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| Lake Keowee Family |
I'm sitting on the shore of an island on Lake Keowee. I see an American flag waving on a flag pole, underneath the American flag is a Marine Corps flag. The flag pole is attached to a covered boat dock, a cement path leads to a huge beautiful three story house, I wonder if this is a weekend home or do they live here every day? Would be a great place to live!
My work schedule allows me to paddle the lakes during the weekdays and I normally have the lakes pretty much to myself. Gracie, my dear old yellow lab and I quietly and smoothly move along the shore line watching for cautious wildlife and hidden waterfalls. We conquer small sandy spots, staking our claim with a camping chair. I am vigilant, dozing under the fresh spring sun. We seek refuge from the summer sun's heat by swimming under the clear mountain water or napping in the dappled shade. Everywhere we make landfall you will find a shallow bed clawed out and yellow lab hairs sprinkled in the disturbed soil. My patch is four camp chair feet imprints and a rectangle of squashed lake debris made by on old plastic Coleman.
The story is told of the old hillbilly rocked back in his cane bottom chair on the front porch of an old log cabin. The young college boy drives up in his polished car and asks the question, "What are you doing?" The old man chews his tobacco and pets the head of his favorite Redbone hound before saying, "Sometimes we sits and thinks, and sometimes we just sits!" I find myself doing that on these long warm afternoons, not spittin' tobacco, just sittin' or sittin' and thinkin'! Today I'm moving back into the shade so I don't sunburn the tops of my feet, really uncomfortable to wear heavy steel toed work boots when your feet and toe tops are burnt. I'm ashamed to admit that this is the first time this year 2014 that I've put the canoe in the water, about a month ago I was headed to Lake Jocassee but found a birds nest with eggs in the stern of the canoe. The right thing was done and I waited until all the birdies left the nest before attempting another trip. So here I sit with my lily white feet, afraid of burning them, but knowing that in a few weeks they and most of the rest of me will be tanned like a Thanksgiving Turkey!
Thinking, has brought to mind the summer many years ago when I tried to plant and grow a large garden. Tried - is the key word in that sentence! I was living in whitetail deer country at the time and it never crossed my mind that a garden in an open field near many acres of woodland would be a salad buffet to the calorie counting doe eyed ladies of the night - BUT IT WAS !!! I worked very hard at encouraging the little veggies to struggle toward the warm nourishing rays of sunshine and they did. One hot summer day with nothing on but a pair of long legged blue jeans I crawled up and down the rows removing offending plants so that all that remained was the choicest of veggies for my DEAR friends! I know they were thankful because all they left behind were little piles of chocolate tidbits! All I received was a bad sunburn! Crawling in long pants kept pulling my pants down below my waist and even lower! The sunburn on my back was bad, but nothing like [ you know where the sun don't shine ] the top half of my cherry red butt, split with a bad case of plumbers crack! The bottoms of both feet had never seen sunshine until that day and they never want to see it again! Burnt so bad - like walking on coals of blue fire. Never planted a garden for the DEAR ones again!
That was the same year I decided to go white tailed deer hunting', I wonder why? That fall I went to the nearest biggest small town with a gun store and bought me a gun. It was and still is a Ruger .270, bought a box of twenty bullets, a hunting license, an orange hat, and a plastic cover with a big diaper pin on it. The license had to go in the cover and the cover had to be pinned on your back so the Game Warden could see it and know you were legal. The orange hat told the other hunters that you were not a deer, but a hunter. To be honest, I don't think I ever acquired the title - Hunter! - more like, "Dude in woods with rifle". My wife used to laugh with me cause I would take a Louis L'Amour book with me in the woods and read of the Sackett brothers adventures while "Hunting". Then one day I left the gun and book behind and called it hiking - changed my life! Thats another story for another time.
I'm high five proud with my new hunting gear and really itching to shoot something, BANG! BANG! you would think I gotta pee the way I'm dancing around! Finally the day comes. I'm barefoot again, love being barefoot and back in that life would kick my shoes off in a skinny minute. I cross the two lane road, walk through the empty salad buffet, crouch like a soldier on patrol eyeing the tree line before I enter the woods on an unused overgrown road. Follow the road about a hundred yards and tack a target on the broad side of an oak tree. At one time I was a member of the 4-H rifle team and learned how to shoot. We shot a .22 rifle with peep sights, the strap wrapped around our arms so tight that we all had a black and blue stripe around our bicep. It was so tight my mother's arm was even bruised! Well, my .270 had open sights and no strap, one in the chamber and five in the magazine. Awesome! Here Deerie, Deerie! I stood straight and tall, chest out staring down the barrel of my every own gun preparing to hunt down the salad fed doe eyed thieves of the night! Twenty yards away the paper target hung quaking in fear, a somber atmosphere cloaked the dark forest, the gun was ready - was I?! The orange hat was sitting on my head, the rifle butt was resting against my right shoulder, my cheek was snuggled tight to the smooth cold stock, I sighted down the open sights as the trigger jerked back, the firing pin struck the bullet, the bullet exploded hurling the lead down and out of the barrel, my hat spun around facing backwards, my shoulder turning black and blue, my face registering horrifying surprise and the target relaxing into a smile not even feeling the breeze of the bullet. No deer heads mounted on the walls of my man cave.
Sittin' and Sittin' and Thinkin', time to do some more paddling and enjoy this quite peaceful lake.
On the lake or in the woods,
Turtle
4-23-2014
