Granny wanted to buy the old Douglas Waters place, a log home that sat on about twenty acres between Vivian and Hosston, Louisiana. It was on the same road that ran in front of our old house, but the Waters home sat several hundred yards back, making it much safer for my siblings and me. But Pa wasn’t interested in buying it, so we instead moved into a rental home in the middle of the Pine Island oil field. It was located ten miles south of Vivian, and we had an oil well right in the middle of our front yard. The oil field ruined our water, which stained our commodes and sinks. The water smelled and tasted bad. Our drinking water came from a cistern made from an old oil field tank that collected water off the roof. It didn’t take Granny and Pa long to realize we had to find somewhere else to live.
About a year later, we ended up moving into a log home that used to be owned by the Waters family—the log home Granny had wanted to purchase all along, which was where I would spend my formative years and was the house I told you about earlier. My great-aunt Myrtle Gauss bought the house because the place adjoined her four hundred acres of land. We rented the house from her, and she put us in charge of tending to her seven cows and bull, an old mule named Jake, and an equally old (and stubborn) horse named Dolly. She rented us the house and her four hundred acres of land for the kinfolk price of twenty dollars a month.
Moving to that log home enabled my father to recapture his youth, which in turn shaped the lives of my brothers and me. The old Waters place had about twenty acres of land, only ten of which, around the house, was cleared and tillable land. A creek that flowed year-round traversed the rest of the land, meandering across Aunt Myrtle’s four hundred acres and providing ample water for our stock. Our land, which included a mature growth of oak, hickory, pine, sweet gum, and a variety of other trees, adjoined Aunt Myrtle’s property. On her land were two cleared, cultivatable fields of about thirty acres each. Mature woods covered the rest of the property. A wide pipeline right-of-way cut across all the land, which, because of its maintenance and mowing, grew a lot of grass that provided pasturage for the animals. The right-of-way also accommodated electric and telephone lines. A barbed-wire fence enclosed the entire four hundred and twenty acres and was a constant chore for us to repair and maintain.
Doing things the way they were done while he was growing up enabled Pa to make our farm self-sufficient in many ways—we were still living as people did in the 1800s, although it was a hundred years later. About forty acres of the land were worked with the old mule (and later a gift horse named Dan) and hand plows to produce a great deal of our food, plus grain and fodder for the horses, cows, hogs, and chickens. The fields and wooded parts of the farm yielded squirrels, quail, and doves; ducks and fish were easily obtainable from Black Bayou, only a couple of miles away. An occasional trip to Caddo Lake produced catches of white perch and bream. Our out-of-pocket expenses were minimal.
Some lagniappe came from a boom in fur pelts. My brothers and I were able to get a couple of steel traps and set them out on the creeks running throughout our land. “There’s a mink walking every creek in Louisiana” was a popular saying at the time, and an extra-large prime pelt would bring thirty-five dollars—a big sum for a youth, just for the fun of trapping. We never made much money with our too-few traps, but we learned a lot about wildlife in our pursuit of mink, raccoon, and opossum pelts.
My developmental years also coincided with Pa’s advancement in the oil fields as he progressed from roughneck, driller, and tool pusher to drilling superintendent for a series of small companies. He was a good hand and in his prime. His skills were in enough demand to allow him to shift from job to job easily. When a company for which he was working idled its rigs, he would go to work for another that hadn’t. But he still suffered occasional layoffs—which were sometimes prolonged enough to cause hardship. Granny complained that he always seemed to get laid off during duck season, enabling him to hunt more. He took it all in stride. His attitude could be summed up in a phrase he often used: “I was looking for a job when I got this one.”
There were lots of chores on the farm, with my older brothers doing the plowing and tending of the larger animals. Jimmy Frank did the milking, and Harold fed the hogs. The younger children fed the chickens and did the lighter work. Judy did most of her work inside, and the cooking experience she gained would be enhanced later with dishes such as jambalaya and white beans that she learned how to cook while living in south Louisiana.
Granny complained that he always seemed to get laid off during duck season, enabling him to hunt more.
Growing up on the farm wasn’t all work—we learned to have a lot of fun, too, and transformed our land into our own massive playground. In the front yard we regularly spent hours playing a game we devised using a broomstick or a broken hoe handle for a bat and several discarded socks stuffed tightly into one another for a ball. The game was a combination of baseball and dodgeball. Once you hit the sock ball into play, it could be picked up and thrown at you. If you hadn’t reached base or strayed too far from it and were hit with the sock ball, you were out. The rest of the rules were those of conventional baseball.
Jimmy Frank, by virtue of being the eldest brother by four years, was umpire, coach, and general arbiter of play—not without some objections and arguments from his brothers and cousins. It was he who decided to let me bat left-handed, although I threw right-handed. He made all of my other brothers put the broomstick on their right shoulder.
Granny’s once-attractive front yard, which was surrounded by several mature oak trees with rock-walled flower beds around them, was turned into a beaten-down ball field with fairly large holes in the sandy soil around the bases—the result of years of my brothers and me and our friends and relatives sliding into them. Although my four brothers and I were usually enough for a pretty good game, frequently our friends, such as Mac, John Paul, Marv Hobbs, Frankie Hale, or Kenny Tidwell, joined us. Even Pa, Judy, and Jan were occasional participants.
Our backyard served as a football field—complete with a goalpost at one end, which Jimmy Frank and Harold made from a couple of oak-tree uprights and a sweet-gum crossbar. Remarkably, that football field ended up becoming the proving ground for several North Caddo High School Rebels and later Louisiana Tech University Bulldogs players.
Our football field was bounded by a couple of big oak trees on the east, the log house on the north, the smokehouse and outhouse on the south, and a vegetable garden on the west. It was about thirty yards long and half as wide. We played two-hands-below-the-waist touch football year-round. Jimmy Frank, who played for the Vivian High School Warriors until it was consolidated into the North Caddo High School, always had a plentiful supply of footballs—old worn ones from his high school team.
Jimmy Frank played center his freshman year, making first string when a player ahead of him quit school to join the navy during the Korean conflict. Jimmy Frank was later moved to guard, then tackle (all 147 pounds of him) during his senior year, where he made second-team all-district. Jimmy Frank played linebacker all four years—players still played both offense and defense during those days—but he really wanted to be a quarterback. Since Jimmy Frank couldn’t do it, he was going to make sure one of us would play in the backfield.
Since we played on a short field in our backyard, each team had only four downs to score, or the ball went over. I remember Jimmy Frank slapping our hands when we missed a pass, and then smacking the ball into our belly and saying, “Catch it.” Everyone learned to throw. I started passing when my hands were so small that I was unable to grip the ball fully and had to balance it on my palm.
My brothers and our friends had varying abilities when it came to football. Tommy was the first to make quarterback, later converting to halfback to make room for me when I began playing for North Caddo High. Passing seemed to come naturally for me. Harold, who had a milk allergy and underwent two major operations while a child, suffered a broken elbow while playing freshman football and never played in high school. Silas was a
hard-hitting defensive back for the Rebels. Tommy and I earned first-team all-district football honors. As a senior, I was named first-team all-state quarterback and first-team all-district outfield in baseball.
When I graduated from high school, I followed Tommy to Louisiana Tech in Ruston, Louisiana, on a full football scholarship. Tommy started as a wide receiver for Louisiana Tech but was converted to cornerback his junior year. I sat on the sidelines my first year, then earned the starting quarterback job as a redshirt freshman the next year.
My brothers and I were intensely competitive, and this trait extended to all our activities, not just sports.
Playing college football wouldn’t have been nearly the same without having one of my brothers there with me. We were all intensely competitive, and this trait extended to all our activities, not just sports. We played for blood, whether it was Monopoly, dominoes, or card games. We showed no mercy, and tenderhearted Jan, who often cried in frustration, was not consoled but ridiculed. In fact, we went out of our way to tease her and make her cry.
Our competitiveness may have reached its peak in the waging of our “Corncob Wars.” One side took up a position inside the barn, while the other attacked from outside. We used corncobs, of which there were plenty in the barn; feed troughs; and the barnyard during the winter months. A hit from a corncob below the waist rendered a player “dead,” and he had to withdraw from the game. When everyone on one side had been “killed,” the remaining players on the other side had won.
Some little quirks in the game made it noteworthy. Although you could keep playing if a corncob hit you above the waist, you had better not stick your head out from behind cover or you risked a knot on your noggin. You were fair game for a well-aimed cob, whether or not it “killed” you.
Necessity also added another messy detail. In the late spring and summer, corncobs became scarce around the barn, but there were always plenty of dried cow chips. These became legal missiles, too. If you found one that was crusted over enough to pick up but still soft on the inside, you were a force to be feared. We still laugh about a wet patty that got Jimmy Frank full in the face. Luckily, he was wearing his glasses.
We also played a game in which we would wrench old, dried cornstalks from the ground and square off like sword fighters in a duel. One would hold his stalk out, and the other would strike and try to break it. If he failed, the other was required to hold his stalk out and let it be smashed. Whoever survived with an intact cornstalk, usually after repeated smashes, was the winner.
I guess now I know why my sons are so darned competitive—they learned it from their father. My brothers and I spent our youth competing with each other outdoors; there weren’t any Xbox 360 or Nintendo games to keep us occupied inside. I spent my youth exploring the fields, woods, and swamps that surrounded our home. My time out in nature shaped the rest of my life, and it’s something I wanted to make sure my sons learned to enjoy. Whether it was hunting, fishing, or playing sports, my children were going to grow up outside. They weren’t going to be sitting on the couch inside.
At least they didn’t grow up to be nerds.
RISE, KILL, AND EAT
Rule No. 3 for Living Happy, Happy, Happy
Learn to Cook (It’s Better than Eating Slop)
Here’s a fact: every human being on Earth has to eat or they will die. It’s called starvation. You have to eat if you’re a human being, whether you live in Monroe, Louisiana, or in some foreign land, like Los Angeles or New York. There has to be a food supply, and you have to consume food or you’re dead. It’s an undeniable fact—look it up.
Not everyone likes to eat. These little chicks today are starving themselves to death, which is kind of ironic, but it’s their choice. Since you have to eat to live, you’re left with a dilemma. You can choose not to learn how to cook and just eat slop, and you’ll stay alive. You can live off terrible cooking, which doesn’t taste very good, but you’ll somehow manage to survive. But my contention is that if you have to eat anyway, it just seems to me that you’re shortchanging yourself if you don’t learn how to cook. If you have to eat, why not learn how to eat well?
Of course, the downside to eating well is that if you eat too much, you can’t get through the door. Well, if that happens, you might ought to cut back some. You can overdo anything, and when you can’t get through the door because you’re too rotund, you might ought to say, “I think I need to start eating a few salads.” I’m not saying you should just shovel it in. I’m just saying if you learn how to cook, your stay on Earth might be more enjoyable.
I learned to cook when I was young, and most of my meals started with something I killed. I have a God-given right to pursue happiness, and happiness to me is killing things, skinning them, plucking them, and then having a good meal. What makes me happy is going out and blowing a duck’s head off. As it says in Acts 10:13 (KJV), “And there came a voice to him, Rise, Peter; kill, and eat.”
What makes me happy is going out and blowing a duck’s head off.
Rise, kill, and eat—that’s my modus operandi.
When I was young, heaven to me was hunting in the woods around our house or fishing on the nearby lakes and rivers. We hunted and threw lines into the Red River for catfish and white perch nearly every day. We didn’t have much of a choice; it’s where we got our next meal.
But when I was in high school, we were forced to move out of the log cabin where I grew up. My aunt Myrtle sold the farm, so we moved to the nearby town of Dixie, Louisiana. The town was a nice enough place; we lived on Main Street, just a stone’s throw from Stroud’s General Store, which was adjoined by a one-room post office. The general store and a cotton gin were the only businesses in town.
My father hoped the change of environment would help my mother, who had suffered a nervous breakdown and needed numerous trips to Schumpert hospital in Shreveport, Louisiana, for treatment. Granny was diagnosed as manic-depressive and was twice confined to the Louisiana mental institute at Pineville, where she received electric-shock therapy, a treatment in vogue at the time. At times my mother was almost her old self, and Pa would bring her home to be reunited with us. But her condition didn’t stabilize until several years later, when it was discovered that lithium could control it. Fortunately, my mother went on to live a productive and venerated life until her death at ninety-five years old.
Granny’s illness couldn’t have come at a worse time for my family. A short time after we moved to Dixie, Pa fell eighteen feet off the floor of a drilling rig and landed on his head. The impact fractured two vertebrae in his back. As Pa collapsed forward, he was bent so severely that it burst his stomach. He also broke his big toe, which slammed into the ground as he doubled up. Telling us about it later, Pa said with a wry smile, “I’ve heard of people getting hit on the head hard enough to break both ankles—but not their big toe.”
The vertebrae in Pa’s back were fused with bone from his hip; his stomach and big toe were repaired. But he was in a neck-to-hip, heavy plaster-of-Paris cast for two years; a round opening had been left only over his injured stomach.
As always, Pa met the situation in his own laid-back manner. Jimmy Frank and Harold were in college at Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge at the time. They were sharing a GI Bill payment of $110 a month and supplementing their income by Harold’s work at the Hatcher Hall cafeteria and Jimmy Frank’s work on the LSU horse-and-sheep unit experimental farm. They wanted to drop out of school and come home to work to help support the family, but my daddy insisted they stay in school, remarking dryly over the phone, “We’ll make it.”
And we did—but not without hardship.
Pa’s disability payment from the state was thirty-five dollars a week. In the late 1950s, that money went a little further than it does today, but not nearly far enough. Somehow my family coped. With our mother sometimes away in the hospital, Pa was often left on his own, with five children under his care. He was almost immobile at first, but within a few months, he was able to g
et around and help with the cooking.
My sister Judy was a rock and did much of the cooking, though all of us helped, and she saw that Silas and Jan got off to school in good order. Fortunately, the school bus stopped in front of our house.
To help make ends meet, Tommy and I gathered pecans and sold them for thirty-five cents a pound. In three hours, we could gather about a hundred pounds—equaling the weekly disability payment. Tommy also cleaned the church building each week in Blanchard, Louisiana, where we worshipped, for five dollars a week. With this money he was able to pay for our school meals, which were fifteen cents per day per child, thanks to Louisiana’s liberal school-lunch supplement.
Our food staples became rice and beans, which we bought by the hundred-pound sack. To this we added corn bread. Our meager diet made fresh game and fish doubly appreciated. Fortunately, vegetables were cheap in a farming area, and we purchased what we could with our scanty means from the Biondos, an Italian family that had a commercial truck farm a few miles down the road.
As I noted earlier, a real man can’t survive without meat, so it was up to Tommy and me to find some. It wasn’t easy, because we no longer had acres and acres of bountiful land surrounding our home. There were plenty of farms around us, but the farmers in the area didn’t want anyone on their land. They depended on it for their living and were diligent in warning off what they considered intruders.
Tommy, Silas, and I often led the farmers on wild-goose chases through the woods surrounding their plowed land. When the ground was wet, the red clay in the plowed fields would cling to our shoes and build up to several inches in depth and pounds in weight. My only remedy was to stop occasionally, shake my leg vigorously to dislodge the mud, do the same with my other leg, and then continue on. Progression across the thick land was sometimes nothing more than three steps and a kick!
Happy, Happy, Happy: My Life and Legacy as the Duck Commander Page 3
