Eastern Panther – Myth, Ghost, Legend
The Lowcountry panther entered my dreams and my life. Haunting me when I slept, quickening my pulse and step when I was alone in the swamps come sundown. Daytimes, the Old Man looked off into middle distance. Nights, he gazed deep into campfire flames. He held us...
Bullets, Birds, and the Blessing of Saint Expedite
Shooting trip of a lifetime, Delta Flight 101 out of Hartsfield, non-stop to Buenos Aires. Easy flight, eat supper, stretch out, drift off, wake up speaking Spanish. Five thousand some-odd miles at 700 some-odd miles-per-hour at 26,000 some-odd feet. But it’s hard...
In Pursuit of Papa
Tracing Hemingway’s footsteps through his fishing days in Bimini.
Visions of the Bight
And it shall come to pass in those days that your young men shall see visions and your old men shall dream dreams.
The Family Rifle
Remington called it “The Gamemaster.” Serial number 260,000, one of more than a million made between 1952 and 1982. We met on the beach. I was doing turtle work for the DNR, she was on vacation. I was registered with the Feds with authority to possess and transport...
Deep South Bugs and Bucks: When Itches Collide
Lowcountry of South Carolina. Two-thirds of my county is underwater at high tide. If it bites, it lives here. Deer flies, horse flies, dog flies, chiggers, sand-gnats, three flavors of ticks, assassin beetles, 56 separate species of mosquitoes, any number of...
The Cremation of Sam McGee
An unlikely life. He was an English banker who ran off to America at an early age. He nearly starved in Mexico, bunked in a California bordello. He passed himself as a cowboy, farmer, lumberjack, Yukondog-musher and gold miner. He drove an ambulance in the First War...
A Good Dog Always Knows
Ain’t nothing to writing Papa Hemingway said, you just sit at the typewriter and bleed. I sat at the keyboard and cried for Zebo, damn near about shorted it out with my salty tears. It’s a twisted tale, as good tales are. Me and Miss Biscuits built a house on...