A certain smell can retrieve the oldest of memories, ones tucked away in the mind’s basement in a filing cabinet labeled “Childhood,” seldom recalled but especially vivid when they are. One of mine that instantly returns me to age 8 is an autumn bouquet of cool outdoors, earthy woods, and eau de dog that clung to my father’s hunting jacket. It’s a poignant experience, that smell.
The Typical Tisdale Bird-Hunting Party then comprised my father, his two bird dogs, a World War II–era Willys Jeep, and a Browning semiautomatic shotgun—dubbed the “Sweet Sixteen”—made by Fabrique Nationale in Belgium. And, on occasion, me, toting a BB gun made by Daisy in the U. S. of A.
The dogs, given names Lady and Sugar, were white and liver-spotted English Pointers—and gun dog royalty. Daddy had driven all the way to Alabama to buy them. “I never told Lillian how much I paid for those dogs,” he once admitted to a hunting buddy. It had been $600 in late-1950s dollars, roughly $6,500 today. My mother never found out.
The Jeep, in contrast, had been military surplus—more than 640,000 had been manufactured in WWII; the government had plenty to unload afterward—a four-wheel-drive bargain. My father probably thought they should’ve just given it to him, a parting gift, as it were, for having to jump overboard into the Pacific when a kamikaze slammed into his troop ship at the Battle of Leyte Gulf. On vacation with us at Myrtle Beach, Daddy would stare at the ocean. Even if it was the Atlantic, he still wasn’t going in.
If a boy learns, in some measure, how to be a man by participating in a father’s cherished activity, my initiation into manhood commenced in a wilderness classroom in Southside Virginia. The course synopsis covered the love of the land, the camaraderie of men on a quest, an appreciation for where food comes from, the invaluable help of well-trained dogs, and, always, always, respect for the deadly potential of a firearm. Daddy had been an expert rifleman in the army; he was an expert with that shotgun, too.
The sensations and events of one day’s class remain forever in my mind.
There was the Jeep, bucking up and down over roadless ground. The claws of eight paws scrambling for purchase on the metal floorboard behind us. Panting snouts hovering between our shoulders. Warm drops of dog drool anointing my cheek.
Walking into a clearing. Dogs out ahead, quartering: darting side-to-side, heads up, sniffing the air. Dogs crisscrossing a small area, heads down, tails wagging madly; getting “birdy” it’s called. Dogs on point, frozen, tails straight up to say Here we are!—perfect, living copies of a bronze statue in Union Springs, Alabama, otherwise known as Bird Dog Field Trial Capital of the World—and pointer body language for “Quail!” It’s a moment of stillness. And exquisite tension.
The Sweet Sixteen went to Daddy’s shoulder. He stomped a foot. Lady and Sugar leapt into the brush. The air exploded with the tiny thunder of a covey on the wing. Boom! went the Browning. In the near distance, a puff of feathers, suspended in air like a blown-on dandelion. Slight barrel shift. Boom! Puff of feathers. Barrel swing. Boom! Puff.
Three shells, the shotgun’s capacity. Three birds.
I questioned ownership of the tally. After all, I’d made a snap shot with my Daisy. In the spirit of hunting-party fellowship, Daddy allowed that I just might have bagged one. Back at the Jeep he took a photo of me holding a bird. A few days later, we had the quail for dinner, two to a plate, looking like miniature chickens of dark, succulent meat. Inside awaited the occasional number-six birdshot to discover mid-bite. But, to my disappointment, no BB.
When I was 13, I lost my father to cancer, and it felt as if I’d been ripped from childhood into adulthood in a flash. Of all his personal effects, I treasured the Sweet Sixteen the most. Wish I had it now—our home in Chase City was burglarized, and it was stolen. But I’d recognize that shotgun even to this day. Daddy had gone through a spell of missing birds. Had to be the gun, he thought. It was; the barrel was bent. Where it had been straightened, the bluing had a telltale tarnish.
But I’ll always have that crisp autumn day with Daddy and Lady and Sugar and a display of bird-shooting rarely seen. The memory eases me back into the boyhood I lost. And over the many decades since, it’s kept father and son connected in the sweetest of ways.
This article originally appeared in the October 2024 issue.
