Tondeleo: I am not a hunter. I am an eater, but not a hunter. I don’t want to know where my food comes from or how it died. I don’t want to think about whether or not it was frightened when it died. I simply like to eat it.
Doc and Big Dave were telling hunting stories back in November and this one stood out to me:
When Doc and Big Dave go hunting, Marilyn makes each of them a sandwich and a thermos full of gravy to take into the woods with them to quench their thirst and to keep them warm.
I asked about why they didn’t take tea or coffee, and they both looked at me as like I was daft.
Big Dave said, “It makes you have to water the lemon tree too much.”
I said I didn’t see where that would be a problem, out on
the woods.
Doc said that when you’re crammed up into a deer stand, you don’t want to be climbing up and down from it to go water the bushes – and it would scare the deer away. Soup or stew is better in the thermos than coffee or tea.
Big Dave said that a man wouldn’t drink hot tea, anyway.
Apparently Marilyn USED to make soup or stew for their thermoses. One day when they were hunting with Thurman Goodlett, he was drinking stew out of his thermos and got choked on a piece of meat.
It was only Doc, Big Dave and Thurman out there in the woods, and neither Doc not Big Dave were willing to do the “Hind Lick maneuver” to save Thurman. Doc decided that this was definitely the time to call on the Good Lord to save Thurman, if God didn’t rather have him in Heaven just yet. Big Dave agreed.
Doc and Big Dave laid their hands on Thurman and called out to the Lord to save him if He would. Doc said he even spoke in tongues just in case that would give their prayers a boost.
Fortunately, Thurman was so scared – or touched by the Lord - that he was able to swallow the meat with little or no damage to his throat. Doc said he was real sure it was the Lord that saved Thurman. Thurman’s eyes had rolled back into his head and his face was getting blue. But then, suddenly there was a gulping sound, and Thurman was swallowing and breathing. “Had to be the Lord,” said Doc. “I was speakin’ in tongues out there.”
Since that day, Marilyn doesn’t put soup in their thermoses. Instead she fills them with red eye gravy so they can be warm and comfortable when they are out in the deer stand.
Of course, I don’t know what red eye gravy is, so Marilyn explains that it is made from meat drippings and a cup or two of coffee, some salt and flour until it is just thick enough to be like drinking hot warm silk.
I am not certain that it is better for a person than stew is, but Doc and Dave are settled on “no more stew or soup” when they go hunting.
Big Dave said, “I don’t care WHO it is what’s choking. I am not doing the hind lick maneuver.
Doc: Me, neither. I’ll pray for ‘em and ask the Lord to save ‘em. Or, He can call ‘em home. I ain’t doin’ none of that other stuff. I ain’t no doctor.
