Outdoor Odyssey

This week, after forty-four years in hiding, a piece of my family’s history finally turned up in, very fitting, a gun case.  In 1966, Sam W. Bryan, at the time, eighty years old, dictated the following stories about Brinson Bryan, his Father, my Great Grandfather, to Lenora Bryan Peters, his Niece.  This correspondence filled a gap in Brinson’s life and is also very interesting.

In 1847 Brinson Bryan riding a formerly, wild mustang horse and packing a .36 cal. pistol, joined a wagon train heading for California.  His pistol, a Paterson Colt with a nine-inch barrel was issued to him when, as an eighteen, year old, in 1845 he joined the Texas Rangers.

Brinson had just completed service in the Mexican War with Bell’s Rangers.  They served along the Texas/Mexican border and their job was keeping the supply lines open to General Zachary Taylor’s army encamped south of Monterrey.  Regularly they had scrapes with Mexican soldiers, Mexican guerillas and marauding Comanche and Apache Indians.

The wagon train, driving a herd of oxen along with them, averaged about twenty-five miles a day and all the way out and back they had scrapes with Indians.  One funny, but dangerous, story was when a lone, young Indian jumped Brinson, threw a tomahawk at him and charged.  He subdued him, just as the main body of the Indians arrived. Brinson wanted to fight the tomahawk thrower, but the Indian Chief said the young, Indian’s Father would whip him.  Which he did, leaving the young Indian some major whelps!

On another occasion, as the wagon train was lumbering along, Brinson was out hunting, he shot a bear, took it back to the train, skinned it and the folks enjoyed the bear steaks.  At the same time, he and the other hunters came across a bee cave, robbed the hive, put the honey in the bearskin and enjoyed it all the way to California.

In 1849, coming back from California, he stopped for a drink of water at a spring west of Waco, Texas. Up rambled a bear, Brinson wasted no time, shot it with his pistol, got his drink and headed on into Waco.  At the time Waco had one saloon and one log cabin house.

Family stories have Brinson guiding wagon trains to California, but we “lost” him until 1855 when he purchased land in Hill County, Texas, after that, a blank until 1862 when he enlisted as a sharpshooter in the 40th Alabama Infantry Regiment.  Sam’s stories also make no mention of the 1850-66 time frame.

Back then, things weren’t very easy, manual labor and hard work was the norm.  Just think about walking and riding a horse from Texas to California!  Men and women were tough and had to be strong just to exist from day to day.  Where has all of that strength and toughness gone?

You talk about “cabin fever”!  The last day of our State’s special doe/spike season January 17th, one of our Army friends, SFC. Tim Albee shot a nice doe, a fitting end to the season.  Things kinda’ went down hill from there.

On January 20th I visited the Fondren Orthopedic Clinic in Houston to see the “El Primo” knee repair doc.  Hoping that I could get away with a partial knee replacement, in no uncertain terms he told me that either in 2011 or 2012, I could come back and get a full one.  My knee hurt all the way home!

Luckily from the 20th through the 27th I was able to get a lot of things done around the place.  Things like spreading fireplace ashes on the garden, trimming the peach trees, tilling the garden, cutting and splitting firewood and finally, getting my onions planted.

Then it rained on Friday, the 28th.  It not only rained, it flooded!  Four and a half inches of rain left everything in a mess.  Then on Saturday I had a relapse of “cedar fever” that left me in bed until this past Monday.

Still not recovered from my malady, late Tuesday afternoon, I got myself ready to go predator hunting.  I even blew on my predator call several times, didn’t wheeze or cough and quickly pronounced myself well! That is until I told Layla where she could find me.  Promptly, she told me that in five minutes she better find me back in bed!  End of hunting adventure!

It started a misty rain Wednesday morning and has continued through Thursday, one and a half inches worth.  My malady is better, the chance of rain is diminishing and, if it’s not too wet, on Friday, Mickey Donahoo and I will try to get in some practice time, however, six inches of rain over the past seven days makes this unlikely.   

Saturday looks good for some outdoor activities like softball or predator hunting, but, more rain, thirty through sixty percent daily through next Saturday.  Wow!

You talk about cabin fever!

With the temperature hovering near eighty, Jake Schroder and I started the long walk back to our truck down Tom Mix Wash. The dogs, Jake’s, Candy, and my, Rooster, were “quailed” out and out of the four canteens we took along, we were down to less than one. Back then, early February 1973, the wash was rough country, now it is probably million dollar homes!

We had hiked, hunted and worked our way several miles up Tom Mix Wash.  This was near where, supposedly, the actor, Tom Mix, was killed in a one car, wreck along a road that bisects it. Tom was killed prior to WWII and I barely remember it.  Anyway, back then I was a Gene Autry guy.

Starting right after lunch we had headed east, towards the foothills and had bumped into numerous, large coveys of gamble quail and had considerably thinned out the population. That day we enjoyed some of the finest dog work and shooting of all my Arizona hunts. We missed some, the dogs busted a covey, a covey outran us, but within a little less than two hours we had two limits!

With our game bags full, two limits of birds, walking back to the truck Jake was excited, anticipating trying out his new camera with a “timed” shutter. He was going to set it up on a tripod, get it focused in, then we would rush around, kneel down, smile and the picture, certainly a potential Pulitzer winner, would capture the “thrill of our hunt”!

We pose, remotely, along Tom Mix Wash, north of Tucson.  The camera worked fine except that most of our hoard of quail was cut off!

A cold February afternoon in 1959, just before I entered the U.S. Army, my Dad and I met Dub Middleton, a neighbor and a good fishing friend, at a nondescript, bait camp, near Matagorda, Texas.  The camp was about a mile up from where the Colorado River emptied into the Gulf of Mexico. We were going to fish for speckled trout at night, under some bright, flood lights, a first for my growing obsession with trout fishing.

This old picture shows some of the specs we caught that night

The principle was simple, the reflection of the lights on the water drew small fish and shrimp in to feed on the minute sea life and the abundance of small bait drew the larger predators, the specks. The action could be fast and furious, and it turned out to be!

Starting about 8:30 PM, the three of us beat the water to a froth and our effort yielded only 4 small specks that were thrown back.  After 2 plus hours with little luck, Dub and I choose to take a nap on the couches inside the bait camp.  After midnight, my Dad woke us both up exclaiming, “Get up quick and come see all the fish!”

“All the fish” was right. The tide was coming in bringing with it stained, almost sandy, water. In the reflection of the large lights, the water was dimpled by hundreds of specks slashing through the thousands of bait fish being carried in with the tide!

Savoring the spectacle for maybe 5 seconds, our primal instincts kicked in, and we began casting into the melee. Using a Tony Acetta #7, silver spoon, with a yellow buck tail attached, almost every one of my casts resulted in a solid strike, a spirited fight and a nice speck flopping on the dock.

This action continued for nearly 30 minutes. Then, the tide changed heading back out to the Gulf, with the water movement, the bait and predator fish followed. As hot as the action was, it was all over now. Nothing remained except for us to clean and ice down the fish, collect our tackle, bid adieu to the camp operator and start our two-hour drive back to West University, a Houston suburb.

At the time, my family didn’t have a freezer, so all of our friends and relatives enjoyed the fish we happily gave to them

During my life I have met many interesting people, and recently, after a several hour visit with a WW II American flyer that was shot down and spent 18 months in a German prison camp, I started thinking back to some of the people that really stand out in my memory.
 
I have met a former President of The United States; a past Secretary of State; numerous other politicians; Medal Of Honor winners; a Jewish man who was held in Dachau by the Germans and had his prisoner number tattooed on his right forearm; a victim of the Batan Death March who was a Jap POW for three years, and not met, but watched, numerous German Afrika Corps Troopers behind the wire at an American POW camp in Temple, Texas.

Once, in Las Vegas, as I was walking into Caesars’ Palace, over my shoulder, I was watching Batman and Robin.  Head turned, going in one door, Jimmy Hofffa was coming out the same door.  There was a crash between us, his bodyguards stepped in, but both of us smiled, offered excuses and I chose another door! Where is he now?

When I was four years old going on five, my Dad made sure that I spent a lot of time with his family on their farm outside of Marlin, Falls County, Texas. At that time, prior to and during WW II, rural farmers and ranchers in Texas did not have electricity, propane or butane, strictly kerosene lamps and wood stoves. The Rural Electrification Agency and electricity didn’t get to Falls County until after the war.

Now, what really sticks out in my memory was meeting two very remarkable people. Uncle Tom and Aunt Betty, Tom and Betty Norwood, who owned a farm across Rock Dam road from my Grandma Bryan. Both had graduated from college, both were retired teachers. Uncle Tom was in his 90’s, tall, straight as a ramrod, silver hair and still farming. When I was 7, his watermelon patch was the scene of my first “crime”.

Aunt Betty, short and smiling, a master quilt maker, helped my Grandma around her house. When I was visiting, Aunt Betty immediately took me over. She made sure I had plenty of cookies and lemonade, guarded over me like a mother hen and made me feel that I was “special”.

Tom Norwood was a former slave! Betty Norwood was a child of former slaves! They were great people and, in spite of their color, had risen from nothing to property owners and respected members of the community. Some of my most cherished memories are of those two special people! 

In 1993, after ten years of putting up with the whims of various ranchers over the terms and restrictions on our hunting leases, Layla and I decided to purchase our own ranch.  We did and have sixteen years of enjoyment to show for it.

Now, both retired, we have expanded our interests.  One of mine is gardening.  Between church, my Grandchildren’s sports, my writing and blogging and playing Senior Softball, I find it very relaxing playing in the dirt!

Last year, except for onions, wild garlic and spinach, the tremendous amount of rain we experienced during the spring and summer, for all practical purposes, ruined the garden!  However, hope prevails, and this year, I got an earlier start than before.

Last Monday, I pruned the 3, peach trees and then, on Wednesday, I got real busy and planted 82, Texas 1015’s and 40 Bermuda onions. 

After planting the onions, I tilled both the large and small gardens and right on schedule, it started raining Thursday morning and Friday’s forecast is for snow!  Spinach and turnips are next to plant.

Speaking about snow, this would be our third this winter.   Remember, we live in central Texas, not Montana. 

Some more great pictures from my friends!

Right off the bat, Clayton Gist, sent me this picture of one angry bobcat that he trapped last week.  In the past twelve months, this makes the fourteenth one he’s trapped, along with one badger!

Randy Pfaff sent me this one of a nice mulie buck.  He said he didn’t have the heart to shoot it since it was drinking out of his birdbath.

He added one of a bear eating a doe that was hung up outside overnight.  The bear had a good meal, but the hunters should have hung the doe out of the bears reach!

Religiously, for the past four months, Ev Sims and his son have been bating their hog trap, with no results.  Finally, their persistence paid off with these two porkers.

Trying to keep up with some of the best “lines” that I have posted, I’ve researched them and come up with, not the best, or the funniest, but different categories that very from profound to confounded.

Sometimes I write profound statements:

The most important thing is thanking God every day for his blessings; His Grace, our family, our jobs our health, our friends and our wonderful Country!
 
One thing remains a constant, our country’s freedom is more important than politics or political correctness!

I believe every star in our hemisphere was out too!

Today, our country is on a very, slippery slope!  When are all of us going to wake up, or is it too late?

Nothings better than a Son getting a deer on his first hunt!

Sometimes it’s about the weather:

Four degrees wind chill, along with snow, was almost too much for me!

About this snow, this is central Texas, not Iowa. Am I going to have to get me a snow shovel?

Sometimes I try to be funny:

“That makes 4 deer and one buzzard you’ve hit.  This Suburban qualifies for ‘Ace’!

We ate the pheasant that night, Houston continued its sprawl, and now, this once prime hunting area is a golf course!  At least it’s not a shopping center!

Laughing, we told Jake, “That rearing horse looked like Roy Rogers and Trigger!  Ride ‘em cowboy!”  And, off he galloped into the darkness back towards Scottsdale Road.

A thankless job was cleaning out the outhouse!  I don’t remember ever doing that chore.

Sometimes it’s about sports or exercise:

At least walking works up a good sweat!

It would be something if each mornings walk would be this exciting!

Who knows what will happen when you play with a round ball and a round bat on a square field?

Our next tournament will be in Pensacola on May 15, if it rains we can still load up on the fried mullet!

Sometimes it’s indecision:

Once, we jumped a black bear, did not offer chase, or try to “count coup” on him and the dogs also showed no inclination to give chase.

It’s always unnerving to run into a rattler, and this was no exception, so we called a break and headed to town for an early lunch!

Someone once said, “The best deer blind is your back porch!”

Sometimes I just get confounded:

I never thought about taking a picture of the calf in the hog trap!

The boys and I “snuck” back in once but we felt very awkward carrying our shotguns through our neighbor’s backyards.

Having put all of this together, now I can go back to the football game!