Keith McCafferty headlines a list of talented mystery writers whose protagonists are gun- or rod-toting sleuths caught up in murder and mayhem. Reading has always been an integral and important part of my life. Mine was a blessed boyhood, one where I grew up in a home...
Just as an oft-used adage suggests “there’s more than one way to skin a cat,” so are there multiple ways to skin a turkey. Mind you, if you have plans to roast or deep-fry your gobbler, it shouldn’t really be skinned at all. Plucking is a tedious, time-consuming...
When Parker Whedon died on March 16, 2012 after a long struggle with Parkinson’s disease and the myriad complications associated with the illness, the world of turkey hunting lost perhaps its final direct link to the sport’s great names of yesteryear. From the time...
In many ways my Grandpa Joe was a boy trapped in an old man’s body. Full of tricks as a pet ’coon, tough as a seasoned hickory sapling and imbued with 70-plus years of wisdom accumulated by living close to the good earth of the Smokies, he possessed an unflagging...
With the death of Neil Cost on May 29, 2002, at the age of 78, the turkey hunting world lost the most renowned of all callmakers. I was also fortunate enough to personally know this extraordinarily skilled craftsman whose callmaking earned him national acclaim and to...
My Grandpa Joe was chock full of weather-related wisdom. For example, about this time of year, whenever a premature warm spell hinted at a change in the seasons, he would opine: “A fellow can’t trust spring. It tends to be mighty fittified.” He knew, by dint of long...
Although as a boy I didn’t receive dozens of Christmas gifts each year, those that did come my way from Mom and Dad were invariably practical, prized or memorable (and in some cases, they fit all of those descriptions). Such was the case with a Daisy Red Ryder BB gun....
During the middle of the past century, it was commonplace for old men, maybe a smattering of somewhat younger n’er-do-wells and boys to congregate in popular gathering places. In small towns and rural crossroads, those spots were almost always a country store,...
Maggie “Aunt Mag” Williams (1863-1961) In the halcyon days of childhood, most of us had the distinct privilege, although we might not have recognized it at the time, of being in close contact with older folks who merited the description of being “a genuine character.”...
For most boys of my generation, certain milestones immediately went into the treasured files of memory. They were destined to remain there permanently. “Firsts” were particularly important in this regard—first squirrel, first trout on a fly, first rabbit, first...
