Before I began my early morning routine, I slid on a pair of lavender-framed, rhinestone trimmed, Dollar-Store glasses. Sinking into my lounge chair I looked over my shoulder at a picture of husband Willard and our black lab, Dutchmoor's Moody Duchess, in a duck blind. Both of them asleep, their heads resting together in a prayerful pose, crackles of ice coated the dog's fur and Willard's duck waders.
Soulful and intelligent, our Dutchy dog had a strong, inborn sense of what she needed to do.
Coffee cup in hand, I saluted the prize-winning photograph adorning our den wall.
"Here's to you, Dutchy. I taught you how to retrieve, and you made us both so proud."
Training Dutchy dog to sit, stay and fetch, wasn't quite the end of the story, though.
Willard had it in mind that the two of us might fit into one of the hunting clubs, and especially so now that we had a trained retriever. Going back in time, my husband had no political aspirations whatsoever, and pious though he might have been, someway he, somehow, became somewhat of an "enlightened American."
One day my husband came home with such good news I could hardly believe it; he had joined an elite duck hunting group, and in his mind, his wife, female I, was also a member of the male game club.
Truth to be told, I have wondered so many times, how did Willard Boggan, that gentle man I was married to, put up with me? Not just to let me go to the icy lakes, creeks and rivers with him, but also for the two of us to join with other male hunting friends of his.
The gentlemen hunters were a little surprised though, when along with Dr. Willard, a female huntress joined them on his first early morning club outing.
And I must say, those folks were also just a step ahead of their time. Even though I was a female, as long as I didn't sky bust and mess up their hunting, gender didn't matter to Gus Primos, Al Crisler, Pool Noel, and Bruns Myers.
Our hunting club was in a flooded area at the end of a muddy cow trail out back of a Mr. Black's farm, and was called Blissdale. Mr. Black lived down a narrow gravel road, seven miles from the little town of Thornton, which is about 23 miles west of Yazoo City.
Do not let the lovely name of Blissdale mislead you.
The swamp was crisscrossed with miles of narrow streams which iced over quickly when it got very cold. Crinkly moss dropped from lean trees. There were unexpected beaver dams you had to cross, picking up your boat, motor and guns as you inched along in the dark, carefully jumping back into the boat at just the right moment before you stepped off into deep water.
Large-bodied insects huddled on round pads, floating and spinning like they were on the Calypso ride at the fair, brown spiders as big as the palm of my hand walked on water as they spun their gummy webs.
There were a few, squatty, rickety duck blinds and in them were heavy-furred rats, who would challenge you for a piece of dry space, and you learned to inch into your corner and let them alone.
When it warmed up, long snakes as narrow as hoe handles crawled out on the few patches of dry land, or you would see water cutting back from their pointed heads as they tailed through the swamp.
Beneath the clear currents were thick waving fingers of beige duckweed you could get caught in, and just beyond the channel was muddy gumbo up to the top of a man's thighs. If you got out of the boat and into the murky water you had to have a red, duck-billed prod pole. The pole would be planted in front of your body. You would lift one leg at a time out of the gumbo, then move the pole forward, lean into it, lift the other leg, pull the pole out, plant it forward. It was a slow, laborious process.
Duck hunting could also be very dangerous.
Very early one morning, when son Bob was about 16 years old, his friend Barry Morrison who often stayed with our family went with us on what may have been Barry's first hunt.
If what I'm writing about had been on a social or literary weekend, there would have been a possibility that Barry would not have been with our family though. He may have been driving his mother and two much older women to a party, somewhere in the Belhaven area; Miss Charlotte Capers, and her good friend, Miss Eudora Welty (who many years back, Willard had seen as a patient). Barry chauffeured these ladies through the years.
On this weekend though, Barry was with us.
The four of us loaded into a jon boat and shoved off. Some distance apart, each hunter was let out, to step, slip-slide, and find their own nook in the crook of a tree limb.
Several hours later, bright sunlight shifting through thick tree limbs, full up daylight, ducks in hand or not, Willard blew a whistle, then called out, "Time to go. Y'all come on in."
We were to trudge our way through the swamp, and back to the boat. Bob and I made it, but some long minutes later, Barry still had not returned. The three of us sat tight until, drifting through the tall, dead trees, his voice a far off echo, we heard him calling, "Dr. B. I can't go any further."
Willard was not able to push the boat through cypress trees, stumps, snags and underbrush to get to him. The swamp was very gummy in the direction his voice came from.
My husband answered very firmly, not sure whether or not he could hear us: "Barry, you have to. Follow my voice."
We waited a long time, calling, listening, and finally relieved when we heard a noise like an infant sucking on a pacifier as Barry used his duck prod to help pull his feet out of the muddy quagmire and inch his way one slurpy step after another. Now, worn to a frazzle Barry made it to our jon boat. We slowly eased the boat over, lifted and pulled him from the freezing, spooky, swamp waters.
Barry sprawled across the bottom of the boat as Willard cranked the motor and we began picking our way out of the icy, black swamp.
No ducks on this day. But, glory be--we had caught us a hunter.
And, that's all that mattered.
