more to the point, acquiring the knowledge of how to train a dog, from the best teacher, Paddle herself. She was amazing and accomplished more afield in unusual situations than any animal I’ve ever known.

I thought back to a cold morning at a beaver dam. Paddle and I hoped to catch wood ducks as they came off the roost. The beaver dam was located in a little bottom about a hundred yards down a small rise. We had scouted the area the evening before when we noticed ducks winging their way back into the swamp. We pretty much had the lay of the land the next morning when we silently drove the Bronco, lights off so as to not disturb roosting ducks, down a little dirt fire break and parked under a giant white oak tree.

Frost on the broom straw crunched underfoot as I eased through the outer rings of the swamp to the beaver dam where we would set up for the hunt. Paddle, walking at heel, was anxious to go.

The swamp turned gray with early dawn as we hunkered down awaiting the morning flight. We heard the ducks as they came off the roost, and that was about it. They had flown in the opposite direction from where we were hiding.

I decided to give it 30 more minutes before heading home and to work. Just as I stood up on the narrow edge of the beaver dam, a lone wood duck came whistling over at the edge of the range of my gun. I snapped off a shot anyway, and the duck hit its after-burner and sailed on out of sight. Paddle took off after the bird and I whistled her back to heel.

“No bird, Paddle.”

She looked up at me expectantly as if I needed a good excuse for missing the duck. “It was out of range. We’ll get the next one.”

But there wasn’t another one, and after 30 more minutes, I decided to head up the hill to the truck. Just as we stepped off the beaver dam, Paddle tore off, racing toward the edge of the swamp with me shouting and whistling to get her back.

“Now where is that crazy dog going?” I thought as I hustled in the direction she had taken, concerned that we would be delayed getting home. Just as I stepped out of the tree line bordering the swamp, here came Paddle over the rise with the wood duck in her mouth, the same wood duck that I had shot at and thought I had missed. She knew somehow that I hadn’t.

It was a great morning in the woods at the farm, and my impromptu visit to Pinebluff and remembrances of the wonderful dogs that have accompanied me through life was therapeutic. I felt as if I had another lease on the days to come.

As Dick Coleman, my good friend and hunting buddy, so eloquently put it shortly after his big, rangy black Lab, Honcho, had died, “Do dogs go to heaven? Well, if they don’t, I don’t want to go either.”

2025 Department Sporting Life

Sporting Life

SPORTING LIFE

For the Record

A stack of journals and a chilly day

By Tom Bryant

It was one of those cold, gray, wet late winter days that reinforced the groundhog’s prediction of six more weeks of bad weather. I was up in the roost, the little apartment over our garage where I go to write or go through damp duck hunting gear in preparation for storing it until next season. It’s also a great place to make plans for hunting, fishing or camping trips. On this day, though, I was just sorting through some old journals that I began many years ago.

There was a little female cardinal huddled on a dogwood branch right outside the window next to my desk. If the window had been open, I could have reached out and touched the little bird. Her feathers were puffed up as if she had on a fluffy down vest. She looked in at me with one eye closed as if to say, “Man, it’s cold out here.” I watched for a couple of minutes until she flew away, and then I picked up one of my journals.

I started keeping hunting diaries, sometimes daily, sometimes weekly, back in the late ’70s. It was the same time I started a newspaper, and during the unpropitious years of the Carter recession, I was constantly trying to generate enough revenue in advertising to pay the folks working for me. One of the first journals I started was right in the middle of those tumultuous times when every work week was a struggle. One entry reads: “January 20, George came by and wanted to know how business was doing. I told him to keep his fingers crossed that I would have the bank payment next week.” George was my banker at Wachovia, before they were taken over by Wells Fargo during their own hard times. The loan was on money I had borrowed to help start the paper. Interest, 8 percent, floating. Before the loan was settled, I was paying 21 percent to my good friend George and Wachovia Bank.

I chuckled to myself. “Reminder, never borrow money to start a newspaper.” The newspaper remained viable, along with other ancillary businesses, for 17 years before it was sold and I escaped the responsibility of a weekly payroll.

The journals I started during that period mostly pertained to hunting, fishing and camping experiences, dates, weather and other observations. Brief and to the point.

The missives are stacked in the bookcase in no particular order, so I glanced briefly at the year and moved on. One thing I discovered was that my years always started in March, not January. The seasons for hunting, fishing and camping described my yearly doings. A good example: March was the planning month, a time to put away hunting gear and get ready for fishing. Spring would be turkey hunting and camping, hiking and more fishing. In the summer, July and August brought along more laid-back camping and fishing. September, October, November, December, January and February were for bird hunting, duck hunting and late fall surf fishing. Then comes March and the cycle starts again.

Some of the journals have more entries than others, and some are right eloquent in describing the events of the day, such as “Shot three Canada geese while Bryan was parking the truck.” Or, “Bryan stepped in over his waders in the marsh at Hester’s. As he was falling, he hollered, ‘I’m going in.’” Hester’s duck hunting club at Mattamuskeet is one of the finest in the country. We hunted there numerous times and got a lot of fun out of Bryan Pennington, a good hunting buddy.

Another entry was set in motion by my good friend and sidekick John Vernon. It read, “When we paddled up the river to the location of the Haw River blind, it was gone.” Off and on the summer before the fall duck season, John and I had built the finest duck blind on the lake. A major rainstorm, right before legal duck shooting, washed the blind downriver and we never saw it again. We still laugh about that, vowing never to waste time on a permanent blind again.

I continued to browse, and remembering the recent snow, pulled out the one from January 2000. That was the month of what became known as the great blizzard. According to the notes I made, over 28 inches of snow fell. And that led to the first ever bulldog edition of The Pilot.

Moore County was a disaster. The snow started early that afternoon, forecast to be only 4 to 5 inches. Publisher David Woronoff and I met at lunch when the snow first started falling, and he decided to let the employees go home early before it got too deep. Little did we know that the weather people had totally missed it. That night we were smothered in sleet, ice and snow.

The writing in the journal continued, “Pine trees down everywhere, had a hard time getting to the office.” I was the only one at the paper who had a four-wheel drive vehicle, and after trying different routes, I found one that wasn’t blocked by fallen trees. David also made it, along with a few other much-needed employees. He decided to put out a bulldog edition (old newspaper jargon meaning a rare and very infrequent publication, usually before the regular printing). It detailed the disastrous results of the storm.

Our carriers couldn’t deliver the paper, so we split up the county. Dennis, our circulation director, took the area toward Pinehurst. David, Southern Pines and nearby hotels and motels. I did the same toward Aberdeen, and we hand-delivered the four-page section. I ended that episode of the journal, “No power for 6 days.”

The journals rolled right along until last year. My grandfather always told me there were no bad times in life. It just depended on how you interpreted them. I believed that until 2024. For me, there is no redeeming factor in that annum.

One bad time after another followed me that year. First, a knee replacement. A good call in the end, but recovery time was longer than I anticipated. My brother passed away after a lingering deadly disease, then I was diagnosed in late summer with a debilitating aliment that would lay me low for several months and put a crimp in my lifestyle.

It turns out that my granddad was right, though. After I changed my attitude about my sickness and began looking at it like an adventure, things started to fall in place.

I met wonderful folks, health care professionals and patients. The health care industry deserves a feature all its own, and someday I plan to write that story. The patients, what can I say? Never before have I run across such optimism and value of life.

A great example was the afternoon we were leaving after an appointment. Linda was outside the hospital getting the car from valet parking, and I was sitting on a bench inside the lobby. A wheelchair rolled up beside me with a shrunken old man holding on with some apprehension. He and I talked. He was from New Zealand and was getting ready to head home on a morning plane. He had a wonderful smile, and after a short conversation, he and his caregiver headed for the sliding door. I wished him well.

“No worries,” he said. “Me and Jesus be mates.”

On the last page at the end of the empty journal I had designated for 2024, I added the caption. “To Be Continued.”

2025 Department Sporting Life

Sporting Life

SPORTING LIFE

A Sad Sign

Reeling in an omen

By Tom Bryant

Linda and I were camped in our little Airstream at our favorite Florida winter destination, Chokoloskee Island, right below Everglades City. It had been a hectic trip. Usually we try to take our time on the adventure south, trying to avoid other snowbirds who are in a bigger hurry to escape the winter cold. But on this trip, it seemed that the migration had doubled. Camper trailers and motor homes were elbow-to-elbow at the campgrounds, and we were lucky to find sites at the transient encampments along the route.

We always stopped along the South Carolina coast to enjoy special landmarks and good seafood, especially at Pawleys Island, Georgetown, Charleston and Edisto Beach. But on this trip, like the campgrounds, the restaurants were packed and had waiting lines. It was shaping up to be a different kind of winter sojourn.

The managers of the campground and marina we call home for a couple of weeks in Chokoloskee had caught the snowballing of the snowbirds, and they had increased the number of parking sites. The problem with that was each site was smaller, or it seemed so. With the park being slam full, maybe the sites just seemed tiny. We were determined to make the best of it, though, and just enjoy the surroundings and camaraderie of the many friendly people there.

Everything was perking along nicely. We were getting used to the tight surroundings, catching a few fish, and enjoying the warm weather. We had about four days left before heading back home, so I decided to try fishing from the causeway that connected the compact island with Everglades City.

Early the next morning I decided to walk the nearly 2-mile hike to where I wanted to try my luck. Later, Linda was going into town to get a few groceries and said that she would pick me up if I was ready. The walk was uneventful. I only saw three or four cars on the causeway and thought most folks must be sleeping in.

I found a good spot under several alders that had been trimmed for shade and threw out a hooked shrimp on my bait casting rig and sorta hoped nothing would bite. The plan was to kinda kick back and use this morning to remember days gone by when I fished the bay with my grandfather. Back then, Chokoloskee was a true island, accessible only by water.

A soft warm wind was blowing out of the southwest, and ripples splashed gently on the bank. It was a contemplative time. It was like my mom told me years ago when I was in a hurry to get some chore or another finished. “Slow down, son,” she said. “Build memories, because when you reach old age they will be a pleasure to you.”

About a hundred yards out in the bay I saw a couple of porpoise dive and roll as if they were playing. I had seen them before from my canoe. They would approach the boat like friends, surf across the bow a time or two, then dive, and I wouldn’t see them again. They became a welcome diversion, and I was glad to have their company on one of my last days of fishing.

Early boaters were heading out to the gulf while the tide was in. The bay gets almost impassable to bigger boats when the tide is out, thus the value of fishing from a canoe. I used to haul my Grumman on our winter trips but found it was easier to rent from the marina and save all that lifting and toting.

It was a wonderful morning. Cumulus clouds floated like cotton puffs, moving slowly across the beautiful blue sky. I had an optimistic feeling that nature would remain the same for years to come. But then, here came empty plastic water bottles all attached to the holder that kept them together, floating in on the high tide.

I remembered what John MacDonald recorded in his Travis McGee book about all the garbage barges dumping their loads off the shores of Miami Beach. The same thing is happening in New York City. I’ve seen, with my own eyes, refuse barges being towed down the Hudson River out into the Atlantic to be dumped.

The older I get, the more I realize that this wonderful planet is gradually being used up. In my hometown, trees that we took for granted are mowed down to allow more and more construction. In my youth I hunted the swamps of Black Creek in South Carolina, not far from the family home place. Now a golf course in the gated community of The Country Club of South Carolina takes the place of giant cypress trees where I used to roam at will. Black Creek is no more than a fast water flowing ditch, a natural hazard for golfers.

One of the finest natural wild game habitat farms I had the privilege of using later in my duck hunting years was located in Alamance County, North Carolina, just 30 minutes from my house. That land has been sold and developed into 5- and 10-acre so called mini-farms. Wild game that used to frequent the acreage has dispersed or become semi-tame pests accustomed to the easy life of living next to humans.

I once declared that I would never, in my observations of outdoor life, exclaim noisily: “Things aren’t like, nor nearly as good, as they were when I was a boy.” That sad thing which I haven’t proclaimed until today is unfortunately now a fact.

I used my fishing rig to cast out and hook the floating water bottles. I reeled them in and stowed them in my fishing bag for proper disposal later. I decided to call it a day for fishing. Time to hike back to camp and begin the chore of getting the rig ready to head back north.

2025 Department Sporting Life

Sporting Life

SPORTING LIFE

Leroy’s Send-off

Farewell to the last of the Slims

By Tom Bryant

It was about bedtime when my phone rang. “Honey, your phone’s ringing.”

“Let it ring, it’s bedtime.”

I heard Linda as she answered it anyway. “Yeah, he’s right here. I’ll get him.”

I grimaced as she handed the phone to me. “Hello.”

“Cooter!” Bubba had bestowed the nickname early in our friendship and has continued using it to this day. “It’s too early to hit the hay. Boy, what’s wrong with you. Getting old?”

“About the same age as you,” I replied. “Maybe a little smarter when it’s time for bed. What’s up?”

“You coming up for Leroy’s doings on Friday?”

“That’s my plan. The funeral is at 3, right?”

“Yep, and here’s the scoop. Some of us are gonna meet at the old store and Ritter’s gonna cook up some venison steaks. Then we’ll have sort of a wake for Leroy, then head up to the family graveyard right before 3, honor Leroy, and then back to the store to finish all the remembrances and finally shut down. Why don’t you plan on spending the night at my place and then in the morning after breakfast you can head home?”

“Sounds like a good idea,” I replied. “I’ll see you Friday.”

I hung up the phone and explained to Linda what Bubba had cooking. She said, “I thought the old store was closed.”

“It is, but Bubba is opening it for this occasion.”

Later, as I was trying to go to sleep, I remembered all the history of Slim’s country store. Actually, Slim’s grandfather opened the store around the turn of the century. It ran successfully for many years, then fell into disrepair after the old man died. Slim made his fortune out West in the real estate business, then returned home, retired, restored and opened the old store, and ran the place, as he said, “so all my reprobate friends would have a place to go.”

Leroy, Slim’s only heir, inherited the store after Slim went to that always-stocked filling station in the sky, and promptly sold it to Bubba, who kept it open with Leroy running it until the economy tightened and they decided to close. Leroy wanted to retire and do more fishing, and Bubba said it was one more thing he didn’t have to worry about.

Leroy passed away after a short illness, and the graveside service was to be at the family graveyard about a mile from the old country store. Thus the reason Bubba had put together the event, as he put it, to celebrate the history of Slim’s grandfather (also named Slim), Leroy and the legacy of the now obsolete, retired country store.

Friday rolled around fast, and I decided to drive the Cruiser up the road to see Bubba and friends and pay my respects to the last of the Slims. Wiregrass had grown up in the gravel lot where folks used to park while shopping, or just holding forth. Several pickups were in the front, and I saw Bubba’s Land Rover nosed in on the side. Chairs had been moved from the inside to the wraparound porch.

Ritter’s portable cooker was near where the old horseshoe pit used to be and was smoking with smells good enough to make my mouth water. I walked up on the porch side-stepping some decaying boards. H.B. Johnson was leaning against a support column with an ever-present half-chewed cigar in his mouth.

“H.B.,” I asked. “Where’s Bubba?”

“Inside behind the counter. He’s putting the finishing touch on the words he has to say about Leroy.”

“That’s right,” I responded. “He’s the preacher today.”

I walked on inside, and after Bubba and I had insulted each other sufficiently, we laughed and settled down to the doings of the day.

“You ready to say grace over Leroy?” I asked.

“Well, yeah, that is after I have another couple glasses of Ritter’s apple brandy. Come on, let’s see if the chow is ready.”

It was, and it was outstanding. Ritter had made his famous smoked briskets along with barbecue pork shoulders and all the fixin’s. In no time we had finished the preliminary part of Leroy’s funeral, kind of a pre-wake, and prepared to move on to the family plot to finish with the early ceremony.

Bubba did a fantastic job with his good words about Leroy, and I noticed many eyes watering and lots of sniffling going on.

Later that evening, after we again gathered at the store and celebrated Leroy’s life, more of the folks started drifting off, other things to do. Bubba and I were left on the porch by ourselves. All the chairs were put back in the store with the exception of our two favorite rockers.

“You did a good job, Bubba.”

“It was harder than I thought it would be. We’re gonna miss old Leroy.”

“Yep,” I replied. “The last of Slim’s lineage.” The moon was rising over the tree line, and we could hear a barred owl calling back toward the graveyard.

“Must be looking for its mate,” Bubba said.

“Or maybe a mouse for dessert.”

We were quite deep in our own thoughts. Nothing emphasizes one’s mortality more than a funeral.

“So what’s gonna happen to the store now that Leroy’s gone?”

“Why, I’m thinking about giving it to you. Give you something to do.”

“No, thanks. I’ve got enough going on now.”

“Well, there is some good news. Johnson expressed an interest in buying it. He’s going bonkers since he sold the farm and doesn’t have anything to do.”

“It would be good for him. I’d love to see the old place reopen.”

“Well, you know what the Bible says,” Bubba replied. “One generation passeth away, and another generation cometh. So says Ecclesiastes, I think.”

Bubba’s Biblical knowledge always impressed. The moon was over the tree line now, and we heard the owl’s mate call right behind the store.

“How about Leroy’s marker stone? I asked. “And what’s gonna be on it?”

“I think, just dates, you know, birth and death. What’s gonna be on yours when its time?”

“I haven’t a clue. Never thought about it.”

“Look at you, Cooter. Hunted and fished and camped all over the country from the Everglades in Florida to the mountains of Alaska and you don’t have a clue. I’ve got a good one for you, though, that will cover all the bases. ‘I married the perfect lady.’”

“Good,” I replied. “It would work for you, too.”

The good friends sat slowly rocking, watching the moon continue to rise slowly through grey-white clouds, and thinking of their futures that stretched away like an unmarked trail.

“The heck with this. Let’s go home,” Bubba said. “How about some fishing in the morning? I noticed bream rising to the hatch in the pond in front of the house before I left this morning.”

“Sounds great. I’ll call Linda and tell her I’ll be late. Good old Bubba, always a plan.”

The moon was fully up now and the guys laughed at an old joke Bubba told, then loaded the trucks and headed home. It had been a good day.

2024 Department Sporting Life

Sporting Life

SPORTING LIFE

Game Time

What’s your favorite part of the squirrel?

By Tom Bryant

“Well, I really do have a question, Mr. Bryant. Do you actually eat all those little animals you kill?”

I knew that question, or one like it, would come when I agreed to speak at a women’s club. Some of my hunting partners that hang out at Slim’s Country Store had warned me when they heard through the grapevine about the speaking commitment. Ritter expressed it best when he said, “Bryant, those ladies gonna skin you like a possum. You know they’s against guns, hunting, fishing or almost any outdoor sport.”

The meeting with the ladies took place several years ago in a small but prestigious town right across the border in Virginia.

“Yes, ma’am. My grandfather was a stickler for eating anything we brought home. He would stress that the Good Lord gave bounty from the streams and fields for us to use and do so responsibly.

“Also, as I mentioned earlier, right after the War Between the States, folks in the South especially, used wild game to supplement food for the table.”

There was a follow-up. “What animals did you cook and eat, and how old were you?”

It looked as if it was going to be a long question and answer period. I sighed inwardly.

“I started hunting the woods on my grandfather’s farm when I was about 9 and fishing maybe 6 or 7. My first wild game was squirrels. I’d clean ’em and Grandma would cook them in a wonderful rice dish.” I could hear the muted groans in the audience of ladies who had just finished a wonderful chicken lunch.

“As a matter of fact,” I continued, “I brought this along.” I held up my well-worn wild game cookbook from L.L. Bean, simply titled The Game & Fish Cookbook. “Unfortunately, it’s out of print but can still be found, if you’re lucky, in usedbook stores. There are probably 10 or 12 great recipes in this book for squirrel, but one of my favorites is Brunswick stew.”

Turning to a well-marked page where the recipe was underlined, I quoted from the lead-in to the ingredients.

“Technically this stew is made from squirrel, but it can be made with other meats: rabbit, muskrat, beaver or combinations.”

I held the book open so the ladies of the highest social order sitting on the front row could see that I wasn’t making it up. There were considerable murmurs from the women sitting in the back rows. I didn’t know if they were accepting my story or getting ready to walk out en masse.

“Speaking of Brunswick stew,” I continued, “I have a couple of friends who, in the Southern vernacular, are good ol’ boys, and they make the best stew I’ve ever eaten. They make one that’s really got some shoulders on it. Edwin Clapp and Bandy Herman are what you think of when you picture hunters and fishermen who live deep in the country far away from tall buildings and sidewalks.”

One of the ladies sitting near the back raised her hand, stood up and said, “Do they use what you call wild game in their cooking?”

“I’m gonna be honest with you,” I replied. “Once, when Edwin invited me up to his farm to participate in the annual Brunswick stew cooking, he told me they would be whipping up their concoction in a 30-gallon stew pot. I told him there’s not enough squirrel in Chatham County to fill a pot that size.

“Edwin said they were giving away most of the stew, and that some of his city friends frowned on eating squirrel in anything, even Brunswick stew. So, on that occasion, just to suit the city folk, they were using grocery store fare.”

I had my iPad with me to show photos of some of the places where we hunted, and I knew there was a good shot of Edwin and Bandy cooking stew, if I could find it. The little computer was new to me — a gift from my bride, Linda — and I had yet to figure out all its intricacies.

It looked as if the ladies were in no hurry to leave, so I directed my next statement to the last questioner. “Ma’am, somewhere in this little machine I’ve got a photo of Edwin and Bandy cooking up one of their big batches of Chatham County Brunswick stew. It shows the huge stainless steel pot they use and the wooden paddle for stirring.”

Not a soul had left, and a couple of the ladies got up from their chairs and edged closer.

“Here it is. Look at the size of that pot,” I said. “And it’s almost filled to the brim.” I passed the iPad around for everyone to see. Several took a closer look before handing it back to me.

A lady on the front row said, “But Mr. Bryant, if you keep killing the animals that you hunt, will they eventually go away? I mean will you deplete the resource?”

“That’s an excellent question,” I replied, and I pulled out my Ducks Unlimited membership card and held it so they could see. “This organization is the world’s leader in wetlands and waterfowl conservation, and yet they value and enjoy the sport of hunting. The beauty of all this is that we hunters, over 700,000 of us, are the supporters of this institution.” I passed my membership card around the nearest row of ladies.

Our host, a small white-haired matron, stood, raised her hand and took over. “I believe we’ve taken enough time from Mr. Bryant,” she said. There was a smattering of applause and the ladies slowly left the room.

I grabbed my stuff, thanked the ladies in charge and exited the building posthaste. I was surprised to find the elderly matron, the one who asked about eating game, on the steps waiting for me.

“Mr. Bryant, I surely would like to get a taste of Mr. Clapp’s Brunswick stew,” she said, to my surprise.

“I’m afraid this year’s batch is probably all gone,” I said.

She handed me her card. “Well, tell him to put me on the list for next year,” she said and turned to go. “Oh,” she paused as she headed down the stairs, “you can also tell him I wouldn’t mind if it had just a taste of squirrel.”

2024 Department Sporting Life

Sporting Life

Heroes Among Us

Some quiet thoughts in the woods

By Tom Bryant

“They ask me, ‘What do you think about in the woods?’ I tell them all sorts of things, but actually I’m trying not to think of anything special at all.” — Gene Hill, A Listening Walk

Gene Hill, one of my favorite outdoor writers, once wrote, “The woods are where I go when I’m starved for quiet.” Easy to understand in today’s cacophony of noise in what we call civilization. Sometimes, for me, the urge to head to the woods is overwhelming. That’s when I grab my hunting bag, a dove stool, a couple of snacks and maybe a libation or two, and drive down to the little farm I lease for some restoration of my soul.

Like Hill, I try not to think about anything at all, but when I’m hunkered down in the stand of pines bordering the beaver pond, my mind just doesn’t stay still.

This last small-scale outing was different. Just as I was settling in, watching the pond, a pair of wood ducks splashed down right in front of me and swam to the far side. I don’t know why, but my mind cranked up like a runaway computer. With July coming, I started thinking about heroes. What the ducks had to do with that particular line of thinking, I don’t have a clue.

In my many years of watching and wondering, I’ve met numerous people I would place in the hero category. The most recent is Bill Berger, an interesting fellow I met at our breakfast club.

What I call our breakfast club is an assembly that meets at the Sizzlin’ Steak or Eggs restaurant at a table in the back, just right for a small party. A diverse gathering, this compact get-together would qualify in its own right for my list of heroes, but right now my mind was focused on Bill Berger.

Bill was born in Bartlesville, Oklahoma, home of the state’s first producing oil well, and it’s easy to see how he grew up in the oil business. His father was a major executive with the Phillips 66 Company, but according to Bill, it was not necessarily a good thing. The family moved quite a bit with his father’s responsibilities. Bill complained of living at one of the refineries when he was a youngster. “Naturally, Dad’s position with the company let us live in the largest, most ornate company house, but it was in the middle of the refinery’s tank storage area,” he says. “All I could see through our home’s windows were acres of gas holding tanks.”

Bill attended Oklahoma State University, where he met his lovely bride, Bonnie. They were married and after graduation, he entered law school at the University of Tulsa. Before finishing law school, as happened to quite a few young folks during that period of our history, he was drafted. He chose the Air Force and became a pilot flying a KC-135 refueling tanker plane.

After two tours in Vietnam, he mustered out of the Air Force and went back to law school. When I asked him about his experiences during the war, he merely replied, “Tom, let’s just say it was an interesting time.”

Bill finished law school, re-entered the Air Force and became a liaison officer to Congress. One of his duties included investigating military plane crashes.

He retired after 22 years of service, but not being the kind of guy to sit back in a rocker, he signed up as a consultant to the Federal Aviation Administration, where he accomplished such things as improving pilots’ working conditions in the cockpit, determining the best height for control towers, and helping to raise the mandatory retirement age for pilots from 60 to 65.

Bill and Bonnie live in Beacon Ridge. Their son, Scott, is a surgeon in Winston-Salem, and their daughter, Megan, is in the travel business in Wilmington.

Bill has never met a stranger and can talk to you with rapt attention, as if you were the most interesting person he’s ever met. He even drives a happy car — a canary yellow Corvette.

The wood ducks splashed up from the pond and flew right at me. A wonderful sight, but my brain was already in running gear, moving about as quickly as those ducks, and I scarcely paid attention.

So who’s next on my impromptu list of heroes? How about the other guys at the men’s fellowship breakfast?

First there’s Bill Giles, a retired Presbyterian minister; then there’s Bill Dixon, a retired Air Force colonel; and Bill Hamel, a retired lawyer; and, of course, Bill Berger. A lot of Bills.

Next would be Fred Monroe, a retired construction contractor; Bob Harling, a retired oil man; Milton Sills, a retired educator; John Green, a retired teacher and coach; and me, a retired ad man and itinerant outdoor writer. If you combined all that time of living and experiences, you would have close to 800 years of practical knowledge and understanding of what makes the world go ’round, or so we would like to think.

As the sun slowly began its evening descent, a barred owl started calling from way back in the swamp. I could barely hear him. I picked up the dove stool, put my leftovers and trash in the pocket of the stool and headed back to the truck. I got to the field that the farmer had planted in corn. It was a little over knee-high, and the wind softly blowing across the newly planted stalks made sounds like ocean waves of a calm sea breaking on the beach.

I sat there for a bit watching another wonderful Carolina day come to an end and thought about Gene Hills’ quote from his book, A Listening Walk. I did more thinking today than listening on my impromptu visit to the beaver pond, but it did my heart good to realize that our country is full of heroes just like the ones I know in our neighborhood.

I cranked the truck just as the moon was coming up over the tree line. I felt good. My soul had been replenished. PS

Tom Bryant, a Southern Pines resident, is a lifelong outdoorsman and PineStraw’s Sporting Life columnist.

2024 Department Sporting Life