Sitting to the hounds

I was driving around the other day and noted all the subdivisions, shopping centers, apartment complexes, and trailer parks.

Don’t you just love the names bestowed upon these locales by the creative “geniuses” who develop and sell them? Monikers like Fox Chase, Deer Run, Quail Hollow, Fernwood Forest, Hidden Woods. I realize, of course, it wouldn’t be good marketing to call such places “Raped Wilderness,” “Clearcut Hideaway,” or “Red Dirt Construction Run-off Villa,” but at least they could be more honest. Maybe something like “Lost Oak Lane,” to commemorate the 100-year-old trees cut down and replaced by tract housing and discount-nursery dogwoods. Anything but those nauseating insinuations that there might still be deer at Deer Run or quail at Quail Hollow.

But enough eco-nerd commentary. I couldn’t change the world when I was young and passionate. What makes me think I can now? Besides, the baffling BS of realtor-speak is but one thing I contemplated during my drive. Fox Chase for example, a “pastoral” strip mall, conjured up a buried memory of fox hunting.

As a youth, I knew a few old-time fox hunters. They were a mysterious lot, not wont to converse with little boys about their leisure-time activities. Heck, they weren’t apt to speak to me at all other than to say “shut up” or “get out of my way.”

Be that as it may, they were wonderful. Eavesdropping, I’d hang on every word of their tales of moonlit nights and fox “races.” Raptly, I’d hear their hotly contested foxhound debates. As in, “You’re a liar. My old Annie Bell’s the best in these parts. That Booger dog of yours can’t hold a candle to her. Purtiest voice you ever heard. Won’t quit, neither. Run all night, she will.”

One of these guys even had a phonograph record of a fox hunt. He and his buddies played it over and over. I kid you not. A record album! You’d have thought those dogs were Elvis, Roy Orbison, Carl Perkins, and Johnny Cash rolled into one.

Now I’d read about fox hunting before; the gentlemanly English variety fraught with horses, hounds, and horns. Tally-ho! While I knew the Southeast Alabama version had to be different, I still believed it would be exciting. After all, look at the caliber of men and the wonderful, mythical hounds who did it. Lord, I wanted to go.

And I did go. One time. I went with my friend Casper Osborne and his daddy. Casper’s daddy and his buddies took us fox hunting one night out of sheer necessity. I was at Casper’s house, Casper’s mama was away, and Mr. Osborne had no choice but to include us. Neither did the other men, since it was Mr. Osborne who had the whiskey.

Well, folks, creek-swamp fox hunting wasn’t what it was cracked up to be. To shorten a long story, we trekked at least a hundred miles into the woods before the hounds were loosed on fresh scent. As the race began and subsequently heated up, a fire was built. Nice, big fire. We all sat down around it. Mr. Osborne extracted a bottle from the pocket of his overalls. The men passed it around once, twice, ad infinitum.

The fire burned brightly, the moon glowed beautifully, and the mournful hound voices split the dark stillness. The fox hunters listened, pulled at the passing bottle, and reminisced, soon lapsing into familiar canine sentimentalism. Casper’s daddy cried over a long lost foxhound and soon the whole crew was in tears. One man recited the poem “Bugle Ann.” Everyone in the party removed his hat.

And that was it, people. That was fox hunting. No guns, no foxes. At least none we could see. We sat there until just before daybreak, by which time the dogs had enough and came drifting in to the fire one by one. Mighty confusing to a nine-year-old boy. I mean, you shot the deer ahead of the deer hounds. You shot the rabbit ahead of the beagles. But you didn’t shoot the fox? Go figure.

I never went fox hunting again, and it was years later before I understood its real attraction. That understanding was reached about the time I first tasted really good whiskey.

Ah, yes! ‘Tis the quest, my friends, not the quarry.

Tally Ho!