The 10th Anniversary Collector's Edition Preview
Nov 30, 2021
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The Last Hunt with Doc Blythe: Do-Dah Day
Oct 28, 2021| I loved Roozie White, and I loved to hunt with him. He was a vestige of a gone age, and I treasured him because he could take me back to the time my father had spoken of in wistful reflection. Roozie (his real name was Lavelle) loved to tell stories. They were true, I believe, or mostly true, but memory is not exactly history. Some were softened or sweetened or magnified by the silence of the past. My veracity, too, may be questioned—after all, it was more than 40 years ago. On my way to his house, I witnessed a covey of quail walking across the road at the Cedar Grove AME Church cemetery. I suggested we look for those birds first thing. Roozie rolled his eyes at me and said, “No sir! Not them cemetery birds. They are demons! “Doctor,” he continued with his soft edentulous lisp. “Remember when ol’ Coach Bear Bryant done sent out all his scoutin’ peoples to see La’Jarus, who was one of the Prophetess and Bishop Whetstone’s boys what played basketball for Central? He done made the state all-star team and was a great big boy, ‘bout six foot eight and near three hundred pounds. Central didn’t have no football, but La’Jarus was tough as a lighter stump. He helped his uncle pulpwood in the summer and load logs on that bobtail truck. “So when coach Bear got word of La’Jarus, he call me. I told him I knowed the Prophetess Whetstone and the Bishop and all their chilluns. The next thing I knowed, coach say he wanted to come down to meet La’Jarus and his mama and daddy. “Well Coach Bryant showed with his driver and setting in the back seat. I had arranged to have him meet all them over at the church ’cause the Bishop and the Prophetess was fixing up the church for the evening service. It was the Wednesday service on the day after Do-Dah Day, and Bishop had agreed for the Rev. Freddie Knight and the Jubilee Angelic Singers to be there.” “What is Do-Dah Day?” I interrupted. “The day the checks come. You know, ‘Do dah checks come today?’ It’s the best time to take a collection, so you don’t have to wait till after Saturday. See, them ‘cruitin’ coaches told Coach Bear that the church don’t have no indoor plumbing and only have a wood-burning stove for heat. So Coach Bear say he will match whatever they raise at the service to fix that if La’Jarus sign to play for him. He say he couldn’t give no money direct to La’Jarus or to his mama or daddy. “Well, when they took up the offering, there was only seven dollars and fifty cents. They pass the plate again and got two dollars more. So, Sister Whetstone lead everyone out into the cold moonlight and was high-stepping and praying, ‘Lawd, give me a sign!’ She marched out through the cemetery wearing a long black skirt that come down over her high-heel shoes. That covey of quail was roosting in the tall grass where it was too rough to mow. They was all scrunched together in a tight wad with their tails together, ’cause it was cold that night. And just when she began speaking in tongues and seeing visions, she stepped right over them birds. When they left out, them birds couldn’t go no way but up. The Prophetess come out of them high-heel shoes and let out a squall and commenced to jumping and screaming and crying ‘Jeeesus, have mercy!’ Then she fell on the ground all tranced out, just a-twitchin’ and a-jerkin’. Them birds come out one at a time and flew this way and that, and the folks commenced to running like them hogs that got infested when Jesus cast all them demons out of Legion. “Coach Bear had lit a cigarette, but it fall out of his mouth, and he said a bunch of Sunday school words, and he say, ‘She is casting out demons!’ He reaches in his overcoat for a pint of liquor, and his Adam’s apple dip four times. He handed the bottle to me and said, ‘Roozie, I’m quittin’ this!’” So, that’s Ol’ Roozie White’s story of Coach Bear Bryant and the demon quail, a tale he told me once upon a time, many, many years ago and in the way that I remember it. Now, I mentioned before that I loved Roozie and loved to hunt with him—and that his stories were true, or mostly true—but after hearing this one, I’ll leave that determination up to you. |
| Dr. John C. "Doc" Blythe is a retired oncologist, avid conservationist, and author of The Last Hunt on Early County. |
The Last Hunt with Doc Blythe: Enough is Enough
Oct 28, 2021|
In 1965 when “Whispering Bill” Anderson wrote and recorded the song, “I’ve Enjoyed as Much of This as I Can Stand,” I was in medical school. A couple of years later, after a long Saturday night in the emergency room, I was sequestered behind a curtained cubical stitching up an intoxicated “gladiator” and listening to country music on a portable radio. Jim Reeves had just sung the same song when my replacement intern inquired how the night had been. That was the first time I can recall quoting the title of the song. Since then I have had numerous occasions to do so, sometimes adding the S-word after “this.” The expression was not original with Bill Anderson. As a matter of fact, I heard my brother Al say something very similar in 1956 when Coach Lyons insisted that the football team attend an Arts Council-sponsored ballet at the high school auditorium. He wanted us to learn to appreciate the arts. When the lights came up after the first act, Al loped out, muttering how much he was enjoying it, but he would not be back for the remainder. I don’t remember his exact words, but it is conceivable that someone quoted him to “Whispering Bill.” One can find inspiration in strange places. There have been times when I have wanted so badly for things to be different that I pretended they were. For example, there have been a number of times when the weather was iffy, but I just had to go hunting anyway. If I had talked someone into going with me, he would likely be the first to say that we should go home. It is stubbornness on my part, I suppose. There were times when I remembered a good place to hunt, a place where there were some birds and the walking was enjoyable, but I forgot about that being 20 years ago. After a few minutes of fighting the underbrush and briers, it dawned on me that persistence was not a good idea, and that I had enjoyed about all that I could stand. Recently my son Bill incorrectly attributed the saying to me. Interestingly, he thought that I really meant I was enjoying something so much that I could not endure more enjoyment. When he learned that sometimes I was being sarcastic, he was taken aback. But sometimes I didn’t mean it sarcastically. Many a day when we had put many miles on our boots while bird hunting, doing one of the things I enjoy most, I would be exhausted and would say as we ended the venture, “I’ve enjoyed as much of this as I can stand.” One can only enjoy as much as one can physically endure. There is satisfaction in weariness after a long day’s hunt, because it is expected. It is part of the game. It is some of the price one pays to make the game fair. That sort of tiredness is a good tiredness, and that is the time when slipping out of one’s boots feels so wonderful, a hot shower so satisfying, and three fingers of “brown water” so relaxing. Even the dogs understand this on some level of comprehension. At the prospect that we are about to go afield, they are excited to the extreme. They can’t be still. They bark and whine and pant thick slobber, urging in their unique language that the man hurry. They enjoy the hunt no matter how successful it is—or how unsuccessful as the case might be—but at the close of the day, they have enjoyed enough and take satisfaction in a dip in the pond, laps of cool water, and the ride home. They know when it is time to quit. I should learn from them. As I reflect on it, my son was right: There are some things that one can never get enough of. Some things, as he says, are like a bottomless cup. Most of those things are hard, even grueling, and demand a lot, but bring great satisfaction. Practicing medicine was like that for me. Yeah, I like country music, and I like a lot of the songs Bill Anderson wrote. He has a way with words and a knack for the double entendre. If I could be that creative, and if I could write words that rhyme and could sing, maybe I could go on the Grand Ole Opry, too. |
| Dr. John C. "Doc" Blythe is a retired oncologist, avid conservationist, and author of The Last Hunt on Early County. |
