Even though his father nurtured him to hunt and fish, an 11th-grade English teacher inspired him to write. She told him that every moment of life was worth capturing in words.
He told her that all he knew was how to hunt, fish and work on the farm -- he could shoot a basketball, too.
She encouraged, so he wrote and soon became a writer. From then, he kept track of his life, and most of his journal entries were about the outdoors. A few were about the farm, and some about the game of basketball.
There were entries in his journal about two girls. One girl broke his heart, and he wrote less about her. One stole his heart and held it for 40 years, and he wrote more about her.
He purchased journals from the drug store, from mail order or from book stores and filled each with his words about what he saw and did.
He wrote of Maggie, who was a puppy when she first licked his calloused palm. They sold feed to a farmer in Henderson, and when he was too poor to pay one April, he offered first pick from a litter of prized beagles.
In an entry that spring, he wrote: "She is purposefully clumsy, and she is suspicious of every smell around her. When I put her up for the night, I hear her howl and I cannot wait to listen to her from atop a hill, singing her song in chase."
He chronicled every hunt with Maggie and kept records of the rabbits she chased.
His last entry of Maggie was in the fall of 1972, and he wrote: "On this hill, I placed her and I did this because she earned a spot on a hill. Soon, her pups and their pups and their pups will chase and sing and if I am not here, at least Maggie will be and her chase will go on."
There were journal entries of hunts alone and with his club, of trips and of adventure. He often wrote of his kids, then his grandkids and how proud he was to give his first granddaughter a single-barrel shotgun and that she was a better shot than all the boys in the family.
"I took Emily to hunt dove today, and we were shaded by an elm tree and we ate cookies and brownies and drank water from a jar. She missed the first two dove that flew by, and from that miss, she shot the next six in a row. I've walked from many fields with many memories, and yet seeing a curly haired blonde with a bow in her hair tote a shotgun and hold a bag of doves she shot is about the most humbling and perfect emotion I have ever had and she is just 12; have mercy on a husband."
He pulled that entry during the summer of 2002 and read it to his granddaughter on her wedding day. It was hot that June, and she had finished law school a month prior. A suitor from town had swept her from her feet, yet he knew her roots were planted deep in the soil of the country.
When he read the entry of Emily's first hunt, not a dry eye could be found, including his own.
He wrote of many things -- trucks that would not start or that were stuck and of food he ate along the way and of boats, too. How he loved a boat and loathed a boat.
"I cleaned up from my chores around the barn, and it was the perfect spring day and I knew the crappie were bedding and I was eager to fish. I picked up Johnnie Tucker, I called him Tuck, and we went to Shady Fork launch and we were the first boat in the water. Johnnie sat in the truck, and I launched the boat. And when I realized the plug was in the tool box of the truck, Johnnie was already pulling away. It took an hour to get the boat out of the water and the water out of the boat. And wouldn't you know it, we caught six crappie today, and each fish was caught from the bank, by the ramp where my boat nearly sank."
He was at his desk when he wrote that he noticed weakness, and that night the doctor talked to Emily about rehabilitation, recovery and his care.
A few weeks later, Emily came to see him with a stack of journals she had discovered.
She had found them in a box in his closet, and when she dried her eyes, she knew what he needed. That day, she selected an entry to read to him. She read of hunts at the club and fishing trips on the river and at the coast. She read about coveys that he knew by name, and a bass he caught from a pond down the road.
She read to him about days when he hunted long and hard but game was not taken. And she read to him about his life on the farm. She read of a girl of 40 years, and she knew her has Mom.
He was not the same after the stroke; his eyes were unfocused and empty. There were pills, therapy, times of anger and occasionally joy and progress. Mostly, there was emptiness and distress.
One day she brought a picture of a young lady dancing with her grandfather when his eyes were not empty. She set the picture by his nightstand and read about a dove hunt and a girl with a bow and how this same man taught her to shoot.
He smiled upon hearing the story and asked her to read it again and again and again.
In his later days, he asked for the story of the girl's shooting and the man who taught her.
And one afternoon, he asked of Maggie.
"Is Maggie on the hill?" he said.
From beside his bed, she pulled a journal and read to him his final words about Maggie.
Emily sat on the hill the Sunday after his funeral.
She thumbed through his entries, and with pen in hand, she wrote: "You came to Maggie's hill on a Friday to hear singing in the hollow below."
Enjoy your time outdoors.
You may contact Jason Hawkins at hawkinsoutdoors@msn.com.
