Fading Memories.

Memories don't just pop into mind for many of us, they are spawn by a smell of something that we've smelt before, a site of something we've seen before or maybe even a word phrase we used to here or be told by someone we knew long ago. For me many of my memories have come back to me through the old photographs my parents show me or give me as they become older and want me to have. As a kid growing up, a trip to Picther, Oklahoma the week of the 4th of July was a scheduled vacation for the family to visit my grandparents and of coarse fishing was always on the agenda. It wasn't until my senior year in high school that I began my deer hunting legacy even though I had hunted other wild game previously. That first year of whitetail deer hunting set things in motion for me that has lasted more than 40 years now and the memories I had and made are enough to last me for a lifetime. Though my memories come and go through my mind as I get older and I'm sure there are things I'll forget, Ill never be able to write all my memories down here on my web page before my time is up. Stories of days gone by that are told aloud are often forgotten within years of telling them but stories put to print are remembered and passed on through future generations for life. This is why I started this website and will continue to add to it as often as I can remember a memory to write.

Is Poaching Hurting Our Wild Game?

Many years ago when I first started hunting wild game of all kinds, game was abundant. Today, I find it harder to find a place to hunt, people willing to hunt by the laws set forth by our wildlife resource agencies and wild game in abundance as it used to be years ago. Now I know that where I live the farmers have alot of problems with hunters crossing their fences to hunt without permission and trash being left behind by hunters and make-out parkers ( kids parking on the side of the roads to make out at night or day ), fences being cut, livestock getting shot not only by hunters but by drive-by shooters and farm land being destroyed by vehicles driving on wet muddy grounds but this doesn't mean that there isn't some hunters out there that don't respect the lands and the owners and the wild game. Though disease does claim many of our wild game animals that still doesn't account for the drastic decline of nearly half the wild game animals. Yes the human population expanding throughout the countryside is taking a great toll on our game but that only causes the game to move to new locations. Poaching is what I believe to be the biggest problem with our wild game decline and I've watched this happen many times throughout the years I've been hunting. Hunters don't like being told they can't shot but one buck if the limit is four and four show up in the field in front of them. Hunters don't understand the license fees going up almost every year and not seeing any return on this increase only more laws preventing them from filling their tags. Hunters not being able to hunt lands they see big bucks on ( which many never even ask permission to hunt the lands ). Small farms and acreage being hunted with deer only crossing them causing the hunters to shoot or cross the property lines to take a deer. License fees to high for some people to be able to afford them so they hunt deer and other wild game without a license hoping not to get caught ( and most don't ) and not checking in the deer. Folks not able to find a place to hunt so they ride the roads both at night and during the day to hunt wild game, pulling onto farm lands looking for game to shoot. This is what our hunting world is coming to and there has to be some kind of solution to the problem. Our wildlife agencies can't do all the work for us, we've got to help bring this problem under control. Earn the respect of the farmers and the community and show them you can be an ethical hunter who understands the cost they sustain in farming and values of their property. Support the wildlife agencies in your area and work with them to control the poaching problems we all face, reporting any suspected poaching. Share your wild game with the farmland owners and your community citizens, the elderly and the poor. Through this process we will all gain in a greater outlook on the outdoors and the wildlife that lives for our hunting heritage to continue for years to come.

40 Years of Our Heritage--- Is It Dying?

Years ago when I was young and full of life hunting and fishing was my world.It was the only thing that I could do that I did well as far as a hobby. It didn't matter what time of year it was I always had someone ready to go hunting or fishing. That was when I lived at Lascassas, Tennessee and had grown up there knowing everyone and they didn't care back then if you hunted or fished on their property. Now days I live at Sparta, Tennessee and it seems as though you have to go through an act of congress just to find a place to hunt or fish and then it takes you a year or so to learn the woods and waters to be able to do any good at taking game when you go on an outdoors adventure. Now days you either have to lease a farm to hunt, know someone with a big farm to hunt or own a big farm yourself just to hunt unless you go to a management area where your hunting with alot of other people around you which lessens your chances of taking game. Even people with big ponds full of fish who don't even fish the ponds don't want you fishing them. The world has changed so much in the past 40 years and most of it is the people in the world doing the changing. Land being cleared, land being sold of for homesites and condos, land being posted as " no trespassing " and land changing hands from farmers to large holding companies that you don't even know who owns them and can't find out cause they live in another state somewhere. Then there is the cost involved with going on an outdoor adventure which is getting to be outrageous as well. The cost of tackle, putting your boat in the water, licenses, bait, gas, leasing land to hunt on, hunting gear, scouting trips, ammo, processing, taxes and even your health keeps going up every year. What are we to do watch our heritage die out before we do in years to come?. As we grow older we tend to hunt and fish much less then when we were younger and thats one reason we all look to find young adults who we hope will get interested in hunting and fishing enough to carry on our heritage. Schools are teaching our children and grandchildren our heritage sports now but what good does that do if theres nowhere to go?. Many of them will find it just as hard to find a place to go on an outdoors adventure as we do and may end up giving up the heritage due to lack of a place to go and cost. Everything in our heritage today has to do with money. Greed has driven and is driving the price of our heritage to a place where none of us want it to be--- extinct. With the rising cost of everything beginning with taxes and filtering down from there, everyone wants a piece of the pie. They all want their share of the growing economy which includes our heritage. From my view point the government is working in a way to prevent any of us from having a heritage to pass on to our children and grandchildren within years to come. They want us to give up our guns so they rise the price of taxes, our licenses and anything else that has to do with our outdoor adventures that they have a hand in which makes it harder for us to be able to afford our heritage sports. Then everyone else rises their prices to offset those price increases and it snowballs from there as it has for the past 40 years. Though many of us don't see the really big picture here it is a growing trend that our heritage is dying off faster then we think. Take a good long look around you at our young adults and find out just how many of them are really into outdoor sports today--- not as many as when we were growing up. Our heritage is dying fast and we have to find a solution to preserve it if it is to survive. What is the answer? I don't know but we have to do something soon or it will be gone forever and we'll be left with only our memories of our heritage.

June Bugs and Grasshoppers for Catfish.

Although I can't remember the year of this grand fishing trip, I still remember everything about the trip as if it were yesterday. It took place in Pitcher, Oklahoma where my grandparents, aunts and uncles lived. It was mid-summer, hot temperatures and the June bugs were out everywhere. My Uncle Bill told us kids to go out and catch a bunch of June bugs then when it got dark we were to go walk through the tall grass and weeds and catch large grasshoppers. After procuring the bait we all loaded up in my uncles 1958 chevy Cheyenne pick-up a headed to the river with the camper in tow. On the way tho the river my uncle stopped at the package store and picked up some beer ( which was high on the must take along list ). As we traveled to the river my uncle began handing the beer out the window to us kids in the back of the truck when my dad ask what he was doing . My uncles only reply was " I thought they were thirsty " and my dad replied that we were only kids not adults. Once we arrived at the river everything got set-up for the night and we got our trot lines and fishing poles put out. It wasn't long before the fish began biting on the June bugs and grasshoppers and by the time morning came around we ended up catching 52 keeper catfish which weighted from 2 1/2 pounds to 34 pounds. Though the night seemed short, it seemed like it took forever to clean all those catfish when we got home the next morning.

My Last Deer Hunt On A Management Area.

Years ago I used to hunt on management hunting areas but I quickly figured out this just wasn't my cup of tea. I had the privilege to hunt with one of my high school buddies and good friend Ricky Duke and another friend Chris Ballinger at Motlow State College Management area back in 1986. Now Ricky was to meet us there opening morning to give us a little insight on the best areas to hunt and where we could hunt as not all the management area was open to hunting. After getting the lowdown on the hunting areas we set of to hunt what was actually the back side of the management area. Ricky went to the left of us and Chris and I planned on following a fire access roadbed down through the woods and cross over a couple of hollows before setting up to hunt. As Chris and I walked in , we came upon a hunter sitting up on a ladder platform stand that became very rude and impolite and vulgar toward us telling us that he was hunting in that area and for us to get out of there and go somewhere else. At the time I was young and quick tempered and this guy made me mad very quickly by trying to claim the woods as his own hunting area. So at that time I was carrying a Remington 300 magnum and turned to my hunting partner, which put the barrel of my rifle pointing straight at the ladder stand, and clicked the safety off the rifle and ask Chris if he heard what that big fat m*****F***** had said to us?. When the hunter heard the rifle safety click off his eyes got really big and he decided not to say anything else to us as we moved off further into the woods behind him which was where we were headed for anyway. AS we walked further down into the hollow we could start to see there was blaze orange everywhere in that area and I was still mad from my encounter with the rude hunter. I raised my rifle and shot into a large oak tree then hollered out " There he goes boys yell get him ". Blaze orange was everywhere looking for the deer and we moved off further still into the woods over three more hollows before finally setting up to hunt. We traveled so far back into the woods we were hunting on the management area property line which joined a big farm. Chris sat by a big tree watching the hollow and I had set up watching the woods at the property line hoping a deer would come from the farm into the woods. As luck would have it a nice six point buck did cross over into the woods from the farm but the brush was real thick and my shot didn't connect. When we got ready to leave we had gotten turned around and found ourselves coming out in the town on the back side of the management area. Luckily Ricky had already figured out where we would be coming out from and had come around the road to get us and return us to our truck.This was the last time I ever hunted deer on a management area and as long as I can find property to hunt behind closed/locked gates I won't be hunting management areas again. Just remember everyone has the same rights to hunt on any management area so don't make the other hunters mad at you-- be polite.

My Mentor To Our Heritage.

Some twenty years ago I had a mentor who helped me learn about deer hunting. How to shoot a bow, what signs to look for during scouting trips, tree stand locations, field dressing my deer, bucthering, packaging and cooking my venison. I in turn passed this knowledge on to young adults getting started and carried them on youth hunts for their first deer. When I moved away from Lascassas, Tennessee I kind of gave up the passing of knowledge to young adults until now. At present day I am mentoring my grandchildren and neighborhood youths in the art of Whitetail hunting and enjoying every minute of it. Each subject I talk to the youths about brings back a memory of my mentor and these memories are what keeps him alive for me to continue my teachings. He was 7/8 Cherokee Indian and could shoot a bow better than any man I know now so I know everything I was taught was better than anything you could ever get from reading books and TV shows. Today, I'm proud I had a teacher and dear friend willing to take the time to show me how to hunt whitetail deer and enjoy the woods and nature as it was meant to be. Our heritage was handed down to me by my mentor and I've passed it on throughout the years as it should be to many young adult hunters. Today my mentor has long ago passed but his spirit lives on through me and my mentoring of young adults. Be a good friend and mentor to some young adult and pass our heritage on to future generations of young hunters trying to learn our great sport as you did when you were young. Mentoring is a great feeling and it keeps our young adults out of trouble with the law. Thank You Charles Duke for passing on such a great heritage to me.

My First Hunting Trip.

Years have passed since the first hunting trip with my dad. I was only 13 years old and eager to go squirrel hunting with my dad. Though I didn't have my own gun yet I knew from my first trip out into the woods this was what I wanted to do the rest of my life. Anyway, it was fall of 1971 and the leaves had already began to change colors, there was a slight dew on the ground and the weather was a perfect cool morning air with no wind blowing. As we drove to a little country churchyard and parked, Dad explained that we would have to leave by 8:30 a.m. due to church starting. We were hunting the woods behind the church house which were full of big red fox squirrels. As the sun began coming up we could already hear the nuts dropping and the squirrels jumping from limb to limb. We sat by a large oak tree watching and waiting till we could get a clear shot at a squirrel stopped on a trunk or limb of a tree. Dad had given me a 410 single shot shotgun to hunt with and he was using a 22 bolt action with a scope. By 8:00 a.m. we had both taken our limits and was heading for home.It was a couple of years later in life that I found out that my mom didn't like any wild game that was all shot up with shotgun pellets so then was when I began hunting small game with only a 22. My birthday was in October and for my 13Th birthday my parents got me a 22 rifle which I learned to use well and took many a squirrel and rabbit with. To this day I still only hunt small game with a 22 rifle and enjoy every minute I can in the woods whether or not I take game home or not. Today I hunt big game with an occasional trip for small game but my preference is big game animals.

Spoonbill Fishing of Years Ago

The last tornado that went through Oklahoma wiped out a very large portion of the little town of Pitcher,Oklahoma where I spent alot of my childhood time at my grandparents homes. Though both my grandparents on both sides had passed on some years ago I still have relatives living in Oklahoma. As I watched the news that night of the devastating disaster of the tornado, I quickly found myself thinking back of when I would go down to the Neosho river in March fishing for spoonbill catfish. I would at times spend the better part of a morning casting a heavy 5 oz. sinker with a no.6 trebble hook from a 12 ft. Diawa rod and reel with 30 lb. test line trying to snatch one of the big monsters that circled in-front of the dam waiting for the water to rise up over the dam so they could move upstream to spawn. Many mornings I would catch my fish and be back home by 10:00 and even though the limit back then was 5 fish with no culling, I only took 3 fish to ensure the future of the fish population survived.
We had people who would come down during the run of the spoonbill catfish with buckets and pockets full of money just waiting for some fisherman to catch one of the large females of which carried large black eggs. These onlookers would buy the fish from the fisherman ( usually for $200.00 ) for the eggs which was turned into caviar ( imitation of coarse ). After the eggs were extracted from the fishes belly by knife, the fish was discarded to the ground and fair game for anyone that wanted it for the meat. This practice lead to the downfall of the spoonbill catfish population and within two years the limits were changed to 3 fish and wardens patrolled the river banks during the spoonbill catfish runs. It's been many years since I had the opportunity to go fishing for spoonbill even though we have them here in Tennessee, but I still get excited just thinking about the fun and pleasure I had as a child fishing for them in Oklahoma. Many of the fish I caught would weigh in the range of 35-75 lbs. and I never sold a single fish to anyone.

Bring Gas Prices Down

This was sent to me via e-mail see if it makes sense to you. THIS IS NOT THE 'DON'T BUY' GAS FOR ONE DAY, BUT IT WILL SHOW YOU HOW WE CAN GET GAS BACK DOWN TO $1.30 PER GALLON.

This was sent by a retired Coca Cola executive. It came from one of his engineer buddies who retired from Halliburton. If you are tired of the gas prices going up AND they will continue to rise this summer, take time to read this please.

Phillip Hollsworth offered this good idea.
This makes MUCH MORE SENSE than the "don't buy gas on a certain day" campaign that was going around last April or May!
It's worth your consideration. Join the resistance!!!!
I hear we are going to hit close to $ 4.00 a gallon by next summer, and it might go higher!! Want gasoline prices to come down?

We need to take some intelligent, united action. The oil companies just laughed at that because they knew we wouldn't continue to "hurt" ourselves by refusing to buy gas.

It was more of an inconvenience to us than it was a problem for them.
BUT, whoever thought of this idea has come up with a plan that can really work. Please read on and join with us!

By now you're probably thinking gasoline priced at about $2.00 is super cheap. Me too! It is currently $3.19 for regular unleaded in my town.

Now that the oil companies and the OPEC nations have conditioned us to think that the cost of a gallon of gas is CHEAP at $1.50 - $1.75, we need to take aggressive action to teach them that BUYERS control the marketplace..not sellers.

With the price of gasoline going up more each day, we consumers need to take action.

The only way we are going to see the price of gas come down is if we hit someone in the pocketbook by not purchasing their gas! And, we can do that WITHOUT hurting ourselves.

How? Since we all rely on our cars, we can't just stop buying gas.

But we CAN have an impact on gas prices if we all act together to force a price war.

Here's the idea: For the rest of this year, DON'T purchase ANY gasoline from the two biggest companies (which now are one), EXXON and MOBIL.

If they are not selling any gas, they will be inclined to reduce their prices.
If they reduce their prices, the other companies will have to follow suit.

But to have an impact, we need to reach literally millions of Exxon and Mobil gas buyers. It's really simple to do! Now, don't wimp out on me at this point...keep reading and I'll explain how simple it is to reach millions of people!!

I am sending this note to 30 people. If each of us send it to at least ten more (30 x 10 = 300) ... and those 300 send it to at least ten more (300 x10 = 3,000)...and so on, by the time the message reaches the sixth group of people, we will have reached over THREE MILLION consumers.
If those three million get excited and pass this on to ten friends each, then 30 million people will have been contacted!

If it goes one level further, you guessed it..... THREE HUNDRED MILLION PEOPLE!!!

Again, all you have to do is send this to 10 people. That's all!

(If you don't understand how we can reach 300 million and all you have to do is send this to 10 people.... Well, let's face it, you just aren't a mathematician. But I am . so trust me on this one.

How long would all that take? If each of us sends this e-mail out to ten more people within one day of receipt, all 300 MILLION people could conceivably be contacted within the next 8 days !!!

I'll bet you didn't think you and I had that much potential, did you!
Acting together we can make a difference.

If this makes sense to you, please pass this message on. I suggest that we not buy from EXXON/MOBIL UNTIL THEY LOWER THEIR PRICES TO THE $2.00 RANGE AND KEEP THEM DOWN. THIS CAN REALLY WORK.

Keep it going!!!

Habitat For Humanity

First founded in 1942 by Farmer and Clarence Jordan, in a small interracial, Christian farming community outside Americus, Ga. . Then in 1965, a new idea called " Partnership Housing " in which those in need of adequate housing and volunteers would work together side by side to build simple, decent homes. The homes would be built on no profit and no interest charged loans. In 1968, Koinonia Farms laid out 42 half acre sites with a four acre community park and recreational area. Donations came in from around the country, homes were built and sold to families in need and the basic model began the Habitat For Humanity. In 1976 Habitat For Humanity International was born and in 1984 former U. S. President Jimmy Carter and his wife Rosalyn joined the Habitat work trip. The present results on Habitat For Humanity is that more than 200,000 homes and more than 1,000,000 people in more than 3,000 communities worldwide have decent affordable shelter. An idea turned into reality by the grace of God and people working with people for the people of the world.

Surprize Birthday Gift

The year was 1992 , early Feburaury and I was working a commercial plumbing job in Murfreesboro, Tenn.. My job had just played out as we finished the construction on the new city hall so my wife and I decided it was time for a change. We packed up everything we had and moved to Bushnell,Florida where I started a job at Ace Hardware in Wildwood,Florida until a training class as a correctional officer started in June after which I was hired on as a correctional officer in the kitchen at Marian Correctional Facility in Ocala,Florida. We were living near my brother-in-law ( Allen Cole ) who was also a correctional officer and my birthday was approaching in October but deer season was opening in September and one evening after work I was picked up by my wife,brother-in-law and sister-in-law and was told we were going to dinner but that my brother-in-law had to go get his bow worked on first. We got to this little country bow shop and as I walked in I began looking at all the bows and eqippment on the walls when the owner approached asking if he could help me. I told him I was just looking while waiting on my brother-in-law an the man told me he had a new bow that I might like.The man went in the back room and came out with a new PSE Blacklightening, handed it to me and ask what I thought of it. At that moment my wife stepped up and whispered in my ear that it was mine and happy birthday at which time the owner also fixed it up with arrows,sight,release,eye sight, broad heads, silencers and even took me outside to his range and helped me sight it in. Now you talk about someone that was blown away with surprize and happy, that was me. Today I still have the same PSE bow with eqippment and have killed a few nice deer with it. Perhaps one day I will buy a new bow but nothing I feel will ever compare to my Pse Blacklightening which I will continue to use till I can't shoot any more. Thank you Honey for giving me the best surprize birthday gift of a lifetime,one that I'll always charish.

The Old Farm House

Ive been sitting around the house this weekend trying to come up with a new memory from my past that might strike an idea for next years huntso here it is in a nut shell( or maybe something bigger). I've wrtten about dreams coming true and it put me to thinking about a dream I had several years ago which took place in Lascassas, Tn. on a farm with an old abandoned, weathered farm house standing in the middle of the property and the woods grown up all around it. As I dreamed I seen myself on a camping trip in which my hunting buddies and I stayed the weekend in the farm house to hunt the farm and the weather was cold. We awoke on saturday morning after a night of hard drinking ( beer and cheap wine ), got dressed and ready to go hunting, headed out the front door. Upon stepping off the end of the front porch we all paused to relief our stomachs of the nights drinks then headed off to our picked hunting sites. As we got to the back corner of the farm house, we spooked a small group of squirrels playing on the ground which in turn spooked a herd of deer that was feeding 45 yards from the farm house one of which was a really nice tall racked buck. As luck would have it nobody got a chance for a shot due to everyone with unloaded guns, slow reactions and very bad hang-overs. Now you can imagine 5 hunters hunting with hang-overs in the woods with guns-- that's SCARY and STUPID. Needless to say my drinking days while hunting are long over and has become a seldom ever drinker now but I still try to hunt every chance I get. I returned to this old farm house the following week and did manage to take a small buck but never returned again and the property has now been turned into a houseing development area---another lost hunting area due to mans greed for money.

Our Economy--- Past and Present

As I set here at my computer pondering my next post I find myself thinking about the economy of today and wondering how much longer it will be before we are put officially into a recession. Some folks say we are already there but thinking back I remember a day my parents had been digging through some of their old photographs and researching their genealogy. As they showed the photos to me they explained the photos were of some of my relatives back in the 1930's and 1940's during the recession period and you could tell from the photo that times were really hard on folks. Some of their photos went back into the 1800's and was of folks trading foods for goods or services. A document my parents showed me told of one relative at the time of his marriage bought acreage property with a house on it for .50 cents and a mule and a bushel of apples. If our economy doesn't get better soon that may be the way we will all end up. I've seen this trend for years now in the bigger cities as the homeless and starving stand on street corners and interstate off ramps holding signs asking for work for food or money and there seems to be no end in sight for this trend of life.Sure the government says it will help by building homes for the homeless but in Nashville,Tn. the plans for building a 200 room complex for the homeless was set aside to build a new sports arena costing billions of dollars which I see could go along way toward helping the homeless and the economy. But I just a country hick town fellow with little knowledge of how to foresee turning the economy around to make things better. Perhaps it's just the fact that the rich folk think if it doesn't make them money then why give the money to help. The way I see it if it comes down to it and the recession hits hard I'll help anyone except the rich then they'll have to pay me dearly for my help. Bush and the senate know what to do to prevent us from falling deeper into debt and having such a recession from happening but refuse to do the right thing until it's to late if it isn't all ready.Stocks have fallen all around the world due to an anticipated recession and the government just sits back waiting for it to happen.The economy is bad now but it will get worst before it gets better with no telling how long the recession will last.

I'm back

Thanks to each and everyone of you Im back up and getting ready to start my posting again folks. the heart felt encouragement and kindness everyone left on my last postings is all I could think about while I was gone except my hunting whitetails for the past 3 months that is. Be prepared for I'm back and don't plan on stopping again without a real tradgedy this time.

memories-- My Last Post

This is to be my last post to all the bloggers out there reading them. It's finally come down to my giving up hunting for good as of this weekend I'll be pulling all my stands out of the woods and selling them sometime after the first of the year along with all my hunting equipment. At this time I would like to thank everyone who has visited my sites and those of you who have left comments. I will continue to visit everyones sites till the first of the year at which time my websites will be deleted and I'll sign off blogger for good. Again thank you for visiting my sites and best of luck hunting this year. David Voyles aka Deerslayer

IT'S MY BIRTHDAY TODAY/ I'M ONLY 27

It's my birthday today and I'm only 27 years old. I'm not planning on doing anything after work today including writing (sorry folks).birthday on October 11.

Hunting-- A renewed Memory of the Past

On my other site I wrote about the problems of wild stray dogs and atv's hurting my hunting trips. Back in the old days I remember that atv's were just a way to get to the field or woods and never rode into the woods while hunting season was on except to retrieve a deer but not today folks,today youths ride just about anywhere they feel like it without regards to the hunters in the woods. As for the wild stray dogs I can remember being out hunting ans shooting any dog that didn't belong to the land owner( per his permission) as they were chasing and killing his livestock. I have shot dogs at 250-300 yards away just for this reason and looks like I may get the chance to do so again come rifle season. Stray dogs become a hunters and farmers worst enemy and for this reason I do take them out every chance I get. I've had deer chased by dogs and decided to shot the dogs first over the deer which helped improve my hunting farmlands and helped the farmers livestock as well. My theory on dogs in the field or woods is "If you see them in the woods, leave them in the woods".

Hunting With Young Adults

As many of you know I consider juveniles or youths "Young Adults" but this never even entered my mind until I started writing on the Internet. I've done alot of hunting with the young adults around the community were I growed up but have slowed down since moving here to White County, Tennessee. If you have been reading my other site and you look at my last post you'll see that I am about ready to give up on hunting altogether. Now that's not to say that my hunting career has come to an end what I am thinking about doing is working with the young adults of the communities around my area and possibly taking up a new aspect of hunting. One that will still enable me to be active in the woods and fields but will also help our heritage to survive longer and better then it has in a long time. I'm considering the possibility of maybe becoming a " Hunter Education Certification Officer " for the "State of Tennessee". Though this probably won't happen this year it is something that I've been considering for some time now as there are a great many young adults out there today that can't get the certification before the season due to the dates or transportation or no parent/buddy with the time for the classes. I may still hunt some of the time but this seems like a far better way of preserving our heritage for the young adults.

Memories of My Dad

My dad has been one of the most influential, outstanding, and knowledgeable men in my life as I grew up and to this day. I've seen him do things that would have been thought impossible with almost nothing to work with and in the most unbelievable places. I guess the memories that stick out most in my life of my dad would be back when I was around 8 or 9 years old. On almost every Sunday morning when we would all get up the first thing we would do is, us boys would go out with a coffee can to hunt for worms while mom would fix a big breakfast. As soon as everyone ate breakfast we would load all the fishing gear into dad's old 68 Chevy truck and head down to one of the rivers close to home for a morning of fishing. It didn't matter where we went fishing though cause we all enjoyed just been out away from home relaxing along the riverbank taking in the scenery,playing in the cool water and spending time with dad.Dad would always try his best to make sure that everyone of us boys would at least catch one fish before we would leave for home. When we would get home it would be us boys that would clean the fish we had caught and that's what we would usually eat for supper Sunday night.Fresh fish,homemade hush puppies and homemade french fries with homemade tartar sauce, man what a meal that would be(can you taste it?). After returning home and cleaning the fish ,us boys would get several of our friends to come over for a few games of football and dad would fire up the grill for some big fat hamburgers for lunch while watching us play football. In the fall I remember dad taking me squirrel hunting to a place behind this old country church with nothing but big hickory nut trees behind it and we would still hunt with our 22 rifles cause mom didn't like any wild game that had been shot with a shotgun( she didn't like picking buckshot or the hair from her meat). As I grew older I practiced with the 22 and got good enough to shot rabbit sitting or running just for mom. Dad was always there to help me work on my truck regardless of what I was doing to it and would always tell me I was doing things the hard way then show me the easy way of fixing it(and he's still there helping me out whenever I need him today).My dad has alot of health problems today and most he doesn't even tell mom about or go get checked by the doctors but he still gets around fairly well for a man to be 83 years old. I don't do funerals very well and don't like to think about his passing coming anytime soon. Mom's health is bad and dad takes care of her really well, I only fear that when one goes they both will go at the same time due to the closeness of their companionship as I have seen all to many end up the same way.God help me when this day comes.

The Cook Shack Question

Gabby at the cook shack had this one and I thought it was worth reviving for a second glance see what you think. How many do you remember ?

Head lights dimmer switches on the floor.
Ignition switches on the dashboard.
Heaters mounted on the inside of the fire wall. Real ice boxes.Pant leg clips for bicycles without chain guards. Soldering irons you heat on a gas burner.Using hand signals for cars without turn signals.

Older Than Dirt Quiz:
Count all the ones that you remember, NOT the ones you were told about ! Your ratings at the bottom.

1. Blackjack chewing gum
2. Wax Coke-shaped bottles with colored sugar water
3. Candy cigarettes
4. Soda pop machines that dispensed glass bottles
5. Coffee shops or diners with tableside juke boxes
6 Home milk delivery in glass bottles with cardboard stoppers
7. Party lines8. Newsreels before the movie9. P.F. Flyers 10. Butch wax
11. Telephone numbers with a word prefix (OLive-6933)
12. Peashooters
13. Howdy Doody
14. 45 RPM records
15. S&H Green Stamps
16 Hi-fi's
17. Metal ice trays with lever
18. Mimeograph paper
19 Blue flashbulb
20. Packards
21. Roller skate keys
22. Cork popguns
23. Drive-ins
24. Studebakers
25. Wash tub wringers

If you remembered 0-5 = You're still young.
If you remembered 6-10 = You are getting older.
If you remembered 11-15 = Don't tell your age,
If you remembered 16-25 = You're older than dirt !

I might be older than dirt but those memories are the best part of my life.

Don't forget to pass this along !!

Especially to all your really OLD friends....