Some stories just never get old and are worth being retold
Being an outdoor writer who has chased wildlife and fish around Mississippi and the southeast for nearly four decades, I have told many stories.
I have hunted with some of the best hunters, fished with some of the best fishermen and have shared time in the woods and in boats with people who had no more talent, or sense, than I have.
What we all shared, though, was a love for being out there.
Telling their stories has been a privilege and there are so many to share. But there are a few that I remember writing and living, as if it happened yesterday.
Being turkey season, I share this one today, from 2001:
I was looking out the front window of my brother’s house, watching a much-needed rain drench his Rankin County neighborhood, and fading rapidly into a nap. You know how those kind of days can put you to sleep. This one was working on me hard and fast. That’s why I thought I was dreaming when I saw the tall mottled form, with a raised blue head waddling through the yard of the house across the street. It was a wild turkey.
A fully-grown rain-soaked hen to be exact.
I watched it for a second before it dawned on me. What in the heck was that bird doing in that crowded neighborhood at 4 o’clock in the afternoon? What would she be doing there at any time?
I shot up out of the chair and raced to the big bay window. Sure enough, with apologies to Manfred Mann, “there she was just awalking down the street” (but probably not “singin’ do-wah diddy-diddy down diddy-do.”)
The hen stopped, shook her feathers to shed some rain, looked around and started pecking at the ground.
“You guys come here, quick,” I hollered at my niece and nephew. “Y’all ain’t even going to believe this.”
I not only wanted them to see it and experience it, but I also needed a witness to prove I wasn’t insane.
Annie, 11, who had never seen a wild turkey before, raced to the front door and stepped outside before I could stop her. The hen, alert as can be, reacted immediately. She turned and headed down the side of the house across the street as I called Annie back inside.
“They spook real easy,” I told her. “You have to watch her from here.”
The turkey relaxed and stopped. We watched and I tried to describe what she was doing?
“Yeah, well, that’s all good and everything, but why the heck is she doing it in the middle of this neighborhood,” asked Tyler, 15. “She’s got to be crazy.”
After the turkey left, we tried to figure out where she had come from. The nearest woods were hundreds, if not thousands of yards away, across many streets and past a lot of houses and golf holes.
“And just about everybody has dogs,” Tyler said. “And it’s a safe bet they all have shotguns, too. This is Rankin County, after all.”
It was strange, I had to admit, but I explained that many wildlife species are being spotted in neighborhoods, even in the metro Jackson area.
I told them about the call I got just a week earler from a resident of a subdivision in Madison. The guy had a mature gobbler standing just outside his garage.
I told them about the deer that feed openly along roads in Ridgeland and at the reservoir, and about the call I got from a business on West Street behind the Post Office in downtown Jackson that reported a small buck walking down a busy city street.
“But this turkey is across the street from my house,” Tyler said.
“Just enjoy it,” I said. “It isn’t everybody who can say they saw a wild turkey today.”
As shocking as it was to see the bird there, it was more of a blessing. Annie and Ty got to see a wild turkey up close (inside 40 yards), and I got to share that experience with them.
They’d heard me talk about turkey hunting and the joy I get from being in the woods and just watching and hearing the big birds. They’d even shared a few meals of wild turkey breast with their uncle, and they liked it. A lot. That day we shared a brief visit from a live bird and it made me realize how much I needed to take them out in the woods and watch the birds doing what they do naturally in their natural habitat.
It made Tyler, who had already assumed his uncle’s smart-aleck side, realize something else: “Bob didn’t you just spend about a thousand bucks to go chase turkeys in Texas. Seems like you could have just come over here and . . .”
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