Sporting Life

The Champion Holiday

Memories that stretch across the seasons

By Tom Bryant

The best of all gifts around any Christmas tree is the
presence of a happy family all wrapped up in each other.
 — Burton Hills

As a youngster, holidays played a huge part in my life. It seemed, in those early pre-teen years, I was always in a dither, wanting to move time forward to celebrate one special occasion or another. The biggy, of course, was summer, when we were paroled from the forced halls of learning to days of fun: swimming and fishing at the beach; camping with the Scouts on Mr. Troutman’s farm; bicycling across the wilds of Pinebluff with my loyal companion, a curly coated retriever I named Smut. The lazy days seemed to stretch on forever. It was a wonderful time, until on the horizon I saw approaching interminably, like a major storm, autumn and back to school.

But with fall and the days of regimentation in classrooms where new subjects expanded our knowledge came dove season and another good reason to be in the woods. It was a wonderful time; and as a result of my being a year older, my parents extended my borders of responsibility to let me venture into the wilds and hunt from Aberdeen to Pinebluff. It worked something like this: I would catch the bus to school, and Dad, who was the superintendent at the ice plant in Aberdeen, would carry my shotgun and Smut to work with him. After school, I would hike the couple of miles to the plant located on the railroad tracks just south of Aberdeen, do my homework in his office, grab my shotgun, whistle up Smut, who was napping under the car, and hunt the tracks back to Pinebluff. I would get home just about dark and clean what game I had harvested, which could be anything from squirrels to doves to rabbits. Mother would put the day’s catch in the freezer, and later we would have a wild game feast to rival Davy Crockett’s, or so I thought at the time.

Thanksgiving opened another whole avenue of excitement. This holiday brought with it quail season, and to add to that special event, the opening of deer season. Now, to be truthful, I didn’t hunt deer in my confined areas around Moore County. I never saw a deer or any sign that a whitetail was about. But down on my granddad’s farm in South Carolina, they were plentiful and hunted, and I was part of that great adventure.

The family would always celebrate Thanksgiving, Christmas and Easter at the home place. On Thanksgiving, as soon as I was out of school for the holiday, Dad would take me down to the farm, and for a couple of days I would follow my grandfather around like a yearling puppy, asking interminable questions with the main one being, “Can I hunt this year on my own deer stand?”

Typically, my grandfather’s hunt club of about 10 or 15 members would hunt a different farm every week; and in the past, I could only accompany Granddad as a spectator. Finally, one special Thanksgiving, I was allowed to have my own deer stand, and on that day, I considered myself almost grown. I didn’t shoot a deer that season but I saw one, and it is still etched in my memory like a spectacular painting and has just grown more beautiful over the years.

Thanksgiving was a wonderful holiday, but the champion of all holidays and the one I started thinking about when the first frost whitened the broom straw fields of Pinebluff and the “bible” of toys, the Sears Roebuck catalog, arrived in the mail, was Christmas.

It was a magical occasion. What I remember most about that amazing time was the smell of newly cut cedar, wood fires, freshly baked cakes and turkeys in the oven. The excitement and anticipation of the wonderful days ahead were almost more than I could stand.

I was champion of the roost during that time and roamed far and wide in my quest for just the right Christmas greenery, which included holly with bunches of red berries and mistletoe that had to be shot down with my shotgun from the highest trees. This was quite a feat for me in those days when I would buy shotgun shells from Burney Hardware for a nickel apiece. I didn’t waste ammunition very often.

There was no one who loved Christmas more than Mom and Dad. I found out later that they would begin early in the fall to locate just the right presents for Santa to bring my sisters, brother and me. There would always be something thrilling under the tree, a shiny bicycle, a shotgun, new hunting boots or a duck hunting mackinaw. One year, the year I was working on my Boy Scout photography merit badge, Santa brought me a Kodak box camera and all the fixings to develop my own film. I made, developed and printed photos that year and still have one in our collection.

On Christmas Day, after seeing all the loot that Santa had brought, we loaded the car and headed south to the farm to celebrate with my grandparents and all the numerous uncles, aunts and cousins. A magnificent feast was prepared with roasted venison, turkey, ducks, hams and barbecue. There were all kinds of vegetables and casseroles and sweet and baked potatoes. The sideboard seemed to creak under its heavy load of pies and cakes and puddings and the most important, Grandmother’s fruitcake.

After dinner, the entire family moved to the living room, where a giant Christmas tree filled the corner, its top nearly touching the 16-foot ceiling. Presents were piled high, and particular cousins were assigned the task of passing them around. It seemed to take forever for all the presents to be opened and all the oohs and aahs to be shared before we could get back on the road to home. I mean, after all, I had a brand new bike I had to check out, and time was wasting. We needed to hurry.

Those pre-TV days were simpler, and we made the most of them. It seemed I lived outdoors more than in, and when I wasn’t creating my own adventures, I was reading about others in books such as Mark Twain’s The Adventures of Tom Sawyer and another one of his classics, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. And truth be known, those fellows really didn’t have a leg up, as far as I was concerned. Their only advantage was they had the Mississippi River in their neighborhood. And me?  I had Manly Wade Wellman’s book, Haunts of Drowning Creek, and Drowning Creek was my big river.

Yessir, I had a grand time as a youngster, especially at Christmas.  PS

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

Sporting Life

The Majestic Wild

And an unexpectedly quiet moment that shaped my life

By Tom Bryant

“The silence of snowy aisles of the forest, the whirring flight of partridges, the impudent bark of squirrels, the quavering voices of owls and coons, the music of the winds in the high trees — all these impressions unite in my mind like parts of a woodland symphony.” — Hamlin Garland

Late Tuesday evening I received an email from Mike Metcalf, the president of our Sandhills Rotary Club. “Tom, I hope you’re in town and not off on one of your travels. You’re scheduled to have the inspirational five minutes at our next meeting. Just a heads- up.”

Mike’s inspirational moment idea that the club is now doing is actually a spin-off of Lynn Thompson’s, our immediate past president’s, five-minute autobiographical presentation. It works like this: Every member is allotted five minutes right before the scheduled speaker to present to the club an inspirational personal occurrence that made an unforgettable lifetime memory. With Lynn, the five minutes were dedicated to the member’s autobiography. These talks, Lynn’s and Mike’s, provide great opportunities for members to get to know each other better.

Unfortunately, I was out of town and unable to make the club meeting to give my spiel on a memorable happening that made a real difference in my world, but I started thinking about the many wonderful experiences I’ve had in the great outdoors.

My life has been crammed full of memories that have influenced how I look at the world, and Mike’s request that I present one to the Sandhills Rotary Club wouldn’t be difficult. The big problem would be coming up with just the right one.

There was one day, though, that I always remember when I’m in a reflective mood. It was late fall, right before Thanksgiving, and I was on my traditional early season duck hunt.

It had been an unusually hot summer, even for North Carolina, but the week before my trek to the duck hole, a cold front blasted through, bringing with it much needed relief. It was almost as if we were skipping fall and moving right into winter. My favorite little piece of woods, known simply as the duck hole, is on a farm of about 400 acres only 45 minutes from my house and is one of the most prolific areas of wild habitat that it’s been my pleasure to visit. It’s as if wildlife of numerous species decided to make this place home.

During duck season I make many trips to this beautiful property, beginning with an early venture right before Thanksgiving, so I was excited about the coming hunt. My old Lab, Paddle, had passed on to her duck hunting reward during the summer, so I was on my own for this hunt, and it was a strange sensation. We had had many adventures in the wilds, and I would miss her.

The day before, I made all the preparations, hooking the duck boat to the old Bronco and loading decoys, paddles and all the other duck-hunting gear that would make a successful hunt. That evening I fried country ham to go in biscuits that Linda, my bride, had baked, filled the coffee maker ready for the morning, and prepared for an early bedtime. I always sleep in the guest room before duck hunts so as not to wake Linda; but on this, the first hunt of the season, she was up with me, packing the ham biscuits and filling the thermos with coffee.

“You be careful out there. You don’t have Paddle to look after you,” she admonished as I eased out the back door to load the shotgun and gunning bag into the Bronco.

“I’ll see you, Babe, be home around lunch. You go back to bed.”

Early morning, and I mean real early, right before night gives way to another day, has always been my favorite time. There was no moon, and the stars and Milky Way were clear and bright as I slowly drove out of town into the country. It took me about 30 minutes, and I was at the farm and through the pasture gate. Sleepy Black Angus cattle watched as I drove toward the tree line and to the little creek that opened out to the duck hole.

I backed the skiff down a small incline to the water and got my gunning bag and gun from the Bronco and put them in the covered bow of the boat. I unhooked, hid the vehicle up in the trees and went back to the water.

At the duck boat, I silently waded out and climbed into the stern. Geese were calling out on the big water, and there was a splash of a beaver’s tail as he alerted his friends that an interloper was about. The electric motor cranked without a problem, and in just a few minutes, I was where I needed to be for the early flight. It’s amazing how my old cork decoys ride the water just like ducks. In the darkness, the silhouettes were bound to draw in some of their real cousins. I was hunting out of the boat, so I anchored under alders growing out of the side of the bank, draped an old gray tarp, almost the color of creek water, over the bow and settled down to wait.

It was silent, the quiet before dawn. Another beaver surfaced close, slapped its tail in warning and submerged again. In the distance, I could still hear geese as they prepared to fly to their feeding grounds. The tree line on the east side of the creek was more discernible as a slow grayness ushered in another day. Little birds were flitting about in the alders above the boat, and a lonely hen mallard called from up the creek, looking for some company.

A squeaking noise, like the hinges on a rusty gate, came from upstream and seemed to be heading my way. A pair of eight-point deer that could have been twins tiptoed down a deer path right beside the boat. They suddenly realized something wasn’t right, leaped to the side and bounded up the hill, flat out, white tails flashing.

The little squeaking sound was getting closer and as I looked back, I saw eight turkeys fly, single file, across the creek to disappear into the darkness of the woods beyond. The weird noise sounded again, right beyond a close bend, and I sat still as the round head of a river otter emerged beside the bow of the boat, then its partner surfaced. They looked at me and made their squeaking noise. I swear I saw them grin, and then they were gone.

The geese decided it was time for breakfast and flew treetop high right over me. There were at least 50. Then ducks, mostly big ducks, mallards mixed with a few blacks, dropped out of the sky. They landed in a small pond that was fed by a branch from the creek.

I never even loaded my gun. That much wildlife in such a wilderness setting shouldn’t be disturbed with loud noises.

It didn’t occur to me then, but that day, that wonderful day, would be one of many inspirational moments that helped me become, for better or worse, who I am.  PS

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

Sporting Life

River Adventures

Adrift in streams of memory

By Tom Bryant

I’m sure you know how it is when one outdoor chore leads to another. That happened to me a couple of Saturdays ago when I was trying to catch up on some much-needed yard work. I’d just finished hauling my sixth or seventh cart full of sticks and pine cones to the trash pickup area on the road behind our garage when I noticed my old 17-foot Grumman canoe had wild grapevines growing up over the bow like a natural duck blind. I felt bad for the old canoe, my fault entirely that it had been ignored all these years, perched up on a pair of sawhorses like a monument to the past.

I put yard work on hold and dragged the ancient boat, vines and all, out to where I could get to it and clean it up a little. Bird nests were in the bow and stern area. I figured it was a perfect location for little house wrens, and it was fortunate that the nests had already served their purpose and were empty. The old derelict looked worst for the wear, but aluminum is remarkably resilient, and in no time, I had knocked off the accumulated pine straw and dirt. The repaired broken keel and tear in the port side were still quite evident, but the detraction to the serviceability of the craft was just in looks; on the water, she was as good as ever. Old camouflaged paint was peeling from the sides and under the seats. I used to paint her every fall for duck hunting, and my past efforts were in need of repair. I really should get her sand blasted, I thought. Then she would be almost as good as new.

I dragged the old canoe to the front of the garage and immediately remembered why I had retired the craft many years ago. Weight. She had to scale in at well over 100 pounds. In my day, I could hoist her on top of the truck with little effort, but in my advanced years and learning that it’s much easier to walk around than climb over, I had relegated her to the sawhorses behind the garage and bought a new, much lighter canoe.

I had been using my power washer to clean the sidewalks, so I turned the boat on her side and washed off years of accumulated grime. She looked a lot better, even with the still-clinging camouflaged paint. The repair to the keel and tear in her side were more evident after my cleaning effort, and I thought back to the river outing that caused the mishap.

Ever since I was a youngster boating with my grandfather on the Little Pee Dee River, I’ve always had a paddle in the water. I’ve canoed black-water creeks, lakes and white-water rivers. The damage to the Grumman came from one of those white-water adventures, and a friend and I were lucky to escape with our lives. But it wasn’t that trip I was remembering. I dragged a camp chair from the garage and a libation from my cooler and kicked back and thought about that amazing late summer.

Two friends, John Mills and Andy Alcroft, and I decided to take on Drowning Creek, Lumber River, Little Pee Dee River, and the mighty Big Pee Dee River and paddle to the coast and Georgetown, South Carolina. It was to be an amazing trip, requiring all our outdoor survival skills and a lot of luck in the wild swamps that bordered the rivers.

We would be returning to college in a couple of weeks. I was a rising junior at the University of South Carolina, Andy was a sophomore at Ohio State University, and Johnny was a sophomore at the University of North Carolina. The trip began on a whim, as I remember it. Like most young folks that age, we were bored with summer and wanted one last adventure before heading back to the books. We grew up loving nature and probably spent more time outdoors than in, and Drowning Creek played a big part in most of our nature adventures. Johnny was the unofficial official Pinebluff historian and was up-to-date on all the statistics of the creek and which explorers had attempted to float the rivers to the Atlantic and when.

I can’t remember who had the initial idea for that boating adventure, but I do remember that we determined that we were really going to have to push it because time was short. In a day or two, we had gathered our gear, borrowed a little 12-foot skiff from our good friend Cliff Blue, and were ready to shove off.

The night before our jumping-off river adventure, Pricilla Mills, Johnny’s cute, younger sister, had a sleepover at their house with several other girls. Naturally, we had to get them involved with our last-minute preparations, quite enjoyably for us. The next morning several of the young co-eds accompanied us to the creek and waved as we floated around the first bend in the river. That was the last civilized moment we enjoyed for several swamp-filled days.

Unfortunately, we didn’t finish that river trip, running out of time and energy at about the same place. We pulled out of the river at a country store named Pearl’s and called Cliff to come haul us, our gear and the boat back home. Good memories.

I replaced the ancient, much cleaner canoe on her sawhorses and gave Johnny a call.

“Hey Johnny, this is Tommy. What say you and I take a little canoe ride down Drowning Creek?”

I thought sure he would say, “Are you crazy?” But he replied, “I can’t leave before tomorrow.”

We both laughed and agreed to get together for lunch and explore Camp Mackall in search of the old canoe club cabin.

According to Johnny, Dr. John Warren Achorn and Alexander Holbrook, leading citizens of the new village of Pinebluff, started the Mid-Winter Canoe Club in 1903. Vestiges of the cabin are still there, having been rebuilt and now owned by the Special Forces as a place for rest and relaxation.

Ironically, our good friend Andy Alcroft and his lovely bride, Mary, were enjoying some time at Holden Beach and had made arrangements to visit John before they went home to Ohio. We planned to meet for dinner while they were here.

We gathered at the Sly Fox and had a superb supper. It was a great occasion, sort of like old home week. We remembered Pinebluff when the population was around 400, some streets were still unpaved, and The Village Grocery sold Coca-Cola for a nickel. Mom and Pop Wallace owned the phone company with the switchboard in their living room, and our phone number was 212. Most folks didn’t have keys to their houses, and all a youngster needed to have a grand time was a bicycle and a dog.

That night as I drifted off to sleep, I thought back to the uncompleted river trip down Drowning Creek and wondered if Johnny, Andy and I had it in us to make another try. “I’ll talk it over with Linda in the morning,” I whispered to myself.

“Talk what over?” Linda said sleepily.

“Nothing, Hon,” I wisely replied. “Didn’t mean to wake you.”  PS

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

Soul Soothing

A place and a person to remember

By Tom Bryant

You are not dead until there
isn’t a crumb of memory left
anywhere in the world.

— John D. MacDonald,
The Empty Copper Sea

There is a place hanging on a mountainside right off the Blue Ridge Parkway where a person can rest his soul. The place is known as the Sourwood Inn. It’s a lot more than the common definition of a bed and breakfast. There are 12 bedrooms situated in a classic mountain lodge, overlooking a beautiful, almost mystic valley. The lovely inn was built for rest, relaxation and, as I mentioned, restoring the soul.

It had been a sad, gray, melancholy time. A good friend had suddenly keeled over and was gone before the EMS could arrive. A cousin I hadn’t seen in years passed away with heart trouble. And my mother, 99 years old and still with the grace and fortitude of a Southern lady, passed away quietly after a small stay in the hospital and an even shorter visit to hospice. It was as if she didn’t want to inconvenience the family with a long, drawn out, sad time of dying. She was that kind of lady, always thinking of others.

My sister’s call about Mom came late one evening. It had been a typical Sandhills summer day, hot with a high humidity that sent folks searching for air-conditioning. I had waited until late in the afternoon to beat the heat and do some much needed yard work. With that finished, I sat back in the sunroom enjoying a cold beer. My cellphone was still in my pocket, and I answered its persistent, buzzing ring.

“Tommy.”

“Hey, Bonnie, how’re things on the farm?” My sister had been Mother’s caregiver, and they lived in the old plantation house that was built in 1830.

“Not good. Mom’s in the hospital. She fell this morning and is not doing well. I’m on my way back over there to talk to the doctor now.”

“OK. Linda and I will come on down as soon as I clean up a little.”

“No, don’t come now. Wait until I find out from the doc what’s going on. This could be it, Tommy. Mama looks terrible.”

After a short stay in the hospital, Mom was moved to hospice. It was exactly as we feared. She was ready, after all her years, to give up the fight.

Linda and I made it to the hospice building a little after 11 the next morning and entered the room to see Mom.

“Hey, Mom, it’s Tommy. I love you.” Mother was past communicating with anyone. She was in the bed, eyes closed, breathing hard. I couldn’t take it and went back out in the hall.

In just a few minutes, Harriet, my cousin, an excellent nurse who had been observing the efforts of the hospice nurses, came out behind me and said, “Tommy, your mother is gone.”

My other sister, Billie, standing next to me, said, “It’s as if she was waiting for you.”

The rest of the week was a blur. Folks from the old Mizpah Church did a wonderful job with Mom’s funeral. The pastor, an easy-going, caring young man, presented the service just as Mom had wanted, and members of the church put together an afternoon meal for the family.

Mother was laid to rest beside my dad, who died almost 50 years ago. They were finally reunited.

On the drive home, Tom, our son, was dozing in the passenger’s seat, and Linda was in the back seat.

“It was great for Art, Bryan and Sandy and Bob to drive all that way,” she said. Bob and Sandy live nearby in Southern Pines, and we don’t see them often enough. Art lives in Albemarle and is part of our duck-hunting crew; and Bryan, another hunting buddy, drove down from Burlington.

“Yep, remember what Mom always said, good friends are gold.” I was quiet as we motored toward home, thinking about her and all her wise sayings and how she would be missed.

“Babe,” I said. “We really need to get away for a while. What if we go up to the mountains and stay at the Sourwood for a few days? We could kick back, read and maybe ride into Asheville for a bit.”

“That’s a wonderful idea. I’ll call them right now and see if they have a room available.”

We were in luck. Susan, the young lady who runs the inn, said that our favorite room was available and we were welcome. The room that we have stayed in several times is located on the second floor and has screened French doors leading to a small balcony overlooking the valley and mountain ridges beyond.

After a four-hour ride out of the sweltering heat of the Piedmont, we breathed a sigh of relief when we finally saw the mountain ranges to the west. We reached the Parkway; then it was just a short distance to Elk Mountain Road and the little one-lane, firebreak-wide driveway to the inn.

After we had unloaded and settled in our room, Linda went down to the great room and brought back homemade cookies and lemonade. I, on the other hand, decided to kick back on the balcony with three fingers of good Scotch I had been saving for a special occasion. The sun was beginning to set and a smoky gray mist was rising out of the valley.

Linda had put together a little picnic supper knowing that the inn would not be serving dinner that Wednesday evening, and we didn’t want to ride into Asheville after our five-hour trek across the state. We ate out on the balcony and watched as the sun set behind the inn and darkness crept over the valley. Linda went inside to read, and I watched the shadows and listened as nocturnal wildlife started calling and moving about the woods. After a while I went in, picked up the book I was reading and got ready for bed. I left the doors to the outside open, only latching the screens.

In the middle of the night, I was suddenly awakened. It was as if something or some noise had jolted me from my deep sleep. Groggily, I sat on the side of the bed, trying not to wake Linda, and heard the culprits that had roused me from my slumber. It was a pair of barred owls. They were evidently having a dispute over territorial rights and were arguing like a couple of Southern lawyers. I eased out to the balcony to listen.

The dark sky, full of stars, looked as if it had been sprinkled with diamonds, and the Milky Way seemed to be hovering right over the inn. I watched and listened as the owls moved down the ridge toward the valley, and I thought about Mother and a conversation we had before she became so conflicted with dementia.

“Tommy, don’t you be so upset when I leave this Earth. I’ve had a good life and I’m ready.”

“Mom, you’re going to be here for a lot more years,” I replied.

“No, son, I’m not. And listen to me. My death is not going to be an ending. It’s a new beginning. Think of it as if I’m just heading out on a big adventure and will see you again some day. I won’t see you anytime soon, though, because you have a lot of living yet to do in this world.”

I listened as the sounds of the owls faintly drifted up from the valley, and then they were silent. A meteor streaked across the northern sky. I stood and stretched so hard I could hear my tendons creak. It was as if a heavy weight fell from my shoulders, and I silently went back into the room and to bed.

I dreamed about meteors and stars and Mother.  PS

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

The 98 Steps

A climb above the treetops

By Tom Bryant

Ever since I was knee-high to a blackjack oak sapling, a variety that used to be as thick in the Sandhills as sandspurs, I’ve always wanted to climb a fire tower. Perhaps it’s a leftover from my early days when some of us kids in Pinebluff would sneak past the watchful eye of the town’s constable, Mr. Deaton, and shinny up the ladder of the water tank. We would sit up there for hours, legs dangling over the side, and plot major adventures that we would undertake when we grew older.

Or maybe it’s a holdover of the time a group (no names here, not knowing the statute of limitations) climbed the water tank immediately adjacent to the campus of Aberdeen High School and painted ’59, the year we all graduated from the venerable learning institute. Climbing a fire tower has been a lifelong desire and a few weeks back, I had the opportunity to go up one and gaze out for miles over the tops of longleaf pines.

Highway 15-501 runs just about as straight as an arrow from Aberdeen to Laurinburg, and just across the county line into Scotland County, it passes one of the last few remaining fire lookout towers in our area. I travel this road a lot, and every time I motor past the tower, I look up and wonder. One day recently, Linda, my bride, and I were on our way south, and on a whim, I pulled into the gravel parking area adjacent to the offices of the county ranger. It was a lazy summer Sunday and no one was in the office, so I got out of the vehicle and looked up. It was amazing; the tower stretched high through the pines, and I was determined to find out its history and if it was manned or just an interesting derelict. The following day I called Neal McRae, the ranger for Scotland County, and made an appointment to see the tower and solicit some of the local history.

McRae could be the poster child of a county fire ranger, big and robust with enthusiasm to match his size. He cordially welcomed me to his office. Along with him was Adam Thomas, the heavy equipment operator. Both of them were full of interesting information about their jobs and the part the lookout tower played in fire control.

“The tower was built in 1933,” McRae said, “and it was located here because this is one of the highest spots in Scotland County. Today the tower’s only use is for our radio antenna, since fire control has changed in the last few years.”

“Why is that?” I asked.

“Cellphones. Everyone has a mobile phone, and once a fire is spotted, we get the information almost instantly. As a matter of fact, nearly all the 100 fire lookout towers across the state have been decommissioned. We still operate three: the one here, one in Eagle Springs and one in Hamlet. The Hamlet tower was last active in 2013. The reason we use these three is because of the game lands down around Hoffman. That area is over 40,000 acres with very few humans, so we use the towers to spot smoke during the active fire season.”

I asked about the biggest recent fire.

“As a matter of fact, it was in the game lands,” McRae responded. “Over 1,200 acres. Come on and let me show you around.”

We left his office and walked toward the tower. I asked Thomas if he was going up with us.

“Man, I was up there three times yesterday,” he said laughing. “That’s enough. Plus, it would be pretty tight with all three of us. I’ll just wait down here.”

“These steps are original,” McRae said as we began our climb. “Made out of cypress.”

The steps were gray, rough wood, weathered by time, matching the steel girders holding up the old structure, and I could see cracks through a couple of steps.

“There are 98 steps and the tower is 90 feet tall. You holding up all right?” he asked as we neared the top.

“Yep, I’m doing OK. I can tell I’ve been climbing, though.”

A trap door opened from the floor into the little enclosure at the top, which was probably about 5-feet square. I saw what Thomas meant about “being tight.” With the trap door closed, though, we had more room to move.

“You can see pretty good up here,” McRae said. “When it’s not so hazy, the view is tremendous.” I looked out over a vista of green. Pine trees stretched to the horizon in every direction, and I immediately understood the value of the tower in fire discovery and control. I asked when the tower last had a full-time operator.

“Mrs. Tyner operated the place for 30 years and was the last,” he replied.

McRae showed me how the 360-degree azimuth circle works in determining the exact location of a hot spot, and he raised one of the windows so we could see better out of the other side of the lookout. The old tower is holding up OK, and McRae said that as long as it is needed for radio fire control, it would remain there indefinitely.

McRae grinned and said, “You know what’s really cool about this view? To be up here on July Fourth. You can see fireworks in all directions.”

We looked around a little more and then climbed back down the 98 steps to the ground. McRae and Thomas gave me a tour of the heavy firefighting equipment kept in an enclosed garage behind their offices. A huge bulldozer sat on a tractor-trailer occupying most of the space, ready to go to work in an instant. The equipment was meticulously maintained and looked brand new, but McRae said, “The truck is old but can move in a hurry when needed.”

I made a few photos and decided I had taken up enough of their time. I took one more look up at the tower and thanked the two for their hospitality. On the way home, I thought about the two guys manning the ranger station and what a pleasure it is to be around folks who are dedicated to their jobs. Plus, I could check off one more item on my wish list: I had climbed a fire lookout tower.  PS

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

Sporting Life

Beach Music

Grand memories buried in the sand

By Tom Bryant

When the July sun is almost directly overhead and the dogs are digging in the shrubbery looking for some cool and the humidity is thick enough to cut with a kitchen knife and the air conditioner is working overtime, relief is two words away . . . THE BEACH!

We always called it that, simply the beach. Other people from around the country refer to it in different ways. Some folks call it the shore or the coast; but down South, it is always known as the beach. And in South Carolina, the beach means Ocean Drive or Cherry Grove or Windy Hill or Crescent or Myrtle or Pawleys or Litchfield, but always it’s the beach.

The tradition of going to the beach began early in our family. My grandfather, a tobacco farmer in the low country, would load my grandmother and all eight kids, along with Shep, a farm hand and cook when needed, in one of his 2 1/2-ton farm trucks and tote them to the beach. The old farm vehicle would be loaded with a crate of live chickens, dozens of eggs, country ham, watermelons, cantaloupes and bushel baskets of Grandma’s garden vegetables. Enough food to feed an army, and with eight hungry kids, it almost was.

There they would remain for a month, glowing brown from the summer sun and almost growing gills, they were in the water so much. Mom often said that the good Lord looked after them because they survived swimming out so far in the ocean that the beach house back on land looked like a miniature reproduction, and in those days lifeguards were nonexistent.

My grandfather disliked the beach and thought it was a serious waste of energy. He often said the family could spend their time more wisely working in the crops that were in full summer bloom. Jokingly, he would threaten to cancel the coastal expedition; but secretly, he really did enjoy the fishing and laid-back times spent in the porch swing. He would carry the family and the cook to the beach and drop them off, and then he would return on weekends or when the farm crops would let him.

There is an old family story about him and the beach, and if it’s true, what a story. It seems that a land salesman from Myrtle Beach made an appointment to see Granddad on the farm right before the family’s summer outing. Grandma always rented the same beach house, a big rambling two-story affair right on the oceanfront. The old house, made of heart pine, had been there for years and had survived storms and hurricanes and seemed to grow stronger every summer. Mom remembers that the ancient beach house had two screened porches, one on each floor, and was the only house for several miles.

The beach salesman showed up at the farm early one evening just as Granddad was coming in from the fields. Granddad, who was a big landowner, didn’t suffer fools lightly; and unfortunately, sales people, according to him, fit that category. However, he begrudgingly agreed to listen to the gentleman’s spiel.

The story goes that Granddad sat in the big front porch swing and the real-estate expert sat opposite in a rocker. The salesman opened his briefcase, drew out maps and charts of the beach and the house where the family always spent summer vacations. Now Granddad was a gentleman. He was tired from his day in the fields, but he let the salesman go through his material, pointing out the maps and extolling the potential of the beach house and surrounding area. He said that the whole plot was for sale at a depressed price because the banks were going to foreclose. The original owner had passed away, and the heirs didn’t want to keep the place and would let it go at the tax value, which in those days was next to nothing.

Granddad listened politely, and Grandma went inside to the kitchen to get some iced tea. When she came back, Granddad stood up, walked over to the wide steps of the porch and said, “Come here, mister, I want to show you something.” He pointed to the cotton field across the road.

“See that? That’s 200 acres of the finest cotton I’ve ever grown. And look over there.”

He pointed to the field across the fence adjacent to the ancient plantation house. “That’s about a hundred acres, give or take an acre or two, of good corn, excellent corn if we get rain at the right time. Behind the house and over toward Black Creek is some of the prettiest tobacco I’ve ever raised. And last week, I closed the deal on land down toward the creek that has some outstanding second-growth timber. So, mister, you can see I’m pretty well occupied, and like everybody else in this country, I’m waiting out this blame Depression with my fingers crossed.”

They both sat back down and my grandfather continued, “I appreciate your effort and sorry you drove here from the beach, but I’ve looked at your maps and prices, and the family dearly loves visiting the old house and our summers there, but my major problem with what you’re offering,” and here he paused for effect, “I don’t know of a thing I can grow in all that sand.”

The story continued that the salesman was invited for supper and did stay and enjoyed my grandmother’s good cooking and the restful time on the porch afterward. He later left for home and the beach, and I don’t think he made any more overtures to Granddad to buy beach property. The beach outings went on for a few more years until the children got older and times changed.

Years later, my dad and mother continued the tradition, and our family spent time every summer at the beach. After Linda and I were married, we joined them, and my sisters and brother and their children did the same. We would all gather at Ocean Drive, Garden City, Pawleys Island or Litchfield, and we did this until the families got so large that one house couldn’t handle us and we had to rent two. Finally, the logistics and other distractions interfered, and our summer family gathering fell by the wayside.

Linda and I and sometimes our son, Tommy, still make summer excursions to the beach with our little Airstream trailer. We camp at Huntington Beach State Park, famous for its 3 miles of pristine oceanfront. The park and surrounding area remind me a lot of the descriptions my mother remembers of the early outings with Granddad and the family. We love it there and try to go as often as we can.

The other evening I was looking at some old photos of the family when everyone gathered and had fun at the beach. They were grand times, and if I have one regret, it’s this — I sure wish Granddad could have figured out something he could have grown in all that sand.  PS

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

Old Forty

Even the best of rides can throw a rod once in a while

By Tom Bryant

In 1959, the summer before my first year of college, my dad bought me a 1940 four-door deluxe Chevrolet. It was the finest car ever made, at least to me. There is something about a youngster’s first automobile. The occasion creates an aura of independence, open roads, traveling, seeing the country. Adventures are only limited by the imagination.

Dad bought the almost 20-year-old car at an estate sale in Pinehurst and called me at the ice plant where I was working a summer job before going off to Brevard College. He was the superintendent at the plant and gave me the job to supplement my spending money for school. The chief engineer on duty that day called me to the phone that was hanging on a post in the engine room. Dad said, “Tom, I need you to help me move some stuff at home. I’ll pick you up in a few minutes.”

“What stuff? I’m in the middle of pulling ice right now.”

“Never mind, let Walter take over. You’ll only be gone an hour or two.”

Walter was another summer employee, and we alternated the chore of pulling ice from the huge brine tanks. We used an immense crane that could lift 10 blocks weighing 400 pound each all at once. It was not my favorite job around the plant, so I was glad to let him take over.

When Dad arrived, he went to his office to check messages, and I waited in the car. In a few minutes he was back. “I need to go by Pinehurst, and then we’ll run home to move that swing set for the girls.” My sisters were into gymnastics and had an exercise bar and swing set in the backyard. We needed to move it to a shadier spot.

“I hope I’m still on the clock,” I joked. “I need the money. School is only six weeks away.” In those days I made the minimum wage, which was a dollar an hour. A 40-hour week provided, before taxes, $40, a lot of money in the ’50s.

I assumed we were going by the old chicken plant in Pinehurst where Dad was the consultant for the refrigeration system, so I didn’t pay a lot of attention when we pulled in to the driveway of an old house that had seen better days. He stopped in front of a ramshackle single garage. A dusty car squatted forlornly in the dark opening. “There it is, buddy roe,” he said.

“There what is?”

“Your new ride.” I piled out of the car and, somewhat dazed, walked to the garage and the dust-covered vehicle. It was so dirty, with years of accumulated grime, that I could hardly tell its color.

“What do you think?” Dad asked.

I was flabbergasted. I didn’t know what to say. “Will it run?”

“Sure it’ll run. I checked it out before I bought it. It’s gonna need a lot of cleaning and some small repairs, but she’s solid and, with a little work, will carry you many miles.”

I opened the driver’s side door and crawled in. It was magnificent, dirty but magnificent. I looked out at Dad and asked, “Can I crank it?”

“Sure, the switch for the starter is on the floor. I’ve already put in a new battery, so she should fire without any problem.”

I pushed down on the switch and the old vehicle roared into action.

“OK, son, back her out and I’ll follow you home.”

That was easier said than done. When I was just on the outskirts of Pinebluff, cruising at about 40 miles an hour, the right back tire blew like a firecracker. As I was pulling to a slow stop on the side of the road, the left front tire also blew out with a bang. Dad was right behind me and pulled over, got out of his car and walked up laughing. “I thought we’d make it home anyway,” he said, chuckling. “Those old tires are the originals and are dry rotted. They’ll have to be replaced. You wait here and I’ll get a wrecker to pull your car back to the plant, and we’ll put on a new set of tires.”

The rest of the day was a blur. Dad went to town and bought a set of tires from the automotive store, and the guys working at the plant helped me install them. I remember changing the oil and using some of the plant’s equipment to grease the old vehicle. It had been years since she had been serviced.

That day began a love affair with the ancient ride that we nicknamed plainly “The Old Forty.” I used her for all sorts of things: camping, hunting, fishing. She carried friends and me many, many miles safely and only left us, or me, rather, stranded once. It was my sophomore year and I was on the way to school, clipping through Hendersonville, about 20 miles from Brevard, at a pretty good pace. I topped a rise right outside of town and heard something give way in the engine. I pulled into the gravel parking lot of a two-pump service station, got out of the car, raised the hood and heard rattling. It sounded like something in the motor was using a hammer trying to get out.

An old guy, dressed in bib overalls, walked over, looked under the hood and motioned for me to shut down the engine. “I’m sorry, old sport,” he said as he leaned in the passenger-side window, “but I do believe you have, as they say in the vernacular, thrown a rod.” He spit a dollop of chewing tobacco out the corner of his mouth. “It looks like you’re heading to school,” he said, noticing the load of camping gear, clothes and boxes in the back seat.

“Yes sir, Brevard. The semester starts tomorrow.”

“Well, I’ll tell you, we might be able to solve this little quandary. Brevard is right down the road. I’ve got some business there this afternoon and if you don’t mind being towed by an old pickup, as a matter of fact about as old as this beauty you’re sporting, I can tow you to school and then you can make arrangements to get her fixed at your convenience.”

We hooked a chain from the front of Old Forty to the hitch on the back of his pickup, and that’s how I arrived at college. The old gentleman and his ancient truck deposited me at the rear of my dorm, right across from the cafeteria where a line was forming for evening chow. A cheer went up as we unhooked from his pickup and pushed my car into a parking spot. The old guy grinned and said, “It looks like some of those folks are glad to see you.”

That was an understatement. “The Old Forty” became famous as the conveyance that, even though it wouldn’t run, brought me back to an institution of higher learning, or so said many of my friends.

I had the car repaired the next spring and we went on to many more adventures.

A few years later, I was sitting in the front seat of the old vehicle in the parking lot of Ritchie’s Drive-in Bar and Grill, on the outskirts of Elon College, another bastion of higher learning I was attending at the time. I had Old Forty idling, heater going full blast, attempting to warm Linda and me. It was right frosty outside and the windows were fogged. I had been planning for weeks to propose marriage to the cute little girl sitting there in the passenger’s seat, and I made the decision, for better or worse, to pop the question.

The stars and moon must have been perfectly aligned that night because Linda said “yes,” and I swear I could hear the old car happily applauding, or maybe it was just the valves rattling as I shut her down and kissed my soon-to-be bride.  PS

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

Game Show

And now for something completely different

By Tom Bryant

Kettle Time Deer Stew

Night before, soak dried beans. Day of, cut deer meat into chunks, add beans and boil till tender. Add any vegetables you got. Simmer slowly, nearly all afternoon. Try this with squirrel or rabbit.

— From the Touchstone Plantation, late 1800s

Friends were visiting from Arizona for several days, and as always when we have out-of-town guests, we planned to find something unusual and interesting to do. High on our list after the usual fare of historical golf courses, shopping and restaurants is a little museum in downtown Ellerbe, North Carolina, about a 30-minute ride from Southern Pines.

This was our third or fourth visit to the Rankin Museum, and I still saw interesting things I hadn’t noticed before. The museum was created from the lifetime collection of Dr. Pressley R. Rankin Jr. of Ellerbe and is named in his honor. It has always amazed me that this gentleman was able to collect so many artifacts. The accumulation fills a museum that would make a much larger city proud. Little Ellerbe is off the beaten path, but the Rankin Museum draws people from all over the country. If you haven’t had the opportunity to visit the area, I highly recommend it.

On this trip I noticed, in a far corner, a recipe for deer stew from the Touchstone Plantation. I’m a hunter and fisherman, and although I do not hunt deer, I’m not opposed to the folks who do. With all my interests in the outdoors, I really don’t have time to add another sport like deer hunting. I am fortunate, though, because I have good friends who keep me stocked with fresh venison, and I’m always looking for new and different recipes.

After the War Between the States, the South was a destroyed, defeated country that had to exist on whatever resources the land could provide. Game from the forest and fish from lakes and rivers did a lot to keep Southerners from starving. That subsistence necessity in those terrible times hung on over the years; and many folks, not only from the South, but now from all over the country, enjoy food derived from the sports of hunting and fishing.

I’m mostly a bird hunter, specifically ducks, geese and doves. I also hunt quail when I’m lucky enough to find them, and I have several ways to prepare all kinds of nutritious and delicious game.

I collected the plantation recipe at the Rankin Museum from a historical perspective, rather than an epicurean one. It looked interesting but was probably created to fill hungry bellies rather than satisfy taste buds.

After our houseguests departed, Linda, my bride, and I prepared for a camping trip in our little Airstream trailer to Huntington Beach, South Carolina. We made plans for the trip back in the winter and really had not done a lot of planning for the adventure. The deer stew recipe got me in the mood to cook some game, so I decided to take along a few doves, ducks and a venison roast to prepare while we were there, to sort of live off the land, as it were.

A cousin from Charleston gave me a call right before we were to leave and wanted to stop by Huntington Park on her way back from a business trip to Wilmington. She was interested in camping at the park and had a friend with her, and I invited them to have lunch with us, then check out the place.

Many years ago, I found the out-of-print L.L. Bean Game and Fish Cookbook, and it has been the anchor in my wild game cooking. Over the years, I’ve also added to my repertoire recipes from good hunting and fishing buddies. There’s a duck marinating concoction that I’m reluctant to pass along because it’s an old family recipe of Bennett Rose’s, and I don’t think he would wish to spread it around that much. I realize Bennett is a good shot, and with me, discretion is the better part of valor. Anyhow, it’s the best marinade I’ve ever tried and is also good on any dark red game meat. I did dress the mix up a little by adding a touch of good red wine, though. Red wine makes anything taste better and is also good to sip while the meal preparation is underway.

I had done the prep work on my game before we left home, so all I had to do to prepare for lunch was fire up the grill. The menu wasn’t going to be that extensive: grilled marinated teal duck breast, grilled doves wrapped in maple-flavored bacon, and grilled venison strips with horseradish dipping sauce. For hors d’oeuvres, Linda was whipping up some of her favorites, and I had some venison link-sausage to grill, then cut into 1/4-inch chunks to dip in Colonel Hawker’s sauce. It was going to be a dipping kind of meal, easy to eat and easy to clean up afterward. The ducks, doves and venison, along with a good tossed salad and Linda’s Southern cream cheese pound cake for dessert, should fill the fare, I thought.

I was wrong.

My cousin and her friend arrived just in time to do a little scouting around the park and then join us for lunch. Charleston was only about an hour away, so we could catch up on family goings-on, and they would get home in time for supper.

I had the campsite all prepared. The Airstream awning and outdoor rug were in place. Chairs were set in a semicircle, good for conversation, and I had the screen house set up over the picnic table to keep us out of the bugs while we ate lunch.

When my cousin and her friend returned from their scouting trip around the park, I had already fired up the grill. We sat under the awning and talked. Linda poured drinks and served the hors d’oeuvres while I put the sausage links on to cook. Our guests were comfortable under the awning.

In no time, the sausage was ready and I served it along with the sauce to our guests.

“Wow, this is really good,” my cousin said, as she tasted a piece of sausage.

“It sure is,” her friend added. “What is it?”

“A good friend who is a big deer hunter gave it to me,” I replied. “It’s venison sausage.”

My cousin’s friend made a weird noise and spit the piece into her napkin. I thought she was choking, and I prepared to administer the Heimlich maneuver.

It was soon evident, though, that the lady was not choking but was extremely averse to eating any kind of wild game. Needless to say, the conversation bogged down after the hors d’oeuvres, and my cousin and her friend made excuses and a hasty retreat toward Charleston.

As I watched them drive away, I wondered where in the world that lady, who hated the idea of eating venison, thought those packages of bacon, chicken and steak that she bought every week at the grocery store came from. PS

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

Return to Slim’s

Where old tales warm beside the stove

By Tom Bryant

A frosty, late season cold front pushed us out of the rockers and off the side porch of Slim’s old country store and inside to the pot-bellied stove. “Hey, Leroy, put some more coal in this thing,” Bubba said, pointing to the stove. “The folks at the Weather Channel might say that spring is on the way, but they ain’t been sitting out there in the cold.”

A group of us, mostly old-timers, were visiting our ancient rendezvous spot to catch up with one another and remember the good old days. Bubba put the reunion together and was holding forth with stories about those days long gone when we were all a lot younger and a lot more, as Bubba put it, “interesting.” He owned the store named simply Slim’s Place after Slim, the former owner, passed away and the country store sat forlorn and sad on the side of the road. Bubba said he bought the place to give ne’r-do-wells and reprobates a place to go. He hired Leroy, Slim’s cousin, to manage the business, and he showed up whenever he happened to be in the area.

Bubba and I go way back. In our younger years, we had adventures all over the country. From hunting mule deer in the Wasatch Mountains of Utah to goose hunting on the Eastern Shore of Maryland to duck hunting at Lake Mattamuskeet here in North Carolina. Our adventures were only curbed by time and homestead responsibilities. As Bubba likes to say, “Bryant, you ought to write a book.” And I did.

The old stove began to glow red with the addition of more coal, and the group pushed chairs away in unison and got comfortable.

“Coot, do you remember that time on the Falls of the Neuse when we were duck hunting the West Bank of the lake before they filled it?” Bubba had bestowed the nickname Coot on me years before and, like a bad habit, it hung on.

“We hunted that lake a bunch before they closed the dam. Which time are you thinking?”

“The time Paddle was swimming for all she was worth after a wounded duck you shot, and you were running along the bank, trying to get an angle for the coup de grâce and you stepped off in that hidden creek and floated your hat.” The group broke out in laughter.

“Yeah, I do recall that day. And to add insult to injury, the game wardens, who just happened to be hiding behind some brush out in the middle of the lake, motored up laughing, wanting to know if I was all right.”

“Well, you were fine, and you did finally shoot that duck, or Paddle would have chased it to the coast.”

“I had to empty the water out of my gun before I could shoot, and it was a lucky shot. That mallard was almost out of range.” The gang broke out in chuckles again.”

“That was some dog,” H.B. Johnson added. H.B. was a quiet type, not open to much conversation, but he always seemed to be there taking it all in. “Somebody once said, maybe Bubba, there was a time or two when you had a couple of beers after a dove shoot that Paddle would drive you home in that old Bronco of yours.”

“She was smart, H.B.,” I replied above the laughter. “But I wouldn’t let her drive. She didn’t have her license, and I didn’t want to get in trouble with the law.”

The conversation moved on to more famous stories from the past, some true, but most embellished with just a breath of what actually happened.

Shadows were lengthening across the gravel parking lot of the old place, and all too soon, the reunion of the old group broke up as, one by one, folks said their goodbyes and headed home. I was the last to leave, along with Bubba.

“Coot,” he said as we were standing on the porch, “we’ve got to get together more often. Now that you’re famous with that book coming out and all, I hardly get to see you.”

“You know that’s not right,” I replied. “You’re always off in some exotic port fishing, like down in Costa Rica, or hunting sharp tails out in Montana. Bubba, you’re hardly ever home.” He laughed, and we shook hands promising to get together again before long.

On the drive home, I thought about the old guys and their dogs and our many experiences together, good friends all, including the furry ones.

The Paddle stories brought back a memory of the day she came to live with us. Jim and I picked her up at the Raleigh Airport. She had come from a kennel in Pennsylvania and was only 9 weeks old. On the way home, she rode in my lap, yawning and dozing while Jim drove, and as we pulled into the city limits, Jim said, “We need to take her by Coleman’s so Dicky can see her.”

Dick Coleman was a good friend who died too soon. His name and stories of his adventures came up several times during our gatherings at Slim’s. In our early years, he owned a men’s specialty store that was famous across that part of the state.

When we barged in with Paddle, all work stopped. Several customers were in the process of buying, and most of them came over to look at the new puppy with Coleman leading the group. We put her down on the floor and she started darting from customer to customer.

“OK, Bryant,” Dick said. “Let’s see if this little thing knows how to retrieve. He went in the back of the store and came out with a small canvas dummy used to train young retrievers.

“I used this when I was working Honcho. See if she knows what it’s all about.” Dick’s black Lab, Honcho, was famous in our group as a dog just right for Coleman — wild and headstrong, but a great friend and hunter. The dog fit.

Dick handed me the dummy and I knelt down, holding Paddle in my arms. Everyone got behind me to be out of the way.

“Here you go, girl.” I showed her the dummy, and she was instantly alert. When I tossed it 10 or 15 feet down the aisle, she leaped from my arms, tore across the room, and did a flip as she dove on it and grabbed it in her little mouth. She paused, looked back, then regally trotted back to me. The audience, Dick’s customers, laughed and applauded.

Coleman exclaimed, “Tom, this dog was born to do this!”

As usual, when it pertained to working dogs and most anything involving hunting and fishing, he was exactly right.  PS

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

Using It Up

Squeezing the most out of precious time

By Tom Bryant

Here we were rushing, hell bent for leather, into 2018, March already to be exact, and I wasn’t through using up 2017.

Linda, my bride, and I are in Florida escaping a winter that seems to be on a quest to freeze off all my digits. We are rambling in our little Airstream, wandering from one fish camp to another, sort of like modern day gypsies. The year I wasn’t through with yet played havoc with our normal fishing port, Chokoloskee Island, just below Everglades City. During the summer, Hurricane Irma all but washed the little place away, and we decided not to revisit the island on this winter excursion.

Last year would go down in the journal as a very different one from those in the past. It was a time of extremes, good days and bad. We finished off duck season with few good results. Then on our venture to Chokoloskee, the weather was beautiful, fishing unsurpassed, all in all good times. John Jarrett, a good friend from Rotary, gave me a call early one evening while we were relaxing under the awning of the Airstream. “Tom, this is John Jarrett, how about we get together for lunch tomorrow?”

“John, we’re in Florida.”

“We are, too. We’re visiting friends in Naples, and I remembered you’re usually at Chokoloskee about now and thought I’d give you a call.”

Naples is only about a 30-minute drive from Everglades City, and the following day found us enjoying a wonderful seafood lunch with John, his wife, Linda, and their friends at the venerable old Rod and Gun Club. It was a wonderful visit and a welcome break in our daily routine. John, who put up a gallant battle with cancer, succumbed to the disease later in the year. I’m glad he gave us a call for lunch. John lived his life to the fullest and will be missed. Like a lot of us surviving the golden years, he made the best of his days; and following his example, I’m determined to do the same.

Another good friend, Rich Waters, often says that a lot of people catch the rocking chair disease. As soon as they reach a certain year, they sit down and rock themselves into old age and perhaps an early grave. I feel a lot like Rich, a moving target is harder for the grim reaper to catch.

In 2017, Linda and I were on the move. Checking out the journal, we made several trips to the beach, an impromptu trip to Florida, and a nice visit to Charleston. We spent good times with friends and family. My first book was successfully published with the expertise of the folks at The Country Bookshop, and another is on the way.

Duck season last year may not have been up to earlier successes, but I believe it’s a sign of the times. I’ve had the opportunity to watch several wild areas suffer the wave of progress, too many people after too much of the same. Currituck, for example, was one of the finest duck hunting locations on the East Coast. Today it has become a place to remember as it used to be when canvasback and redhead ducks made it a waterfowl haven.

Just before last Christmas, my good friends John Vernon, Jack Spencer, Art Rogers and I enjoyed a few days at Lake Mattamuskeet duck hunting. It was a classic hunt, shooting over an impoundment loaded with corn. In earlier years, we would have had ducks by the hundreds paying us a call. On this adventure, though, the weather refused to cooperate and ducks stayed out on the lake and on the sound basking in 60-degree temperatures. There was sufficient moaning and groaning at the warm weather and lack of ducks, but the four of us have long ago given up equating the success of a hunt by game in the bag. It was enough for us to enjoy the camaraderie of good friends, good food and incomparable wild scenery. Tundra swans by the hundreds flew over the blind at treetop level, and their primal calling reminded us of days long gone.

For years, tundra swans’ numbers were down, almost on the endangered species list and off limits to hunters. Their recovery has been so good that today a waterfowler, with the correct permit issued by the Wildlife Resources Commission, can shoot one bird. In our hunting group, we have declined; not saying it’s wrong, but watching the birds’ majestic flight, long necks extended, calling their wild call is more than enough to just file away in our memory banks.

On the same trip we observed several eagles soar over the lake in numbers I haven’t seen before. They, along with their cousins, the ospreys, have made a remarkable recovery from near extinction.

So why do I have the concern that there is something I missed in the last year, something that I should have done to close out the time with a more satisfied feeling? I think that if the truth were known, I’m a lot like Calvin in the classic comic strip Calvin and Hobbs, by Bill Watterson. Calvin admonishes his imaginary friend Hobbs to “Hurry. Hurry. We’re having fun but not enough fun!”

While 2017 is a not too distant memory, the new year is up and running. There are fish to be caught, dove and duck hunts to plan, gear to repair, and some of the latest stuff to buy. Right now, I’m sitting on the gulf, just off Cedar Key, ready later this afternoon to launch my little canoe for some laid-back fishing. If I’m lucky, I’ll catch enough trout for supper, and if not, I’ll boil up shrimp that we just picked up from the local fish market. When I asked the crusty old owner if the shrimp was fresh, he replied, “Man, those shrimp were swimming yesterday.”

In my own mind, I might not have used up all of 2017 to the extent I wanted, but I plan on wearing 2018 down to a nub.

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