Pigkicker

Who would name their child Pigkicker? Well Vita Mae changed her son’s name to celebrate the first time he out-ran the pigs to the muscadine patch to pick the grapes for his daddy’s wine. It was a huge accomplishment as Pigkicker was only 35 years old. And Vita Mae reminisced about that magical night his daddy, Bobby Roy, treated her to her first sip of muscadine magic, listening to Hank Williams in the love-making moonlight!

Cool story, but totally untrue.

Pigkicker was actually named by a redneck in Arkansas, his mentor in life, who has a limited vocabulary.

This is a hunting experience that was one of the funniest I have experienced in 50 years of chasing critters. As in most funny hunting stories, the key players have to be real players; that’s idiots who will do anything that they’re told, even when they know better!

Nine years ago, I met a guy that ultimately changed my impression about many things, but mainly the direct sales industry. I had always believed it was a total scam, where people sold over-priced crap to make money. But he introduced me to a company, Team National, that acted more as a buyer’s co-op that paid referral fees on the memberships. I joined, saved money and made money, and best yet made some fantastic friends.

For lack of a better description, the company is made up of down to earth, positive thinking, fun loving, get’er done rednecks of all races, creeds and converts. It’s a business where ordinary people can and do live extraordinary lives. So, the marketing scheme is to simply find like-minded people and the search can put you in some unique places.

This is a story about a bear dance in North Carolina performed by the “Pigkicker”.

Pigkicker is the friend of all who have a sense of humor and none that don’t! Sounds good whether it makes sense or not! I met him at a convention much like Rambo in the Gator story. I was told he was one of the top producers in the company and I felt obligated to say hello. I remember going up to one of the suite floors of a high-end hotel and knocking on the door, and some low-end hambone answered the door wearing LSU pajama’s, eating a PB & J sandwich and drinking a lite beer.

A real class act!

I asked him,” Can you really make money with this company?” and he said, “What do ya think little feller, take a look at me?”  I did and started laughing! That was the beginning of a crazy friendship, as for some weird reason we know what the other is thinking before he thinks it. And, we both enjoy people of all walks of life, especially those who are in the “watch this” arena.

On with the story!

I was invited by the guy I buy my Christmas tree from every year to come to North Carolina and hunt black bears being chased by hounds. I was invited cause he knew I liked to chase animals that bite people. I had told him of a time that I chased a leopard across some mountains in Zulu-Natal with hounds, and he said that we chase bears with them too, so come hunt with my friends. I invited Hambone, I mean Pigkicker, cause I knew he would be slower than me and I’d get the bear. Hell, he has heart palpitations jogging to his mailbox in Waterproof, Louisiana. He couldn’t last ten minutes chasing bears in the N.C. mountains. He’s not phat, he just looks that way!

On to the hunt!

Pigkicker and I arrived to the N.C. mountains the day before the season opened, driving switchbacks to a cabin I rented near the Blue Ridge parkway. The cabin was on the side of the mountain without a view but had a jacuzzi that was essential to our survival. We were invited to eat supper with some of the bear hunters and it was great as Boney was the chef who cooked deer tenderloin stuffed with Gouda on a grill over hickory.

Now that’s good stuff!

The next day Boney picked us up at 4:30 a.m. and we drove to the top of the mountain where some of the houndsmen had dogs checking places where the bears crossed the roads. In only a few minutes the chase was on and the sun was rising! We walked the road waiting for the dog guys to radio us as to the progress of the chase since the dogs were almost out of hearing distance.

The guys with the dogs aren’t ordinary men, they are ironman competitors, and we were toads in comparison. It wasn’t long before the call came that they had treed a bear about a mile away straight down the mountain. They said,” Bring the little guy with the bow!” And off we went down the mountain.

Some of you studs may think that running down a mountain covered in rhododendron and mountain laurel is easy…well bring your bad self on. I was running a few miles a day before the hunt and I was ready for a stretcher by the time I got to the bear.

It was brutal!

When we got to the drainage basin where the bear was treed, we had to cross a creek and climb about 50 yards up the other side to the tree. I was exhausted and excited… too excited. I missed the bear with the first arrow as every redneck in the group chuckled and then I poked two arrows in him before he fell out of the tree running. And, finally, I shot him with one of the bear hunters rifles as he ran up the other side of the drain.

It was an ugly death to those who wet their beds!

Hunters have to accept an occasional ugly death as that’s just the way some deaths are. A friend in Africa once told me, there are no pleasant deaths in the wild, that’s why you can hear an animal squall in the night. Still, I wasn’t happy with the way I killed that creature as I believe in being as humane as possible, but this wasn’t one of my better days, and surely wasn’t the bear’s.

After skinning and quartering the bear, we headed for a pick-up point to be retrieved by the other hunters in our group. We each had to backpack meat out and also lead two dogs on leashes. Sounds easy, but the same bushes and terrain awaited us, and seven miles later we stumbled into the vehicles.

All I remember after the first bear expedition was spending two hours in the jacuzzi drinking beer and eating chicken hearts boiled in Zatarain’s seasoning. Now dat’s hog heaven! Pigkicker and I have a thing for boiled chicken hearts… so spicy they make you sweat looking at them.

Yep, it’s 4:30 a.m. and neither of us can walk, no kidding. I walked out to the truck to get something and my legs were stiff and throbbing from the day before. It’s a strange form of pain; no description is sufficient. I couldn’t move and poor Pigkicker looked like a baby hippo on his back with his legs sticking straight up in the air. The only way you could tell he was human was that he had more than four toes!

Scary looking for sure!

Boney said that we would let the dogs chase Pigkicker’s bear to a place we could walk to a little easier. I didn’t believe him cause he’s a guy that loves to challenge people physically, as he only has half of a calve muscle and half a foot from being electrocuted 70 feet above the ground while repairing a high-tension wire for the power company. He is one of the toughest people I have ever met.

Now this is where the hunt gets interesting.

Get the picture… three cripples drive around the backside of the mountain as the dogs and mountain men chase the bear toward us. The real cripple tells the two posers that the bear is only a few hundred yards above us and heading our way. He said, “Get out of the truck and grab that old Winchester your daddy loaned you and come on Pigkicker!” Oh yeah, “Bring the dwarf with ya!”

I’m sure I was supposed to laugh but I don’t laugh at cripples, no matter how funny they are.

The dogs are closing in and mayhem is about to take ownership of the moment. We only had to walk about fifty yards to where the dogs had the bear bayed up against the root ball of a big oak that had blown over. The electric cripple beat both of the phat cripples to the dogs and the bear. The tri-athletes had chased the creature five miles and weren’t even winded.

Phat boy and I were dying after a fifty-yard climb.

Just as we got there, both pushing the other closer to see who would get bit first, a dog comes running right at us with a big pissed off bear snapping at his rear end. We would have panicked but didn’t have time as Boney yells, “Shoot him quick before he gets the dog!” So, here I am with the dog running between me and Pigkicker and Pigkicker swinging his rifle on the bear.

This is when most poop their britches, but I only had time to jump out of the way. Pigkicker shoots behind me and the bear but much closer to the bear. As he jacked another round in the antique he was shooting, he slips, falls and does some kind of belly-flop, tuck and roll down the mountain behind the bear screaming, “Where’s my glasses?” And I’m thinking, hell with the glasses, shoot the bear! He squalls again.” Where’s my glasses?” And, everyone together yells, “Shoot the bear!”

And he did.

Without his glasses, he hit it in the back of the head, mainly because the bear was only a few feet away fighting with the dogs. We all stood there in bewilderment wondering what on earth just happened.

Either way the bear was dead and it was time to dance!

We headed to the skinning shed where great bear hunting stories were being told by mountain men, until the two foreigners showed up and it was time for a laugh and some apple brandy!

 

THOUGHTS OF THE HUNTER KIND:

In my life, I have met very few people as authentic as Pigkicker, as he truly loves people. He has been through his fair share of trials and has always kept his head above the fray. I have never heard him say a bad thing about anyone and for me, that’s a special trait! He’s my friend.

PRAYER OF THE HUNTER KIND:

Lots of people claim to be loyal and loving, but where on earth can you find one? Proverbs 20:6 MSG

Lord, I pray that I am this way, Your way, and that I’m easily found!

Thank you Jesus!