Thursday, February 25, 2016

The Old Days at Riverview

You will notice in the title of this blog that I did not say " The GOOD Old days" because a lot of them were not so good. Every now and then when Cader IV is complaining about a hectic day around here these days, I feel compelled to share some of my stories from my early years back home in the early 70's. I'm just going to tell one story here, but I have many of them.

Before telling the story, allow me to set the scene for you. Back then, there were no cell phones, IPads, laptops, etc. We had one television in the main lodge and one phone in each of five cottages. A full house was 20 guests. Most of those guests flew in on the old Gulfstream prop planes, and it took them 3-4 hours to get here. Evidently one of the requirements for being invited to sit on one of those planes was that you had to drink liquor from the time you got on the plane until the time you landed.

Our most dreaded week of the season each year was when one of the major New York City banks booked out the entire week. They would rotate guests every two days. The logistics alone would have been a nightmare, but it was complicated by the fact that our "go to" guy at the bank was only interested in his guide,cottage, hunting course etc. The bank was not satisfied with allowing their guests four hours of drinking time on the plane. Oh no, they would charter a bus with a bar to drive their guests to Riverview.

Now, I want you to get a mental picture of this. Twenty folks who were drunker than Fido's butt would pull in here after dark, and start stumbling out of the bus ,scattering like a flushed covey of quail. Did I mention that we did not have the night lighting on the grounds that we now have?

I would assemble as many of the staff as possible with the task of finding guests, and taking them and their luggage to their assigned cottages. Sometimes we didn't know what their assigned cottage was because the host had taken his broad butt into the one he wanted, and left us holding the bag. Well, one fateful night, it finally happened. After herding all of our intoxicated guests into their respective rooms, we found ourselves missing a guest. I found the host and asked him if Mr. Oscar was on the bus when they left the airport. He confirmed that he was.

Any of you reading this who have visited Riverview know that we have some fairly steep drop offs leading down to the Flint River that are very near our cottages. Every bad scenario was running through my head as three of us set out all over the Lodge grounds yelling Mr. Oscar's name to the top of our lungs. Finally, I heard a weak answer when I called his name. I asked, " where are you"? His terse reply,"Don't know". I then said, "Walk toward my voice and the flashlight". Again a very short reply,"scared to". When I inquired as to why, he said, " I took one step and fell 10 feet straight down. I'm afraid that the next step could be 100 feet".

That was when I knew where he was. He had walked right off the top of our trap house which was recessed, bunker style, into the side of a hill, and it was about an 8 foot drop from the concrete top to the grass below. Had he not been drunk, he would have probably broken his neck. As it turned out, the only think that he broke was his glasses.

There are many, many stories of the first night's stay here during the old days. I, for one, am very happy to say that this wireless and connected world of ours keeps our guests on their toes all of the time. I can't even remember the last time that I have witnessed an over-served guest here, and sober guests are much more pleasant to deal with than drunk ones.

Wednesday, February 17, 2016

A few funny conversations overheard

My mother always told me that when faced with adversity, I could either laugh or cry. She went on to say that I might as well laugh because neither action was going to change the outcome. But Mom never advised me as to how to handle some of the situations and conversations I have experienced over the years. I thought that I would share just a few with you here:

 Waitress-" Good morning, what would you like to have for breakfast this morning"?
Guest--" I don't know. Breakfast has always been waiting for me when I come down stairs in the morning".
Me to myself," Houston, we are going to have a problem with this man", and we did. He busted his finger on his shogun the first morning. A simple band aid would have sufficed, but he flew his private jet back to NY to see his surgeon, and returned that night

Guest--" I would like fresh squeezed carrot juice with my breakfast".
Martha(my wife who was still helping me at that time)--" Would you look around and see where you are in the middle of nowhere, and ask yourself if this is a California spa".
Guest--" I think that I will have a V-8

One guest who was an expert quail hunter because we had taught him how to shoot the year before giving advice to his first time guest who had never hunted quail--" Frank, there is a brief moment when the covey flushes that all of the birds are close together. If you shoot in the middle of them, you can sometimes kill one".
Me-" Now that is one philosophy, and I'm not disagreeing with your buddy, Sam, but I have found that it is generally a good idea to pick out one bird and stay with him. If you miss him on the first shot, try the same bird with your next shot. If you kill him on the first shot, then select another bird".

Guest number one--" How do the bird dogs find the quail"?
Guest number two--" They have real good eyes and can see through the grass".

One night I had a severely inebriated lady fall on her way back to the cottage, and gashed her head open badly. I was called on my emergency phone, and rushed her and her husband to the little local hospital's emergency room. The first thing that she asked me was whether there was a board certified plastic surgeon on call. I replied that she would be fortunate to find someone who could sew a good stitch. She then proceeded to loudly talk about all of the places all over the world that they jetted and hunted. As I was sitting there, I got to thinking, " The emergency room is the poor folks doctor's office. Most of the folks in here don't have two pennies to rub together, and my car is parked way out there in a dark parking lot. I eased over to her husband, explained the situation to him, and asked him if he thought he might be able to shut her up as I was unarmed at the time. I don't know what he said, but she never spoke another word to anyone, including me.

And lastly, one of my favorite stories which also included a 2:00 am call to my emergency phone. One of our guest's wives had gone into labor with their first child. She called him frantic, and he called me equally frantic. I told him to call his pilots, and that I would call the FBO to get the emergency folks out there to unlock. Now why he went on a hunting trip with a wife 9 months pregnant, I will never know. I picked him up at his cottage, and we shot out to Albany. As I was backing up to the plane, he was thanking me profusely, and asked me how he could ever repay me. I replied, "name the baby Cader". Well, he looked like a fish out of water. I finally had to tell him that I was just teasing. Yankees are so much fun to tease !

Monday, February 8, 2016

A Riverview hunting story on me

Many, many years ago, we had the flu virus strike a bunch of our guides right in the heart of hunting season. Our folks are all very loyal, and will go as hard as they can even when sick, but this was a very virulent form of the flu. We had about five guides out with 102+ fevers, and we were desperate. I managed to call in two retired guides, one neighbor. Plus our manager, Aaron and I both had to hunt.

I should have smelled a rat when at least six guides each offered me two of their best dogs. Back in those days we only put six dogs in the jeep rather than the 8-10 each guide carries now in his jeep. At any rate, I was most grateful to get 6 "good" dogs. I asked Aaron to assign me to the Eastwoods hunting course since it was virtually in my backyard where I grew up, and I knew where every covey of quail tended to congregate on that course. Now might be a good time to also point out that the Eastwoods is also the hunting course that is closest to our dog kennels.

At any rate, I started my morning with a great deal of confidence as I dropped out my first brace of hunting dogs. That was also the last time I saw that pair for the entire morning. They tore out like "scalded dogs" straight to the comfort of their kennel,bed, and food. I began to get a sense of foreboding that this might not be a good morning for me.

I decided to drive the jeep to the back side of the course prior to turning the next pair of champions out. We did not have electronic collars back then; so I stood by the jeep ready to tackle the first dog that made a dash for home. I need not have worried as evidently this pair of dogs were trained to hunt only one thing, and that was the jeep! No matter how much I whistled, cajoled, and begged, they merely plodded right behind the rear wheels of the jeep. It was now approaching 10:00 am, and my guests had not fired a shot. They were getting restless, and I was mortified.

At that point I figured that I had nothing to lose; so I kenneled my jeep trackers, and dropped out my last pair of dogs. I do not remember the second dog's name, but the first one was named Henry. I had asked each guide to give me a name and description of the dogs I would be hunting. It is important to note Henry's name because one of my guests that morning was also named Henry. These last two dogs could hunt. However, somewhere in his training program, the dog, Henry, had decided that it was his job to flush the birds just before the hunters could get in position or range for a decent shot.

Finally it happened. Henry the dog flushed a covey out ahead of us while Henry the man took a desperation shot. In my frustration, I yelled, " Henry, you S.O.B.". Mr. Henry looked at me and yelled right back, " I'm shooting as good as I can". To which I promptly replied. " I wasn't yelling at you, Mr. Henry. I was yelling at the dog. I would never call a man with a loaded shotgun an S.O.B.".

It was at that point in time that I resorted to an extreme measure that I had sworn I would never do, As I watched Henry the dog merrily chasing this covey to the next hunting course, I borrowed Mr.Henry's shotgun, and shot Henry the dog in the rump from a distance that I deemed would only sting him and get his attention. Well, it worked, and I made a Christian out of that dog. We managed to come in with 21 birds, and I was just delighted not to be the first guide at Riverview to ever come in with no birds on a hunt.

Thank goodness, one of our regular guides felt good enough to go after lunch, and I removed myself from the line-up, but I never forgot the three guides who each gave me a pair of their "best" dogs.

Wednesday, February 3, 2016

Gun safety

Sometimes I find myself praying," Lord please wrap your arms around my shoulders, and place your hand over my mouth". I know that He has His arms around my shoulders, but I fear that He quite often removes His hand from my mouth. As any of you who have ever visited Riverview know, we are absolute fanatics about gun safety here. We shot our first safety video here in 1976, and are now on our sixth iteration. I wrote our first guide training manual in 1974, and we give each group an individual safety briefing at breakfast on the first morning. We also require all of our guests to shoot some clay targets so that we can observe their gun handling skills prior to going out in the field.

That is kind of a brief introduction to state the fact that I "fear" a shotgun, and I'm using the word "fear" as the Bible does in the sense of extreme respect and awe. When I was 17 years old, I had the misfortune of witnessing my Dad's best friend drop a loaded shotgun on the ground, and the gun fired into his stomach. I was the first one to get to him, and there was absolutely nothing that I could do to save him. My toughest job here is to convince my experienced hunters that a shotgun is just as deadly today as the first day they ever were taught how to shoot. Most novice hunters are scared of the gun as we all should be.

In closing, let me share a funny story to illustrate my point. I was so blessed for many years to be able to hunt with both my father and son at the same time. One day as we were walking off the field from a dove hunt, Cader IV eased over to me and commented, " Dad, Pop, which is what he called my father, doesn't carry his shotgun like you say we should". Both Cader IV and I had our guns broken down and empty. I glanced over at my Dad, and he was carrying a loaded shotgun in the classic "suit case carry" style. I told Cader IV, " You are absolutely correct; so you tell him".

Monday, February 1, 2016

Politics

I think that we all know where the word "politics" is derived from. It's a combination of the word "poly" meaning many, and "tics" meaning blood sucking leeches. I have found it interesting to also learn that a gathering of baboons is called a " Congress". Do you see a pattern developing here?

But, what I do not know is what a "Caucus" is, and why the state of Iowa is so all fired important. To me the word "caucus" invokes the sound of a bunch of crows which we all know to be scavengers and the bane of the bird world. In my youth, I loved to hunt crows. I would always try to cripple the first bird, and then shoot the others as they responded to the wounded bird's cries. I lived in a pecan orchard, and the crows were eating us out of our hard earned money, much like today's politicians.

That got me to thinking that maybe I should fly out to Iowa, and just try to cripple one of the scavengers vying for the job as president. Just in case NSA is reading this blog, I'm just teasing. Speaking of Iowa, I read that 43% of the citizens of Iowa identified themselves as socialists. Surely this can'be ! We are talking about the corn growing heartland of America. I mean we are talking about God, apple pie, hard working farmers, and the American Way here.

If we have to have another form of government, I'm about ready to switch to a benevolent dictatorship. I don't want to be the dictator, but I do want to be his best friend. However, I would much prefer to see our country return to our roots of what made us the greatest nation on earth !

OK, in my next blog, I will return to some subject that I may know something about since political science is obviously not my field of expertise.