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Aging and tradition
Topic Started: Jul 9 2006, 05:30 AM (243 Views)
lb1
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Fulla-Carp
For the last 45+ years in the fall I take about 3 float trips per year on a river near home. These trips are 35 miles long over 2 days, spending one night camping on the river bank.

We just drift with the current fishing the whole way and popping with a 20 gauge any curious squirrel that comes along. One of the trips has become an annual tradition with a younger brother, and it is about the only time we see each other all year since we are both workaholics in different fields. My brother doesn’t hunt or fish anymore and only buys a license for this one trip. There used to be a competition between my brother and me on who would get the first and most squirrels. The legal limit for squirrels would be 10 each plus any eaten on the trip, but once we had 72 in the cooler at the end. This competition is gone now and we just talk about all the old float trips and times on the river.

One of the other trips that has become a tradition is with a guy who was my father’s best friend. He and my father used to make one of these trips every year the first weekend in November. My first trip with him was in the fall the year my father died and this year will be our 25th one. I have a feeling that this will be our last trip together as they are getting harder every year for him. We started these trips using a canoe and as we aged we went to a Jon boat and then to setting lawn chairs in the Jon boat. My friend will be 87 this year and he had one of his legs removed this spring, but he still insists on making the trip this fall. I haven’t told him but I bought a 22’ pontoon and rigged it with comfortable captain’s chairs and other amenities for this year’s trip. I’ll have to convince him though that I did it for my comfort more than his, although I do have to say that the additional comforts will make the trip more enjoyable for me also.

It looks like there will be, hopefully a new tradition starting this year as my youngest son and possibly my grandson will be making their first float trip this year. We will be doing it by canoe though like my first one with my father.

lb
My position is simple: you jumped to an unwarranted conclusion and slung mud on an issue where none was deserved. Quirt 03/08/09
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Jolly
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Geaux Tigers!
I know what you mean....

Uncle Joe had gotten well past the time when a man should be sitting in the icy pre-dawn darkness, silently waiting for the sun to come up, wishing that the hunting luck that day would be good and a deer would walk down the deer run he had chosen for his ambush spot.

It would have to be close, because with his tired old eyes he couldn't see well enough to shoot very far. Maybe that's why we always felt the need to whistle when we passed through that particular stretch of woods as we walked back to the bateaux to go to camp for the noon meal.

Lest it be thought I exagerate, one of the boys played a joke on Uncle Joe one December morning. They hurried up and got ready early, loading up the dogs in the boat and hollering for Joe to hurry up...well Uncle Joe hunted with an old single shot Long Tom, always propped up by the camp door. He came shuffling out of the camp as fast as he could, looking mighty perturbed when he noticed amidst the howling laughter that he'd grabbed the weighted broom that had been placed by the door instead of his usual shotgun!

The last 3 or 4 years the old man went to camp, he didn't even bother to go out and hunt. Oh, he'd still bring the old Long Tom, and prop it by the door, but about the only thing he hunted was the coffee pot.

Men would gather around that old speckled-blue and smoke-discolored graniteware coffee pot, placed close enough to the fire to keep the coffee warm. With tin cups in hand, they'd listen to Uncle Joe spin his stories...sometimes true, sometimes a mite embellished, but good stories nonetheless...about the time old man Rudolf had killed a panther with his knife during a long ago trapping season, but not before the cat clawed him bad enough that he bled out before he got back to camp...or the time Punkin Smith got so lost it took him two days to walk back to camp....or why Charlie's floatin' house was painted green with white swirls...

The old camp is gone now, and they cleared off most of the huntin' land for soybean fields. The coffee pot is no more, having rusted down to nothing in a junk pile behind the barn. Uncle Joe's been dead 15 years, or better.

But the stories live on. Whenever local men gather at their family camps the eve before squirrel season starts, or maybe down by the landing as they check out who caught what, sooner or later somebody reaches for a pot on the stove or a battered old thermos, and coffee is shared. If you're lucky, it may even still be warm.

The day's goings-on are discussed, and sooner or later, somebody will pipe up, "Hey' y'all remember when Uncle Joe used to tell about.."

I miss the old man. I guess others do, too.

But the stories live on...
The main obstacle to a stable and just world order is the United States.- George Soros
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David Burton
Senior Carp
Excellently told and written. Thanks for posting.
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Mikhailoh
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If you want trouble, find yourself a redhead
Great pictures painted in words. We used to have traditions too.. although they seem to have gotten rather lost. I wonder if there is enough time and proximity to our families anymore to build these bonds.

Once in his life, every man is entitled to fall madly in love with a gorgeous redhead - Lucille Ball
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lb1
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Fulla-Carp
Damn Jolly that yanked the lid off the memory box. I was hanging around fishing and hunting camps since I was able to walk and you painted the perfect picture. I have always been in awe of the old timers and their stories about hunting and fishing, the big one taken, and the big one that got away.

lb
My position is simple: you jumped to an unwarranted conclusion and slung mud on an issue where none was deserved. Quirt 03/08/09
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kenny
HOLY CARP!!!
I have an X who was from Missouri.
He fondly told me about float trips he took with his dad in the Ozarks.
His face just lit up when describing them.
When finished telling his story he was practically in a deep state of meditation.

It sounds like a great tradition!

Maybe some day.
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lb1
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Fulla-Carp
kenny
Jul 9 2006, 03:13 PM

His face just lit up when describing them.
When finished telling his story he was practically in a deep state of meditation.


Kenny,

That is exactly the way it is.

This river we float on has been a focal point in my family for almost a hundred years. My grandfather and some of his friends built a fishing camp there in 1907, and there has been a family camp somewhere on that river continously since then. My grandfather had 5 sons but only my father took to the river. My father had 6 sons and only I have taken to the river and up until recently it looked like I was the end of the line. It warms my heart to see my son is getting interested.

lb
My position is simple: you jumped to an unwarranted conclusion and slung mud on an issue where none was deserved. Quirt 03/08/09
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kenny
HOLY CARP!!!
lb

Your heart-felt description reminds me of a lithograph from a favorite book from my collection,
“The Lithographs of Thomas Hart Benton”, compiled and edited by Creekmore Fath, University of Texas Press.
So, I took these three pictures of my book.

Posted Image

This book was the idea of a collector of Benton’s lithos back in the 1960s when he realized nobody had yet cataloged them.
Here is the text, hand written by the artist, when he was asked by the collector and author, of his recollections.
Clearly, these float trips are very meaningful to many.

Posted Image
(In case you can't read it on your screen.)
A scene on the White River in the Ozarks.
Drawings for it were made in August 1939 while on a float trip down the river.
The area presented is now under seventy five feet of water, due to the construction of Bull Shoals dam.
However, such scenes are still common on the clear water Ozark rivers which remain free flowing.
Twice yearly, Spring and Autumn, I have floated these rivers for many years, fishing, camping out on the sand and ground bars and just watching the river banks go by.
The boy in the picture is my son T.P. Benton.
Also called “the Young Fisherman”.



Here is the book cover:
Posted Image
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kenny
HOLY CARP!!!
Jolly
Jul 9 2006, 06:29 AM
wishing that the hunting luck that day would be good and a deer would walk down the deer run he had chosen for his ambush spot.

It would have to be close, because with his tired old eyes he couldn't see well enough to shoot very far.

What happens when you fire a high powered rifle from a very small canoe?

Could the kick capsize the canoe?

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