Page 33 - Mar/Apr 2022 Outdoor Okahoma Magazine

PrOVIDED
PrOVIDED

The man in my memory was born in 1917. He
was already 68 when I was 16 years old. Even
though we weren’t related, the age differ-
ence meant nothing when we were together. tODD CrAIGHEAD/ODWC
He would pick me up on Saturday mornings in his Chevy
S-10 Blazer. Then, a mile out of town, he would lift open
the console lid and show me some cans of Dr Pepper on
ice and a couple of Snickers bars, and say, “Shh, don’t tell
your mom.” He’s still the only person I’ve known that used
that removable tray in the console to ice something down!
In the beginning, we would just go out to his lease to
shoot clay pigeons with my H&R single shot. On later
trips, we’d drive around and inspect his treestands and
cut brush to make ground blinds.
He and some friends, one of which was my dad,
converted an old chicken coop on the property into
a first-rate hunting camp! To me it was magical, com-
plete with bunk beds, a full kitchen, and a working
bathroom and shower!
In later years, I learned how to play dominoes at
that kitchen table in the Chicken Shack, as it came to
be known.
One spring, he picked me up and, on the drive out,
handed me a little plastic container with a rounded flat
piece of what I thought was duct tape. He said it was the
newest thing. On that drive, I learned how to use a turkey
mouth call — complete with a lot of gagging at first!

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