When I was a kid, all I wanted to do was coon hunt with Paul and Johnny, more about them later. When my Grandad got some coon dogs you could not keep me out of the woods. My sister Beth, or as I know her “Binky” was a huge influence on pursuing my goals of coon hunting as much as possible and having coon dogs of my own. Most of the time she had no idea that she was doing it but she was the force behind my drive to pursue my passions.
The story I am about to tell is one that has my sister as the main character. It all started when I came home from the coon hunting trip in the last story. I came home fired up about coon hunting. I was going coon hunting every weekend that I was able to. My sister thought it would pass at first, but as time passed she realized that I was not going to get tired of it. She started doing some research on her own about coon dogs and dog ownership, how to train them and what they needed to keep them in hunting shape. Also she was looking for a kennel that champion dogs were coming from. I had no idea she was doing any of this, until she came to me with a coon hunting magazine that had my name on the address label. She had ordered me a years subscription to this magazine. Well you would have thought that I won the lottery. this magazine followed the sport of coon hunting, with event calendars, kennels and gear. I would read this magazine from cover to cover and dream of owning my own dogs one day. I would wait by the mailbox when the new issue was supposed to arrive. While I was dreaming about all of this Binky was calling kennels to find some dogs that would be available right around my birthday in April. She had found me the movie “Where the red fern grows” and I watched on loop all while hunting on the weekends with Paul and Johnny. You have to understand that I would leave on Friday after school and come home in time for bed on Sunday. During this time I would nap during the afternoon, get up in the evening and get ready to go hunting all night not getting home until the following morning. the Bear Creek swamp was my playground.
My hunting companions were Paul, who was my mothers boyfriend and who I consider a father to me when I was growing up. Paul took me hunting every chance he got and taught me how to be quiet in the woods, also to look for the correct sign when walking in the woods. The entire Small game season was scouting time for deer season. We would hunt coons at night, then Squirrel or Dove during the day. Paul will never know how much the time he spent with me teaching me how to be a better hunter has meant to me all these years later. Johnny was Paul’s brother and the owner of the dogs we hunted with. He also had the connections and permissions to hunt on the land we hunting which was some of the best hunting land in the state. The Dogs we hunted with were “Blue” a male Bluetick hound who was a gritty and tough as nails. He had a deep bark and you had no problem hearing him through the woods. Next was “Dynamite” She was a smaller Female Treeing Walker, She had a loud sharp bark and could get drowned out by the deep bark of her companion Blue. Dynamite was tough when needed to be, but here best attribute was her nose, she was smart and there were not many times that coons would trick her, she was a dog that would triple check to make sure the coon was there if she said it was there before she would tree. These two dogs and I spent so much time together in the woods hunting coons that when anyone called the dogs I would come too. Johnny made an impact on my life by letting me learn by doing instead of trying to tell me and not let me try. I am sad to say that Johnny passed away earlier this year. I had not seen him in many years and I have some feelings of regret because of that.
Back to my Sister and her sneeky ways. She had been in touch with the kennel and had found the perfect dog to fuel my obsession. She had worked out a plan to pay for the dog but we had to go all the way to Mississippi to pick up the dog. This was the only hitch in her plan to get me a hunting dog of my own. One afternoon my mom had just gotten home from being on the road for work and did not know any of Binky’s plans. She called me in to lay out the plan and all of the research that she had been doing in secret. My mom was hearing this for the first time as well. At the time we lived in a condo and there was nowhere to keep hunting dogs. Mama pointed this out to the both of us and she also asked where we were going to get the money to care for the dog and feed it. Binky was working at the time and was going to pay for the dog but I would have to come up with the the money to take care of it. It was Binky, me and Mama and had been for as long as I could remember. My mom worked out of town during the week to provide us with a place to live and food to eat, but we did not have a lot of extra money, we never went without but we had to be very careful with the money we spent so as to not live beyond our means. I was in Junior high at the time or middle school as it’s called now, so I was not of working age. I did odd jobs around the neighborhood, and when my dad was home I would help him work on his Big truck, he was an Owner Operator and drove a Semi truck for a living. He was gone most of the time. I would get to see him every other weekend when he would come and get me and we would go to his house, which was fun because I got to see my brother. Anyway, we had this plan to get this Redbone coon hound and Guess what his name was going to be……..”Dan” from Where the red fern grows. Turns out it costs a lot of money to raise a hunting dog and I did not have the means to do that at my age. This did not deter me much, I was still hunting every chance I could get in the woods. Binky will never know how much that little act of planning to get me Redbone Coon hound impacted me. It taught me things about life that have been valuable to me to this day. First the time it took her to do this research this was early on in the internet days and it was not something our family could afford to have so she did some of it while at work and some at the library, and a little old fashioned phone calling to get the info. The fact that she was going to spend her own money on this dog that would be my hunting companion made me understand the value of love and the value of people and things. She has no idea what she taught me by doing this one little thing for her little brother. She know that I love her, but I don’t know if she knows how much! Even today she is still teaching me things about life and she lives hundreds of miles away.
Binky, You helped to shape me into who I am today and without you I would not be where I am today. So thank you for being an Awesome big sister!