HUNTING FOR HUNTING LANDS
How It Began
Editor’s Note: Some years ago I hated our local
paper company as much as I once disliked my high-school
girlfriend, who jilted me for a redneck boy. You never
really could get over a hurt like that. But time did
make the hatred dimmer. In all honesty, I couldn't really
blame the ex-girlfriend, the redneck or the paper company.
But they all hurt my feelings, and reason had no place
in hurt feelings.
 I'd
hunted in a club in west/central Alabama for about 10
years. I practically had raised my daughter and son
in the hunting club since our family spent almost every
Friday and Saturday there during deer season, squirrel
season and turkey season cooking and fellowshipping.
We also went to the club during spring break and the
early summer and fall each year to fish the river, hike
and ride horses at a friend's nearby house. I had made
some of the best friends I had on earth at the hunting
camp.  Every
year during deer and turkey season when I pointed my
truck toward the hunting club, I got that warm, fuzzy
feeling like you would when you returned from a long
trip. Then a local paper company bought our hunting
club's land. They tore down the building we called a
camphouse and leveled it to the ground. I realized I
couldn't really blame the paper company for buying the
land and the clubhouse. The property had vast expanses
of timber and plentiful wildlife.
 If
I'd had the money, I would've bought the land. But I
didn't have the money, the skill to manage it or the
resources to utilize the land. Today the Lake Hollalah
Hunting Camp only remains a fond memory in my family's
minds of a once-great hunting lease. But I still carry
some hatred for the people who bought the lease where
I once hunted.
TOMORROW: FINDING A NEW SWEETHEART OR A NEW HUNTING
CAMP
|
