Adams. "How to Walk in the Marsh."

Chad Adams.
How to Walk in the Marsh.
“A Small Step.”

I stood behind the center console of my dad’s flatboat, tucked closely against him, prouder than any seven-year-old boy could be, riding along while he drove in the darkness of an early cold November morning. We slowly maneuvered through the salty marshes of southern Louisiana in eager pursuit of my very first duck hunt.

As the blistering air seeped through the holes in my oversized camouflaged ski-mask, and the smell of the sputtering motor’s exhaust made my nostrils flare, I worked a spotlight at my dad’s command. The beam of light shined just over the head of our giddy black Labrador Retriever, past the bow of the boat, and onto the water in front of us. I was outright shivering, but not from the freezing weather. Instead, I was shaking from the icy adrenaline that ran through my veins and throughout all fifty-five pounds of me as I replayed in my head all the stories my dad told me leading up to this moment about the amazing experience of duck hunting.

As far back as I can remember, my dad would describe to me at length about how he and my uncles would awaken in the middle of the night during hunting season, while most of the world was tucked in their beds under warm blankets, to sneak away for what I could only conclude, even at the youngest of ages, was the time of their lives.

He would describe in intimate details, sometimes even using nursery rhymes he created when I was a baby, and often with animated demonstrations, how it felt to call in a flock of ducks on a chilly morning. He would go on about how even the slightest movement by a hunter in the duck blind would spook away the wary ones and he’d explain how exhilarating it would feel to have a flock of Mallards drop in on the decoys from out of the sky to touch their feet to the water, just as the sun came up on the horizon.

These were not just stories; they were reflections about past moments in his life and you could tell just by the way he passionately spoke about them that they were coming from a place deep inside his heart. Each time he was finished telling a tale, he would have a lesson about life to go with it. Whether it was about how one of my uncles made an amazing shot on a duck, or how our dog, Misty made a great retrieve, he would always explain it so there would be a metaphor for life’s achievements and successes. Honestly, even as I would sit there picturing it all happening in my own little head, a lot of times drifting far away from his correlations to the bigger things in life, I wouldn’t have wanted the stories to be told any other way.

As I think about it today, it all started with those tales, and it all makes sense to me now.

He was born with the given name of James Anthony Guillory, my namesake, but my dad’s closest friends called him “Skip,” which was short for skipper. It was a name he earned from the duck blind because he was always in charge and had the right answers when everyone else was confused about what to do and where to go under certain circumstances on their hunts. More than just a hunter, he was a student of the craft, having hundreds of maps collected from analyzing the marshes over the years, and piles of books and magazines about waterfowl behaviors and feeding patterns; he dedicated quality time to studying ducks any chance he had to become better than he was the prior season. Truly, something about duck hunting deeply impacted my dad. It wasn’t just a hobby, it was a part of his life, and it helped to shape him as a person.

“Cheek-pinching cute.” That’s what a lady working a cash register once said to me one day when I had to tag along to the mall with my well-intended mom a few months before I turned seven. Although, as I reminisce, it was flattering to get such attention, I learned from that moment I had grown away from the cute and cuddly scene, and I was truly ready to partake in some hunting memories that my dad and I could share together.

By this point in my youthful life, the stories he told were practically branded into my mind. I went to bed with them planted in my head, often dozing off to sleep thinking about what he just described. When I awoke on the next day there was no telling what he might have had waiting to share with me to fertilize what he just shared the prior night. So, on one October evening as my seventh birthday approached, I felt I had heard enough about duck hunting to stand proudly before him and exclaim that I was ready. If he didn’t stop talking about it and start taking me to experience it for myself, I would match the amount of tales he told with enough begging and pleading to compete with Misty’s whining on the morning of a hunt when she’d be impatiently waiting to exit the kennel and hit the water.

He got the point, and as you might be able to imagine, he was just as ready for me to come along as I was, and so were his two best friends, the men who I called my uncles. As fate would have it, each of my uncles had daughters, so even though I only had one true dad, when I was on these trips, I played the role of each of their son. I was pretty much able to surmise what I was getting into, but it still didn’t matter to me; I was so ready to make my first hunt that I was willing to take the commands destined to come my way from three grown men who each thought they knew more than the other about what it took to be a safe, productive, and respectable hunter.

So, there I was, feeling like an excited pup hanging out the window riding shotgun with his master, proud to be next to my dad. I had made it! I was there in the pitch black, freezing cold, heading to my first duck hunt.

For some reason to me, as I worked the spotlight, it seemed like they hunted in the deepest, darkest corner of the earth. Just when I thought the canals we were meandering through couldn't get any thinner, they did; they got so skinny the marsh grass swept the sides of the boat, reaching in to tickle my life vest every so often. It really felt like the ride was taking forever, but Misty’s whimpering and shuffling, with her claws nervously scratching the floor of the boat made me think we had to be getting close, and I moved up towards the bow to share in the excitement with her.

When we finally eased around the marsh into our pond, we were greeted with the sudden sound of ducks flushing from the water and taking to the air. In the blindness of the early morning all I could do was listen to them. For that brief moment, even the usually disruptive rumblings from the motor on the back of the boat were tuned down to a purring background rhythm that played as a second fiddle to the main melody of swiftly churning wings filling our ears like something out of an orchestra.

There had to be no less than an army of birds leaping from the water in unison and quickly ascending out before circling around the pond and flying directly back over us; they flew with a synchronized precision that made their final pass seem like a fighter jet skimming just over the top of a stadium as the national anthem concluded before a football game.

I stood there in the middle of the boat with our black lab by my side, both of us looking towards the star-peppered sky, hoping to catch a glimpse of the ducks. The world never seemed quieter in the moments that came after that flock was gone.

My heart was pounding, but in a naïve way, because I had no idea what we just witnessed was a good sign. I was nervous and optimistic all at the same time; I was in the wild where animals lived with no restraints and the freedom to come and go. I had never experienced such a thing.

To say I was giddy at this point would be an understatement, and as the flatboat slowly maneuvered across the pond to the edge of the marsh, I followed Misty further down the bow. Eager to get into the mud like she always was, Misty jumped off the front of the boat to sniff around in the elements.

Like mankind’s first step on the moon, I suppose I was ready to make my own history as my first step into the marsh was seconds away and I could no longer resist it. Not knowing better, or perhaps not paying as close enough attention to one of my dad’s lessons as I probably should have, I launched myself onto the grass.

My feet sank instantly through the surface as if I stepped through wet tissue paper and the marsh sucked me in like a vacuum down to my waist. I felt like I was slowly being pulled down further, and sudden panic made me oblivious to the fact that my body was now drenched all the way through my underwear. I was literally stuck in the freezing cold, and my legs were glued to the squishy earth beneath me. I tried to use my arms as leverage to work myself out, but the softness of the marsh just sucked them in as well. I panicked even more, manically twisting and turning but to no avail; I screamed for my dad. Then I tried to gather some composure, my heart was pounding, my breathing was heavy, and as I surveyed the area around me, I caught a glimpse of the marsh beyond my landing point. It was the very first time in my life I truly experienced what absolutely nothing looked like; if I could have waved one of my hands in front of my face, I would not have been able to see it.

I had only been stuck there for all of ten seconds, but I was sure I had met my demise. Then suddenly a hand reached out and grabbed me with the grip of a vice.

Dad jerked me out of the marsh like he was landing a fish into his boat from the end of a line. I played the part pretty well as I flopped about the bow while Misty jumped back onboard to lick and slobber happily in the mud that dripped from my body.

I was frazzled and wanted to cry, but I figured it would be frowned upon to do such a thing on a hunting trip like this one. Just as I began to choke back the tears that disparately wanted to come out of my eyes and race down my cheeks, my dad took me by the arms, and squatted down to my level.

He pulled off my ski mask and did the same to his; his salt and pepper receding hair was matted to his head. He was breathing heavy; the warm air coming from his lungs passed out of his bearded mouth and misted as it met the cold outside air, and his caring blue eyes pierced into my little skull as if to study my brain.

“Buddy, are you okay?”

I nodded yes but whimpered a bit as he locked into my eyes even deeper as if to try and understand my actions.

He then continued with the infinite wisdom of an avid duck hunter and the smartest man I ever knew.

“You can’t just jump right out there. If you don’t want to sink, you have to learn how to walk in the marsh.”

I stood there blinking, looking back at his eyes as they would not release their stare, and I pondered as much as a seven-year-old could the most profound words that would ever be spoken to me. Not because in my youthful mind my dad was some kind of a wordsmith guru who had the uncanny ability to foreshadow the events of one’s life with a statement, but it was more about the fact that what he had just said to me I would somehow manage to remember for the rest of my life.

I truly believe that we are placed in certain situations and given unique abilities for a reason. I have no doubt that among the many reasons for my dad to be savvy with using interpersonal communications was the fact that I would need to hear things from him that would make an impact on my life. It is for that same reason that I feel I was on the boat with him that morning having just plunged feet first into the marsh.

It still surprises me in hindsight though that those moving words would be uttered to me at such an early age. I’m willing to bet Dad would say the same thing, because there were times that would eventually occur a little later in life, when I became an aimless teen, where I would be forced to stand there and hear that poetry roll of his tongue, nodding as though I understood every word he said, before I was left in silence to piece the confusing sentences together like an enormous puzzle. Why would I connect with something that was said to me at the age of seven if I could not understand what was being told to me at fifteen?

It was for these reasons that I often found it humorous and somewhat self-validating when I had the distinguished pleasure to observe him giving advice to one of my uncles. It was almost like I could see the insight blowing the hat right off the top of their head just in time for them to reach their hand to their scalp to scratch it in bewilderment. If it didn’t register with them as adults, maybe it really wasn’t so bad that it didn’t hit home for me either.

At the risk of sounding too much like Dad, my point is this: even the most profound words carry no substance until they are fully understood.

On that morning as I stood there on the bow of my father’s boat, dripping with mud, and looking into his loving blue eyes I struggled immensely enough to understand the literal sense of what he said, let alone the deeper meaning. But I think for the moment it was just important that he said it, and of course just as equally important that he chose to say those words and not some other scolding collection of explicit adjectives that would rattle a young hunter like me.

It would take a long time for me to fully comprehend the eventual impact of his words, and whether he knew it or not right at that moment, my dad did say them for a very good reason; it was just my job to find out why.

Text prepared by:

Bruce R. Magee

Source

L’Anthologie Louisianaise