From the Bench
A MEMORY CARRIED ON THE WIND
"The wind blows wherever it pleases. You hear its sound, but you cannot tell where it comes from or where it is going." John 2:8 NIV
A Saturday morning in early September. As I stood in the front yard, a breeze with only a slight hint of fall was enough to trigger a memory. The magic of the autumn wind.
Sixty years earlier, the young boy sat on the steps on the back porch in the country in the predawn darkness of early fall and experienced it for the first time he could remember.
To the west, the long silhoutte that stretched from south to north, defining one side of the long valley of his youth, steered the message across the open space. It had always been so. The weather moved northward up the wall that was Signal Mountain, then slowly engulfed the valley.
Then, and still, the autumn wind brings forth that indefinable instant and pulls together the things that make the season. At its center this morning, the memory of "The Possum Hunt" emerged.
Now it seems a nondescript event. It is too distant to impress the granddaughters still asleep inside. But its imprint is deep and meaningful to the ancient computer that is processing it.
All things being relative, the Friday-night possum hunt in the late thirties and early forties was as significant in our time as last-night’s rock concert is today. It defined the moment, separating the first weeks of school from Sunday-morning church.
Possum hunting was a simple production. Supplies were meagre. Two carbide lamps attached to miner’s caps, a flashlight as long as a billy club and powerful enough to penetrate the tallest hardwood. A tow sack and a string.
Snacks and drinks were optional, depending on what could be foraged or stolen from the kitchen.
And, oh, yes, there was the main attraction, the possum hound.
The Hall boys always furnished the star of the show. There were ten Hall siblings counting the girls, eleven if you included the hound, who was an integral part of the household.
Possum hounds do not have to be impressive in appearance, so long as they can perform. "Houney" fit the profile perfectly. Loose red skin hung from her body, and her low underside testified to numerous trips to the altar and maternity ward.
Appearance didn’t matter. What did was the statement of competence that even today defines efficiency. "That dog will hunt."
The ritual was simple. Just after dark, we headed off into the woods in whatever direction the mood led. Didn’t matter to Houney. North, South, East, or West, she would find possums.
After a short trek to set direction for the hound, we would find a clearing and settle in a circle to await the message of Houney’s mysterious magic. Intermittent yelping said "I’m on to something", followed by the consistent report, "I’m hot on the trail," then the steady unmoving call, "I’ve got him." The "tree" bark.
We would rise to leave, extinguishing the fire if we had built one during the late season of early November. Fire extinguishing was a circular, pagan ritual performed in a manner that only teen-age boys could appreciate. We never tarried.
It didn’t take long to find the dog. Her call was constant and clear. Then began the search for the victim, two bright stars caught in the beam of the flashlight, staring in confusion at the commotion below. A volunteer climber and shaker was not hard to come by unless the prey was extremely high or on the occasional misstep by Houney when a coon was the prey.. Young boys with sticks and a lone possum hound were no match for a large coon.
Most of the hunts melded together in a single memory, but there was the one defining hunt when Houney holed a skunk. It was a stressful night for all of us, especially the dog.
We knew that something was amiss when the yelping was tranformed from the usual "tree" bark to a muffled moan of distress. When we located the hound on the side of a hill near Squire Brown’s place, all that was visible was her sharp bony hips, pointed to the sky with no possibility of traction to back out.
For the Hall boys, it was panic, for they had heard the legends of good dogs blinded and ruined by the assault of a skunk. A hero was needed to extract Houney, and none of us "regulars" leaped to the opportunity.
But fortune smiled on us that night. Gene Buncey, our contemporary in school but three years ahead of us in chronology, seldom joined the hunt. But he was there when we needed him.
For whatever reason….age, desire for recognition, lack of judgement…Gene volunteered for the rescue. He grabbed the hound by the hips and began pulling furiously. The intensity of the moaning screamed that the bony, arthritic hips of the hound could not survive such a rescue. The Hall boys, hoping to remove Houney in one piece, pleaded with Gene to stop.
After a brief strategy session, Gene resumed, working his hands as far forward as he could into the hole to grasp the dog’s ribcage. The hound’s moaning and Gene’s frustrated grunting became intense.
Gene introduced us to new and unfamiliar words and phrases that night.
Finally, success. Gene and the dog tumbled down the bank in one convoluted heap, but not before a final broadside from the skunk convinced both of them of the skunk’s will to prevail.
Gene was forgotten. Our attention was directed to the welfare of Houney. Even as we returned home, every effort was made to keep our distance, and to stay upwind from Gene. We found out later that he received a similar welcome when he got home. Old man Buncey made him sleep in the barn.
Such are the rewards of valor; however, the next year Gene reached the goal he had sought so long. He quit school.
As the memory of "The Possum Hunt" processed this Saturday morning in September, it suddenly added a dimension of currency. The day before, my wife, my son, and I had sat in the oncologist’s office, agonizing over a continuation of the treatments that had decimated my body, especially for the previous four weeks.
The doctor and I stood face to face and I tried to negotiate. A week ago, even two days earlier, there would have been no question. I had decided to quit.
"Maybe the Lord is in it, but today I feel some better. Couldn’t we reduce the dosage, stretch out the treatments?"
His gaze was steady and penetrating. In it there was a hint of both promise and hope.
"It’s your decision, but I hope you will finish the course."
Making decisions is life’s most trying process. We delay. We equivocate. We even try to deny that a decision must be made. In the end, however, we must act and move on, never looking back.
"Let’s go. I may regret it in two weeks, but let’s go."
The incident punctuated and extended the stream that had processed itself in less time than it takes to write one of these paragraphs. Wrapped within were a promise of more winds of autumn, and a dream of more memories that can be.
As I close this long, winding discourse, the thought of that unique take-for-granted computer with its elements that go beyond anything Silicon Valley will ever emulate…..decisions, emotions, feelings, soul….I can only end with what is at once both a question and a statement.
"Ain’t God great?"