Friendly Folk and Memories

Yesterday when I went down to feed the stray cats at that old farmhouse there was a Jeep in the yard and a man standing by the side of it with a shotgun. He saw me pull in and he laid the gun down and walked over to me. He had a beard and was wearing coveralls and looked friendly enough (plus he had laid down the gun!). The owner does allow hunting for some people since I have seen other hunters there, so I wasn't too alarmed. I opened the car door and he said, "Can I help you?" I told him that I was there to feed the cats. We talked some and it turned out that his Dad owns that farm. I took that opportunity to ask him if something happened to his parents if they would sell the farm. Both of his parents are in poor health. He said he had 3 brothers and that they would never sell that farm! He said that was their old homeplace. I told him I was real glad to hear it because I sure hated the thought of it being torn down and a bunch of houses, apartments, or duplexes going up. He said there are people that have tried to buy it. I'm not surprised. The bypass cut through their farm so it's on a main busy road now. Lumber King is about a mile up the road.

I figured he was going hunting but he said that he had just gotten the gun and he planned on going to a turkey shoot and he wanted to try it out. He had put a target up on a fence post to test it. He was such a nice guy. He asked me if it would bother me if he shot or should he wait until I left (now how polite was that!?). I told him it was fine to shoot. I went about feeding the cats and of course when he did shoot the cats scattered and I jumped since it was so loud! I went out there to see how he had done. The gun was shooting a little low and to the right. A lot of buckshot had hit the paper but not in the target area.

I told him that my Dad used to have turkey shoots many years ago. We raised turkeys back then. He would have the turkey shoots usually in the weeks before Thanksgiving. Then when someone won they got to pick out the turkey they wanted. Then they took it home to fatten up, kill, keep, or whatever. I'm pretty sure they all ended up like most turkeys. He usually had a good crowd of men wanting to shoot and Dad made some money doing it. One day a man won a turkey and had gone over to the pen where we had the turkeys to pick out the one he wanted. His little boy came running up and said, "Dad, Mom said to get a she-male!!" My Dad got so tickled at that! He didn't laugh at the little boy but later he was telling us and he got so tickled!

This gentleman told me that now they usually won a turkey or a ham. He said he would usually shoot his off if he won. I asked him what that meant. He said they would shoot another round and the money went to him and whoever won it got the ham or turkey. He didn't say but I'm sure the turkeys are frozen ones and not live ones!

I was glad we had that talk. It brought back some memories. When I left he was putting up a new target.



My Dad with one of
his shotguns. We were
skeet shooting that day!
It was fun too!