Friday - December 23, 2005

Short Story

Here in America, we have a tradition. It involves taking young boys, usually fellow playmates or school friends, out on a midnight hunt into the woods for a mythical creature called “snipe”. I participated in such a hunt when I was about eleven years old at the insistence of several of my friends from school who vividly described the creature to me. We all went out into the woods just after dark on a cool Fall evening. I was handed a “croker” sack (don’t ask) and told to climb a tree and the rest of the gang would beat the bushes to drive the creatures to me, whereupon I would jump on one of them and and we’d have our catch to show everyone.

They all then scattered into the woods laughing, and the sound of their thrashing around gradually faded away as deep darkness fell. I sat on my tree limb in almost total silence ... except for an occasional strange noise that scared the bejeebers out of me. The night grew darker and the temperature dropped. I started shivering both from the cold and from fear as the strange noises increased. I bit my lip and determined to stick it out. No one was going to call me “chicken”. No siree.

The night dragged on in intense cold and fear. The tree limb started to hurt my butt and branches started stabbing into my legs. I wanted to cry but I forced myself to hold back the tears. Big boys don’t cry. John Wayne would disapprove. President Eisenhower said we all had to be strong against the Commie threat. I was determined to be brave.

Then the moon came rising up and the strange noises got louder ... and closer. I thought I saw movement in the shadows below me several times each hour as midnight passed and I started sniffling. I tried to convince myself it was just from the cold. Where were my friends? Hadn’t they been able to find any snipe? Would they eventually give up and come back to get me? These woods were strange to me. I had never been in here before. I wasn’t sure if I could even find my way out. I choked down a scream. My supper was trying to come back up. I was afraid I was going to be sick.

Then I heard something that sounded like a large animal thrashing through the underbrush below me. I pulled my legs up and tried to blend in with the tree. I had visions of tigers, bears, panthers, even wolves (in spite of the fact that such animals didn’t exist in the woods around Panama City, Florida during the 1950’s). The thrashing got closer. I started trembling and shaking. Finally, just as I was about to pee in my pants a figure burst through the bushes into the clearing below me. I closed my eyes in dread fear and clutched the tree with all my might. Then I heard ....

“Allan?”

I slowly opened my eyes to see my father standing there right below me, with a flashlight in one hand and the familiar Camel unfiltered cigarette dangling from his lips. Lips that formed a familiar crooked smile. I leapt from the tree in a single bound and raced to Dad. I burst out crying at that point in a literal flood. Dad wrapped me up in a big bear hug and held on while I slowly babbled and cried myself down. He sat me down on the ground and we both squatted there in the middle of that dangerous jungle full of primeval beasts. Dad puffing away and me just trying my best to get under control. Dad didn’t say a word until I was back to normal (at least as normal as an eleven year old boy can get).

“You ‘bout ready to git on home?”, he asked quietly.

“Yes sir”, I replied in a voice that sounded strange to me.

“Okey-dokey. Let’s get goin’. Your mom’s worried.”, the slow drawl and reassuring words from Dad cleared the last fears away.

We got up and started walking home. I was no longer afraid and marched through the brambles and bushes fearlessly. I thought at the time it was because of just knowing the ol’ man was there but then I asked him the question that would later mark the first step in building my character. I knew Dad had grown up in the woods of the South hunting and later fought in World War II and the Korean War. I figured he had been around enough to know ...

“Dad, have you ever caught a snipe?”, I asked.

“Nope”, he replied with an odd grin on his face, “damned things don’t exist, son, but I think you done seen the elephant, haven’t you?”

I started to tell Dad that there were no elephants in our woods but I knew better than to argue with the ol’ man. I finally figured out what he meant about seven years later while reading a book on the Civil War. I’m still looking for those rat-bastards who left me out there ...

Posted by The Skipper     on 12/23/2005 at 11:17 AM   
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Not that very many people ever read this far down, but this blog was the creation of Allan Kelly and his friend Vilmar. Vilmar moved on to his own blog some time ago, and Allan ran this place alone until his sudden and unexpected death partway through 2006. We all miss him. A lot. Even though he is gone this site will always still be more than a little bit his. We who are left to carry on the BMEWS tradition owe him a great debt of gratitude, and we hope to be able to pay that back by following his last advice to us all:

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It's been a long strange trip without you Skipper, but thanks for pointing us in the right direction and giving us a swift kick in the behind to get us going. Keep lookin' down on us, will ya? Thanks.

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