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"Bedtime Stories Inspire Lifelong Pursuit of the Great Outdoors"

By: Ricky Beck

I'm an outdoors person. I've never liked sitting around or being cooped up inside.
I'd rather be working in the hot sun, fishing in a pond or hunting in the woods. I've been
this way ever since I can remember and I believe I know why. At an early age,, I was told
stories about bear hunting in the Beck swamps and about "Wampas Cats" that were worst
than bears that lived beyond. As my granddaddy Grover told me these stories on my
overnight visits I became very interested in seeing these creatures for myself. When
granddaddy would take me to see the cows down in the pastures I would ask him where
did the bears and "Wampas Cats" live. He would point to the woods toward the Messer
place. Every time I stayed with granddaddy, I wanted to hear these bedtime stories. I
could lay there and see where these creatures lived and I wanted to go hunt them for
myself. As I got older I began to realize there were no bears but I wasn't so sure about
the "Wampas Cats". I remember one night when granddaddy was telling me a story and
the chickens started raising cane outside. He got up, loaded his double barreled 12 gauge
and went outside. In a minute I heard a loud bang, when he came in I asked him, what
was it? He said it was just a possum. But in the back of my mind I knew it was probably
a "Wampas Cat" because for years he had been telling me how those "Wampas Cats"
would sneak up to the barn and steal his chickens.
My daddy taught me at an early age to respect a gun. He knew I loved being
around guns and that I wanted one of my own. By the time I was in the first or second
grade, I had a BB gun. Every Saturday morning I was at granddaddy's shooting sparrows
and Blue Jays. After lunch granddaddy would take me up to Uncle Luke's . Uncle Luke
had several big fig trees and lot of hedge. He'd pay me a nickel for every Blue Jay I killed
cause.he said a Blue Jay "wasn't good for nothing". Talking about Uncle Luke, his fish
pond was one of my favorite places in the world for a lot of years. His wife, Aunt
Thelma, even saw a beaver wearing a hat, swimming across that pond one afternoon.
My experience with guns was growing and I loved to go with my daddy to the
dove field, I was the pick up boy. When he'd shoot one down, I would go get it. I
learned a lot just sitting there listening and watching. When a dove flew into the field the
men who saw the dove, would whistle or if the dove was flying toward someone, they
would hollow his name, this would automatically alert them that a dove was coming. I
was looking forward to having my own gun and being part of the hunt. It wasn't long
before I was taking a 410 gauge shotgun to sit beside daddy at the dove shoot. After
several hunts beside him, I got to hunt a short distance away by myself. This eventually
lead to taking a stand alone in the dove field and lead to the next step of hunting alone.
On Saturday morning, mother would take me to Jack Howell's Cash and Carry to
buy a box of shot gun shells for daddy's 20 gauge, Ted Williams pump that he was letting
me shoot. Then, she would take me to granddaddy's and drop me off. This is where my
adventures began and I could finally explore all the places where a "Wampas Cat" may be
hiding. On my first hunts, anything that got in range was fair game. It didn't