Pix of myself and Brownie around 1962. 

Brownie kicked back and taking it easy for sure!

A usual Saturday outing lasted from sun up until the late afternoon hours when the shadows began to get long and the sun would start it’s evening decent beyond the western horizon and I would be making fast tracks getting back home and if it was too late I could hear my Grandma Coley hollering, “Mickey, Mickey” a good 1/4 mile away or at least it sounded that far.

BROWNIE AND POP CIRCA 1962

Pop with one of his rabbit dogs, Brownie and don't know about the young pup.  I believe that the wood slab structure in the background was our club house.  We had a wood stove made from half a steel drum with a flu pipe out the side of the building.  We cooked all kind of stuff on that home made wood stove if my memory is correct.

STANDARD GEAR

My standard gear for those all day hikes and scouting adventures was an old US Army olive green back pack, Winchester model 67 .22 caliber rifle, ammunition, Army folding shovel, pocket knife or sheath knife, small aluminum coffee pot, thin steel frying pan, metal coffee cup, fork, spoon, knife, matches, salt, black pepper, small rope or twine, premixed sour dough bread, eggs, coffee grounds not the instant type, sliced bacon, bread, canteen with water and a few other snacks depending what was in the pantry at the time.  Around 1962, I carried a bolt action Sears & Roebuck .22 caliber repeating rimfire rifle instead of the Winchester model 67.

Above pix of the Winchester model 67 rifle.  I have shot thousands of rounds through that rifle and still shooting some CCI .22 shorts every now and then.  You will notice the amount of drop the stock has which is ideal for fast point and shoot at flying and running game, because when you shoulder the rifle, it is pointing where you are looking; that is what makes a near perfect fit firearm.  Pix added on 09-30-17.

CARL'S MOUNTAIN

There was one special place several miles from our home locals named “Carl’s Mountain” which I believe was owned by the late Dr. Carl Lawson, a Dentist and in those days no one had to ask or obtain written permission to travel on his land which bordered some of my Grandma Coley’s land.  That land is currently owned by Shirley Lawson Ratliff of Jacksonville, Alabama.  This is not the Carr's Mount that was once the Dixie Fairgrounds that later became the Singleton Silk Mill.

A small "slice" of a topo map of Carl's Mountain....as they say "X" marks the spot at 464 feet above sea level.  There is a good 114 feet elevation drop on the right hand side of "Carl's Mountain" going to the right which has a little branch/creek flowing.

The pinkish arrow in the pix above is pointing to the crest of Carl's Mountain.

On the summit or plateau on Carl’s Mountain, there was a five foot diameter hole and in all probability was an abandoned gold mine shaft from the middle 1800s that was maybe 15 feet deep by 5 feet in diameter and had been partly filled in with debris over the decades and  an occasional rabbit or “possum” would get trapped in there and it’s carcass would be noticed on the next visit. The summit afforded a spectacular view, especially when about 20 feet off the ground in one of the nearby large oak trees and on a clear day you could see the outline of Morrow Mountain in Stanly County which was at least 30 miles away to the North and to the South you could see the old two story Singleton Silk Mill Factory which is now occupied by a housing development and has a large water storage tank on the ole Silk Mill property.  According to my Grandma "Della" Coley she stated that the Town of Wadesboro after the closing of the Silk Milk had  some "notions" of erecting an overhead cable car system from the Old Silk Mill site to the plateau on Carl's Mountain to make a tourists attraction, however I have never verified that or made any attempt.  Elevation wise, at both places it would appear to be possible to construct although not profitable.  Back in the early 1960's before the saw timber pine trees were harvested there were numerous apple and peach trees scattered through out the region which adds some merit to my Grandma's story.  Hopefully, I will get a chance to hike back in there and take some pixs of the plateau for ole times sake.

NOTE:  I got a chance to explore the area on the back side of Carl's Mountain with Ralph Henry Coble who wanted to locate the Brownstone Quarry, of which I had forgotten about visiting that rock quarry back in the late 1950s during my all day ramblings/hikes, etc. 

Above is a pix taken on June 5, 2019 and the short story about the Brown Stone Quarry is hyperlinked.

Web page updated by Bill aka Mickey Porter on 06-06-19.

At or near the plateau adjacent an old logging road, I would clear off an area, raking the pine needles and leaves back for safety and build a camp fire from dead sticks and whatever combustible material was available and get a large bed of embers glowing.  On one edge of the camp fire I dug a small depression about eight inches in diameter and about eight inches deep and once I had a good bed of red/orange embers glowing with a little bluish tint in the back ground, I would rake some of the embers into the depression and pour the prepared sour dough mix on top of the embers and cover the sour dough with more embers and add a light layer of the dirt removed from the hole and wait on the heat to bake the sour dough.  About 20 minutes later, the dirt and embers would be raked from the top of the sour dough and the resulting baked bread was called a Cannonball because of it’s shape and color;  leaving the middle edible portion…..go ahead and grin if you must!  While the bread was getting earthen “oven” baked, I would have the pot of coffee brewing and the bacon frying and finish off with some scramble eggs.  By this time the smell of cooking the bread, bacon and eggs would have my dog Brownie hanging close by to get his portion of the feast.  Anyone that has not experienced food cooked over an open wood fire enjoying what Mother Nature has to offer has just missed out of some of Life’s most basic and simplest forms of enjoyment!

Above pix not from that time frame but around 1978 at Porter's Point campsite.  I can almost hear and smell the crackling of the fire!

Once our breakfast was consumed  and the camp fire embers put out it was time to starting scouting the creeks, stream beds and banks looking for fresh sign of mink, muskrat and raccoons for the next trapping season.

SUMMER WORK

Myself and Brother Allen would work with Uncle Doug and Uncle Baxter Bowers during the summer months who were brick masons and we mostly rolled the bricks and mortar, helped build scaffolds, mix mortar, etc.  Doug had me laying brick to the line when I was around 16 years old, but it didn't take too many summers of that type of manual work to realize I definitely wasn't going to become a brick mason.   Doug paid myself $ 5.00 a week and Allen $ 2.50 a week and Doug sure got the better end of that deal not having to hire an extra full time employee and pay them regular wages.  The average minimum wage in 1960 was $ 1.00 per hour.  I was working with Uncle Doug one summer in the early 1960s when the ole Pickle Factory now Wansona was having renovations done with Mr. Tom Little the Contractor.  Uncle Doug and maybe Baxter doing the brick work and I was helping them at the time, whereas at the end of the Week, Mr. Tom Little "slipped" me a twenty dollar bill and said to buy myself a suit of clothes.  I am sure the light bulb came on as to being very under paid for the manual labor that I was doing.  I didn't buy a suit of clothes with the twenty dollar bill as advised by Mr. Tom Little, but purchased a .22 caliber bolt action repeating rifle from Sears and Roebuck Company....grin if you must! 

I will take the Brain over Brawn work any day of the week as far as earning a living goes of which I have pretty much done that since getting out of service until my retirement in March of 2012......grin if you must!  There isn't anything wrong with a career that entails manual labor and without those type of professions, we would still be back in the Stone Ages!  There is a huge demand for plumbers, electricians, heating and air, carpenters, etc., since much of the current folks want to sit behind the screen of a computer, laptop, IPad or IPhone and create calloused buttocks instead of their hands and there is a good chance carpal tunnel syndrome is lurking down the road for their hands!

BROWNIE

Brownie was a good "jump" dog for rabbits and ran and treed squirrels mostly by sight.  I still have images of him locking up with squirrels that had been shot from a tree and still have some life left in them.  He had the constitution of a pit bull and plenty of "grit" but didn't have the size to back up all that grit and tenacity which earned himself many battle scars.   Pix of Brownie and the ole home place at 1000 Maple Lane and Pops 1947 Ford car:

BROWNIE AND THE RACCOON TRAP

As I mentioned earlier, my dog Brownie accompanied me about everywhere I went when outdoors and I will relate an event that happened when I had a live coon trap set about 4 miles from our home near the Anson County airport.  It has been my nature over the years to overdo many things and the coon live trap was no exception.  This trap was large enough to hold a small bear and had a drop lid that was controlled by a large rat trap spring/trigger attached to a movable floor plate pulling a pin allowing the lid to fall, pretty much like a standard rabbit box and some people call them a rabbit gun.  I had to use a wheel barrow to transport the humongous coon trap and you can imagine the time and effort required to get this thing 4 miles through woods and across a small branch aka stream or two.  I used canned Mackerel for bait and had it set for a few days and didn’t catch anything.  One of the last times that I baited the trap, I noticed that ole Brownie was not waiting for me when I got in from school and he didn’t come when I “hollered” for him, so went without him.  Nothing too eventful happened on the hike to the trap and I remember the initial excitement when I saw that the lid was down on the coon trap and knew I had finally at last live trapped Mr. Coon.  However, when I got closer to the trap, I noticed something brown in the trap and low and behold, my dog Brownie was in the trap anxiously wanting to get out.  I can see that rascal as plain as day sitting in that live trap with a different expression than he normally had. Sometime during the day ole Brownie decided to go check the trap out and could not resist the canned Mackerel and remained there until I released him from the trap.  I don’t think I ever caught anything except Brownie in the live trap and left the trap next to the creek where its wooden frame rotted out several years later.

Brownie was my faithful companion and the last time I saw him alive was in 1965 when I departed for Morocco, Africa while in the US Navy.  My folks sent me some pictures of him from time to time and I would always ask in a letter how Brownie was doing.  Before I returned home in 1967 from Morocco, Africa I noticed they did not mention Brownie in their letters.

I later learned that Brownie was seriously injured by one of my Uncle’s bird dogs and did not recover from his wounds.  I am glad I don’t have web cam on here, because I am getting all choked up just writing about him.   Mom said they would show Brownie a picture of me and it would "perk" him up a little.  Pix below shows the sadness in his eyes or it does anyway to me.  Pets become family members very easy and a lasting bond forms over time. 

Family took this pix of Brownie on the back porch while I was overseas around 1966.

Brownie was my all time favorite dog although our family has owned some good house and hunting dogs, but there will always be a special place in my heart, soul and memory for Brownie.

Written by Bill Porter July 4, 2008.

TRUE MEANING OF "COLD TURKEY"

On Thanksgiving Day, it was customary for the Porter family guys to go rabbit hunting early in the morning and return around noon time to celebrate with our annual Thanksgiving feast consisting of oven baked turkey, cornbread dressing, giblet gravy and various veggies and other side dishes, a cake or pie of which Mom would have a full course meal prepared for us.

I am guessing at the year being 1960, maybe a year or two earlier of which Thanksgiving Day was on November 24th that year and usually falls on the fourth Thursday in November.  Dad loaded his rabbit hounds of various breeds in the back of his ole 1957 Ford truck that was painted fire engine red and I know that Walt Newton, Dad's Uncle, my brother Allen and myself were hunting that day along with our Dad who we called him "Pop" most of the time.

We planned rabbit hunting a specific area on Joel Price's farm land about 1.2 miles from Savannah Church near where his ole home place was located.  Back then, there were plenty of open fields and pasture land to hunt which has grown over the many decades since then and most have been planted in Pine trees now.  Click on the below thumbnails pixs taken on 07-06-15 for a larger screen view:

The first thumbnail pix above is a view not far from the summit of Ingram's Mountain off State Road 1704 named Ingram Mountain Road.  The second pix is Savannah Church near the intersection of Pangy Road S.R. 1743 which use to be called Grassy Island Road by the locals but the named changed years later.  Not too far from Pangy Road traveling North on Ingram's Mountain Road is the Joel Price home and farm and the last two pixs on the right show how it looks today.  It appears to be occupied, however after talking with James Price late this evening, he said Henry Welsh kept the grass cut and he allowed him to hunt with his Grandson on his track of land on Pangy road this is in front of his Dad's ole home place.  The corn is growing pretty close to the yard too.  The landscape has certainly changed since then those early years of the 1950s and 1960s, whereas all the farming and open fields are now planted in pines and shows the evidence of them being recently harvested in places.  James Price, the son of the late Joel and Mary Fannie Price owns 81 acres of land on Pangy Road across from the ole Price home stead and farm and also owns his Mom and Dad's home on Ingram Mountain Road encompassing about 50 acres, plus or minus.   Now back to my story.

It would take a good thirty (30) minute drive to get there from 1000 Maple Lane in Wadesboro and once we got the dogs unloaded, it wasn't long before they jumped a rabbit and the race was on.  I remember that I was in the right place at the right time when a large dark colored swamp cottontail rabbit circled back around and came by where I was standing and the little Winchester model 37a 20 gauge shotgun bellowed and putting the running rabbit down for the ten count.  It was a very large rabbit and back then I didn't own a hunting coat or jacket but kept my shotgun shells in my pants pocket or carried my small game in a bag with a sling over my shoulder.  I cut a slit in one of the rabbit's hind legs between the tendon and the bone and threaded the rabbit leg above the foot onto my belt and wore him by my side.  The rabbit was hanging down past my knee which wasn't too bad to transport him like that.

We continued to hunt through out the morning and I don't remember if anyone else killed any rabbits or not but that was the only one that I got a shot at and killed.  It was getting late in the morning and about time to start heading back toward the truck and the more we walked the more unfamiliar the area looked.  There was no question after about another hour of walking that we were in fact lost and there was a good 2 mile block of territory that was between Ingram Mountain Road, the Grassy Island Road now called Pangy Road S.R. 1743, the Pee Dee River and another private dirt road right before you get to Savannah Creek which is a huge chunk of real-estate to get "lost" in.  We continued to walk in a straight line but unbeknown to us, we were actually walking farther and father away from where we started out from.  It was on late in the afternoon when we finally came out to an ole wooden farm house and barn that belonged to Dr. Davis that Joel Price leased the property to graze his cows on and what a relief to recognize a familiar land mark!

After coming out to a know road, I told Pop that I was going to walk the dirt road back to the main road (Ingram Mountain Road S.R. 1704) and then follow the road going past Joel Price's dairy farm and back onto Grassy Island Road aka Pangy Road S.R. 1743 near Savannah Church and continue back to the truck.  Walt Newton liked my plan, however Pop and Allen decided to take the short cut back through that large stretch of property we were just lost in to get back to the truck.  When Walt Newton and myself finally got back to the main road (Ingram Mountain Road), he sat down and said he wasn't going a step farther.  Walt Newton was several decades older than myself and today, I can understand about getting tired.

I continued on and finally made it back to the truck and back in those days you didn't have to lock your doors.  Pop and Allen were not within hollering distance since I tried to get them to answer.  After waiting seem like forever, don't know whether I wore a watch at the time or not, I finally started blowing the truck horn every once in a while until they finally got within hollering distance. 

We loaded up the tired dogs and went and picked up Walt Newton who was one unhappy camper, totally popped out and disgusted too.  I don't think I ever saw Walt Newton at no time ever crack a grin and that day was certainly no exception!  He always looked like an ole sour puss that someone had licked the red off his candy!  Below is a picture of Walt and Naun Newton taken at Grandpa and Grandma Porter's home in Ansonville, NC.  I purchased the coat oak hall tree in the background from Grandma aka Lizzie before she went to the nursing home. 

We arrived back home about supper time and waiting for us was the ruminants of a cold turkey that looked like it had been in a Nazi concentration camp during WWII, cold giblet gravy and cold dried cornbread dressing hard as a brickbat with everything else being the same.  I can say that Mom at that time, baked some of the driest turkey that has ever been and if you coughed while eating the breast meat, I believe there would be turkey dust expelled in the air like a giant white Cumulus cloud, however Mom thought her oven baked turkey was the best.....grin if you must!  There wasn't anything back then like a self basting turkey and those cheap turkeys looked like they had been starved before processing.......another grin is in order!

That was the last time Walt Newton went rabbit hunting with us and he probably went to the grave remembering how much we walked that day.  That several pound swamp rabbit hanging from my belt felt like it weighted 30 pounds by the time I walked back to the truck.  I definitely haven't forgotten that experience to this date and that has been a good fifty-five (55) years ago.   07-03-15.

Below is a current pix at the end of Pangy Road S.R. 1743 of which we called it Grassy Island Road back then and today, there is a development on all the land that borders the Pee Dee River, however I don't think much of it has been developed due to not having suitable access to the Pee Dee River, available county water and sewage.  Also, Pangy Road is not well maintained with large pieces of granite stone and rock and ruts and holes in the existing roadbed.  You would have to pay me to attempt to live down there!

Below is a satellite view of the development plat.  It is to my understanding the same development company owned the land across the river near Mountain Creek which you can see homes built in the right hand side of the picture which has some serious elevation from the river and I believe they have Richmond County water too.  Leave it to good ole Anson County to be sucking hind tit! 

The white dots represent the area we hunted and were lost in and the roads I walked to get back at our starting point which was the lower far right hand dot was our starting point.  

LESSON LEARNED THE HARD WAY SOMETIME IN 1962

During the late 1950s and early 1960s, I wanted a .22 caliber pistol of my own very badly.  I had shot my Uncle Doug's ole Harrington and Richardson break open 9 shot revolver but it didn't shoot very accurate at all.  Browning Arms had recently come out with three .22 caliber pistols in their line up and they were called the Challenger, Nomad and Medalists and I started saving my nickels and dimes for one and asked my Pop if he would get me one and he told me that I had no business owning a .22 caliber pistol since I already had two .22 caliber rifles and would probably get hurt with one. 

Owning one the right way was now out of the question and I bought an illegal .22 caliber revolver for six (6) dollars which the street name is a "Saturday Night Special."  That revolver would not shoot two bullets within a foot or two of each other and you never knew where the bullet would hit, it was just that inaccurate.  I got rid of it in a trade for something and was on the lookout for something that would shoot more accurate.  I purchased or traded for a single shot pistol that was made from an old Hamilton .22 caliber single shot rolling block type rifle that someone had cut the barrel off of which the barrel length was barely long enough to contain a .22 caliber short bullet and the stock was sawed off as well.  That pistol had a hair trigger, meaning you could about breathe on it and it would fire.

I remember shooting at the side of an old quail wire and wood cage and the bullet hit the wood and bounced back and grazed my side/shirt without drawing any blood.  I checked where the bullet hit the wood portion side of the cage and it hit the cage on the flat side of the bullet instead of the tip of the bullet hitting first.  Well, I certainly was slow on that one and that should have told me that thing was a piece of junk and an accident waiting to happen.

Several of the young guys in the neighborhood slipped off with myself to do some shooting one Sunday afternoon and one of them was Buckey Gaddy, now deceased.  While we were leaving, my younger brother Joe, now deceased wanted to tag along with us and I told him no because I knew he would rat me off to my Mom and Pop so he wasn't allowed to go with us.

We were at least a mile from the house and I remember sitting on the side of the hillside and each one of us would take turns shooting that contraption.  I vividly remember today as if it just happened, I was getting ready to shoot and my younger brother Joe had came up behind us and I looked around to tell him to get back home when the home made pistol went off.  Immediately, my lower left leg and ankle felt like it was on fire and hurting very bad.  I couldn't walk and the guys had to carry me part of the way and I would try and walk on one leg with their help.  My brother Joe ran home ahead of us and told my Mom and Dad that I had shot myself and they didn't know how bad or where I was shot at and one can only imagine their anxiety of not knowing. 

I believe Pop drove his car down the road as close as he could get to where we would exit the woods and it seemed like that mile turned into ten miles for sure.  They drove me to the local hospital and gave me something for pain and I stayed there a few days since I was in shock and they wanted to give the lead fragments time to settle down.  The next day, the surgeon either McKinnon or Smithy cleaned out the wound the best they could since the bullet went into the inside of my left leg about 7 inches above the ankle and the bullet lodged into the ankle.  The soft lead bullet fragmented during the course of its travel taking some of the pants leg material with it.  He used something like you would clean the bore of a firearm with and believe me it hurt about as bad as the initial wound except without the element of the burning part. 

My bride to be came by and visited me while I was in the hospital and that was probably the best part of the hospital experience.  It might have been a good thing that I was dumb as a fence post with the young ladies, especially my bride to be, otherwise our son would be around 55 instead of 47 years old; if in fact, I survived her Dad's 12 gauge shotgun muzzle blast..........grin if you must!

Well, Pop knew a lot more than I gave him credit for and that was one hard learned lesson of which I will never forget.  While in the US Navy boot camp at Great Lakes, Illinois, they checked my leg over real good and I could have gotten out of service due to the injury but I had no desire to do so because I wanted to get some job skills for later use in life of which I am glad I didn't wimp out.

Web published the above by Bill aka Mickey Porter on 07-02-15.    

MINK TRAPPING IN THE 1960S

The small branch or creek mentioned in the above paragraphs was where I did my mink and raccoon trapping, however there were very few raccoons traveling the branch back in the early 1960s when I was putting out a few leg hold traps.  My parents got me a half dozen or so leg hold traps for Christmas probably around 1962 and wanted to trap a mink very badly. 

At the time, I was reading all the trapping manuals and how to articles about mink trapping from magazines like Fur-Fish-Game, Outdoor Life and Field and Stream of which Uncle Doug had subscriptions to the Outdoor Life and Field and Stream and those hand me down magazines sure was some great reading back then.

As I have already eluded to, when I do something, it is usually an overkill for sure and that seems to have been my MO, (modus operandi) from the start......grin if you must.   To validate what I just said;  I was in an Industrial Arts Class aka shop class in the 10th grade in school and I made enough wooden mink stretcher boards for someone that was operating a 50 mile long trap line in Alaska in a heavy fur producing area.  One uses the wooden stretcher board with the cased out skin with the fur side in to allow it to properly dry before the sale of the hide. 

Preparing traps for usage, one must boil the traps to degrease them or what method works for you, then allow the traps to rust, boil them in something that will dye them black like logwood chips/crystals and then dip them in clear wax to protect them.  It is imperative that all human scent is removed from the traps, otherwise a wary animal will smell the human scent and avoid them.

The first winter of trapping the branch/creek across the railroad tracks about half way to the Anson County Airport, I caught everything but the fur bearing animals that I was after.  Mink and/or muskrat would pull their foot from the leg hold trap and I finally wised up and had to start using a drowning set where the animal would not have the opportunity to pull its leg/foot free.  I also made a potent lure during the summer months using rabbit meat rabbit, placed the rabbit pieces in a quart Mason jar, sealed the lid tight and let it marinate through out the summer until cold weather when trapping season began in December. 

After doing my normal pre-season scouting, I found mink sign on the little branch and found an ideal set location where the water was about 2 to 3 feet deep and a well used log that spanned the branch with the water below it deep enough for the drowning set.  There was evidence where something had been eating crayfish and would be a perfect place to put a blind set on the log.  The log was a good 12 inches or more in diameter and I chopped a flat portion out using my hatchet for my trap and wired the chain to a drowning wire anchored to a rock on the bottom of the creek.  I placed a guide or step stick at each end of the trap so the animal would have to step over it placing its foot directly onto the trap pan which would release the trigger holding back the force of the spring loaded jaws of the trap.  I believe I placed a large piece of moss on the trap pan to help conceal it but not sure of that.  I also took some of the home made lure that would knock your socks off once you took the lid off the Mason jar due to the smell and placed a few drops on the log to hopefully lure Mr. Mink onto the log to check the smell out.  I am sure I used a much smaller container on the trap line to hold the lure in than the quart Mason jar!

I believe I checked the set a couple afternoons in a row without anything disturbing the set and the next time I checked the trap, I noticed the trap was missing from the log and I could see the tip of the mink's tail floating below the surface of the water.  I was totally elated to have caught my first mink which was a large male if memory is correct.  I case skinned the mink and removed all the flesh from the skin side and stretched it on one of my many wood stretcher boards and let it dry.  I left the mink hide with Bee Thomas, my mink trapping mentor in Burnsville and he got $ 6.00 for it from his fur buyer.  I didn't catch another mink during my time of trapping that creek and it was the challenge to catch the first one that kept me motivated to trap a mink in the first place.  Trapping is like property sales, location, location, location.

TAXIDERMY

Back in the early 1960s, I enrolled in a correspondence course from The Northwestern School of Taxidermy and as my usual MO, I ordered enough supplies; e.g., glass eyes, wire, etc. to do an entire collection before I had mounted my first bird.  My first mount was a pigeon and he looked rather prehistoric to say the least...........grin if you must.

I wanted to tan some hides and had enough chemicals to do a small herd of cows, another grin is in order.  I think I only tanned one squirrel hide and had a couple large wooden barrels that contained the tanning solutions. 

Taxidermy definitely was not my cut of tea and wasted some good hard earned money to find that out.  Old school taxidermy mounting techniques required you to build your form from scratch, whereas small animals and birds required the usage of excelsior and you definitely needed to have  good developed natural artistic skills to make the required form to be life like.  Today, you can purchase forms that are molded true to life which is definitely much easier!  

SQUIRREL HUNTING 1960S

When squirrel hunting season came in sometime in October each year, I would head out to the squirrel woods to harvest grey squirrels with most of them traded and/or sold to Ms. Margie Robinson (now deceased) who owned a store located on Salisbury Street in Wadesboro, NC.  The price of .22 caliber shorts were somewhere around  35 cents to .50 cents per 50 round box, but not sure of the price.  I would either trade her a squirrel for a box of bullets and/or sell her the squirrels for .50 cents each. 

I kept the squirrels thinned out around our home on Maple Lane and would "sneak" and hunt behind the old West Knitting Mill on North Washington Street (now SPCC) which had a large track of Oak trees between the mill and highway 74 and squirrels behind the mill and were plentiful.  I normally would leave out behind our home and walk up the hill to the old Singleton Silk Mill property and cross Sikes Avenue and go through the woods and sometimes use Wheeler Street and cross North Green Street and get into that track of woods.

Those "city squirrels" didn't have a chance with the low muzzle report of the .22 cal. shorts and the super accuracy of the Sears and Roebuck bolt action rifle which I believe was manufactured by Springfield Armory.  It was easy to shoot a hole in a hole at 30 yards while using a good steady rest position.

I remember one time while hunting the property behind the West Knitting Mill, walking through the dense woods toward highway 74 that I smelled a horrible smell and glad I did not go further to investigate what it was.  It turned out to be an older male person who had wandered off and died in the woods and as stated, glad I didn't go check where the horrific smell was coming from.  Apparently, there was a person who was also squirrel hunting the property that located the corpse and on lookers said the person that found the corpse, his eyes was as big as silver dollars! 

Those city squirrels, kept me in plenty of hunting ammunition and some pocket money.  I had to leave at least one foot attached to the squirrels for identification purposes.  It is to my understanding, those squirrels were frozen and later transported Northward to the DC area for resale to folks that had relocated there wanting some "wild game".

I also sold Ms. Robinson live trapped opossums, of which I kept in a cage and feed them to clean them out so to speak.  The "possums" went anywhere from 1.00 to 5.00 each if my memory is correct!

It is definitely now illegal to sale wild game, but back then it was no big deal!

Web page updated by Bill aka Mickey Porter on 09-13-2022.  

GOSHAWK AND GRANDMA'S PRAYER

Sometime in the early 1980s, Ralph Gilmore gave me a Goshawk that had a broken wing from a gunshot wound and kept him in a cage. 

I would feed him with song birds that I killed with my single shot .22 caliber rifle and being Spring, I would rob bird's nest and feed the live you to him. 

My Grandma Coley would chastise for doing such, but I continued to do so anyway.

Many times, I would have the Goshawk on a long lease with one leg tied to a nylon cord and would stake him out in the field behind our home.  At that time I believe I had seventeen "tame" rabbits in a fence and also had a pet duck that had the run of the place.

After staking the Goshawk on the lease and doing other things, I came back to check on the Goshawk and he had my pet duck with it's head in his talons.  Without even thinking, I picked up a scrap piece of 2 x 4 material and gave him a whack across the head to get him to release his grip on my pet duck.  However, my adrenaline must have been elevated and hit him too hard and killed him instantly.

I told my Grandma Coley what happened and she stated she had been praying that I would stop killing song birds and robbing bird nests in order to feed the Goshawk and God certainly did answer her prayers.  Grandma Coley was known in our Church and community as a Prayer Warrior.

Back then, I didn't see and realize the importance of all of God's creatures, however I certainly do today.  I enjoy listening to the song birds when they awake around daybreak while reading and studying God's Holy Word.  The song birds definitely render a song of joy and praise to God who provides for them and they are important to Him as well.  Matthew 10:29-31

TRAPPING IN THE 1980s

It was not until the early 1980s after I sold my music mail order business that I started trapping and hunting again when the fur market prices were sky high.  I trapped many raccoons behind our current home on a small branch named Culpepper Creek that has some pretty good flowing water and deep holes about 200 yards from our home.  At that time, we were living on White Store Road which was a about 1/2 mile from Moore Street.  I would access the creek from my father-in-laws property at the end of Moore Street of which he lived on the dead end.  There were plenty of raccoons since no one was doing any trapping due to the prior years of very low fur prices and raccoon hunting had declined over the decades as well in Anson County.  I also trapped some on Blewett Falls Lake but wasn't able to check my traps every morning due to my work schedule and fellow trappers removed some of my fur for me.......grin if you must!

The trapping was excellent and a large raccoon hide would bring about $ 25.00 each, opossum were bringing $ 5.00 each and otter was $ 50.00 each.  Most of my raccoon sets had a flexible green limb that the animal could drag a ways without a direct pull on the trap as if anchored to a stake in the ground.  I also caught two large old otters and the largest one was caught by only a single toe or two and there was evidence he had lost a toe or two in someone else's trap during his lifetime.  The type of flexible limb drag had enough spring or give to it and he wasn't able to pull his toes free.  After catching the first one, a few days later I caught the female which must have been its mate.  Otters usually have about a 50 mile radius traveling for food and mate for life.  I have seen several otters over the years while bowhunting near Jones Creek near Casons Old Field, NC and they are a very playful and fun animal to watch.  The fur buyers at that time wanted the animals whole and not skinned since they had their own man doing the skinning using a mechanical hide puller which was an added bonus too.  Terry James, retired Brick Mason would take a truck load of the frozen fur bearers to his fur buyer and I earned some good pocket money while the fur prices were at their peak.  Below is a pix of one of the otters, frozen solid when I got him from the leg hold trap:

Web published update by Bill aka Mickey Porter on 07-02-15.

FOX HUNTING WITH HENRY PRICE EARLY 1960s

It is great to have memories from the past stored in our "minds eye" and also via other forms of media such as photographs, video recordings etc. of which technology is making it much easier to instantaneously store and retrieve such data.

Going back to this time frame of the early 1960s, I can still vividly see Henry Price who was my Aunt Hattie Coley's brother who worked for Hedrick Sand and Gravel in Lilesville, NC managing their water lakes, etc.  Henry was a true outdoorsman if there every was one.  He kept a couple dozen or more fox hounds of all breeds and coonhounds as well and Henry and his wife lived in a small house located on the Hedrick property.

My Uncle Douglas Ross Coley and his wife Hattie would take me to Henry's home and I would spend the night and a day with them and go on an all night fox hunt during the summer months when school was out and it was usually on a Friday night. 

Henry would turn his dogs loose at the end of the dirt road locals called "Grassy Island Road" now named Pangy Road not too far from the Pee Dee River, Blewett Falls Lake in Lilesville.  It didn't take his pack of dogs very long to jump a Grey Fox and the race was on.  The fox would make a several mile loop going all the way up to Ingram's Mountain and would cross the road near Jerry Ingram's home place.  Henry had hunted the area for many decades and would usually know the location where the fox would normally cross the road. 

While the dogs where running the fox, we would get into his car and travel to where the fox and dogs would cross the road and once in a while we would get ahead of them and see the fox cross.  It was some beautiful music to hear the pack of dogs running the ole wily fox and Henry could pick out the individual voices of each dog.

Henry would have a small camp fire going at the end of Grassy Island Road of which the name has changed to Pangy Road now, where he turned his hounds loose and a large pot of coffee would be brewed and sipped on the hot coffee to help keep myself awake.  I remember the last time I went with Henry, the sky was crystal clear with the stars peaking from the Heaven above like small diamonds glittering in the twilight and an awesome sight.  The various sounds of the night that the creatures made was also mesmerizing  with the smell of the wood fire burning sending embers like miniature fireworks toward the sky.  Before day break, Henry would fry out some bacon or side meat over the glowing embers that had burned down and then scramble a pile of eggs in the large metal skillet in the bacon grease.  We had some regular white bread and would enjoy that wonderful meal.  There is nothing than can compare to food prepared over an open fire with the smell of the burning wood and food items which brings your senses to a heightened level of awareness.

Henry rarely wore socks and boots unless there was snow or ice on the ground and his feet were calloused and impervious to the standard things like rocks and briars that would do damage to a normal foot......grin if you must!  I remember the locals talking about Henry getting bit by a water moccasin snake and they said Henry was ok but the snake died...............grin if you must!

All the people mentioned in these few paragraphs are deceased but they live on in the ole memory bank.  I don't have a picture of Henry or his wife but can still see them clearly in my “Mind’s eye”.

Web published update on 02-01-14 by Bill aka Mickey Porter.

PIXS OF A FEW OF OUR FAMILY PETS OVER THE YEARS

Good Dog, the most gentle dog we owned.  She was killed by a Lightening Strike near her running dog line in 1989 or 1990.

White Cat a Fisherman's Cat who had to have the first scale fish caught.  He taste tested the heads only!  Most people don't believe that a house cat will ride on the bow of a boat on the river.  I use to harvest "city squirrels" when living on White Store Road using the CCI mini-cap bullets which is a 29 grain short bullet with no powder in the case; it fires by the priming on the inner rim only and a very weak round, very quiet and accurate to about 15 yards.  Now to my story.  The cat above would watch me shoot a squirrel from a pecan tree in the back yard and when it would hit the ground, White Cat would run out to where it was and grab it in its mouth.  On one occasion, I shot a squirrel and it ran from the Pecan Tree into a nearby tree and lodged in the fork of the tree and White Cat climbed up the tree like greased lightening and got the squirrel and brought him back down the tree.  I know it is hard to believe, but it was a fact!  No, White Cat did not bring the squirrel to me!

Buck, I was told his parents were Grand Night Champions, however I never attempted to register him!  I tried to make a deer blood trail tracking dog out of him but it stopped the first time I released a live trapped coon in front of him.  He would not leave the tree until the coon was on the ground. He also took "possession" of the tree too!  About 7 or 8 years later, I had to have Buck put to sleep as he had internal organ cancer and I cried like a baby exiting the vet's office.

Vincent, a real stinker!

Mittens, my bride's cat after caring for him after a broken leg!

Ringtail weighted 26 lbs. when he was nine months old.  We released him back into the wild after biting my bride and myself.  Ringtail was quarantined for a couple weeks since my bride had to have stitches in one of her legs and Animal Control had to be alerted in case of rabies. 

My bride fed ringtail with a baby doll bottle after we took him away from his mother in June 1980.

I had many other pets, hawks, owls, crows, foxes, etc. growing up but these are the ones that I have pictures of and they were digitized a few years ago.

In closing and looking back in time with my mind’s eye and reflecting on my youth, God has been good to me and realize the importance of being a born again Christian.  Our time on this earth is limited and a testing and proving ground for the next life to come!

Web published updates by Bill aka Mickey Porter on 06-13-15, 06-14-15, 07-02-15, 07-06-15, 07-26-15, 06-06-19 and 01-20-2021.