Tuesday, December 31, 2013

Oh, the stories I coulld tell

People often say to me,"Cader, why don't you write a book of your experiences at Riverview  over the past 43 years". My simple answer is that the statute of limitations has not quite run on many of them. To put it another way,I am counting on many of the folks who will be in my stories going to that great plantation in the sky before I do. Although, I do not know why I worry so much about that because,based on my experience with them, they could not hit me if they shot at me as long as I was standing still.
 However, there is one group that I can feel free to write about as I am convinced that they are never going to die. As many of you know, we offer a discount on our base rate during the holidays to encourage families to hunt with us, and families make up 99% of our business during this time. It is the other 1% that I am writing about here.These men all hunted with me when they were still active in their businesses. Now that they are retired, they still come as a group of friends over the holidays. I termed them cheapskates years ago. Not to be outdone, they were slightly miffed with my terminology, and have named themselves"The Frugal Hunters" club. Most of these guys live north of the "Smith&Wesson" line,and can be deemed Yankees. Surprisingly for a bunch of Northerners, they can shoot pretty good.
 I have to give them this much--they do pay and on time after the leader threatens to go to a couple of their homes with a baseball bat. One of these men in the past would bring me a country ham as long as I paid for it as soon as it arrived here. Evidently, I was a day late paying him one year because the next year he claimed that the country ham store burned down. I will say that they gave me a break this year because the crustiest curmudgeon in the group failed to make the trip this year.I can guarantee you that pro shop sales will not fall off one bit due to his absence.
 I love my job, and really do enjoy my guests who become more than guests over the years. They become friends. I am proud to place the "Frugal Hunters" AKA "Cheapskates" in that group as they have been coming at this time of the year for almost 20 years now. I sure hope that they do not read this as they would be inclined to ask for the "20 year discount"!

Tuesday, December 3, 2013

Thanksgiving family and hunting

Since we are in the hunting business and our season only lasts six months, we can't afford to close down for all of the holidays. We do shut down for a solid week around Christmas, but we have always stayed open for guests hunting here over the Thanksgiving holidays.Thanksgiving is also the holiday that usually finds all of my children and grandchildren here because children can always be baited in with the promise of a lot of food and free hunting.Many years ago, before Martha and I even had children,much less grandchildren, an old Oklahoma oilman once said to me,"Son, I love the holidays and the pretty holiday lights. But the prettiest lights I ever see are the tail lights of my children and grandchildren as they drive away from my garage". I now understand what he meant. Whew!
 We had a lot of fun,but old folks get accustomed to a schedule, and there is no schedule with a house full of rambunctious grandchildren. I took the five who were old enough to go with me on a short quail hunt Friday morning to observe. Then we had a dove hunt on Friday afternoon. Two of the five grandchildren were old enough to hunt dove,but not quail. They each shot a couple of doves with their youth model shotguns while the younger three claimed to have killed literally hundreds with their BB guns. I sense the making of real hunters in this younger pack as they already know how to stretch the truth.
 Precious memories !