The Mountain Eagle
WHITESBURG WEATHER

Struttin’ Time

The past grows old, but never dies


Hunting with friends in the national forest.

Hunting with friends in the national forest.

Sitting here on these cold windy, snowy, mornings looking at pictures of our hunting and fishing trips of the past reminds me what my Grandpa Duncil told me.

“Stevie,” he said, “things change daily, we just don’t pay attention. Take that little stream coming out of the mountain. Last week it was a foot over to the left.”

I have been taught all my life, and maybe you have also, that the past grows old, but never dies. Looking at some of the friends I’ve made in this journey, and some I thought I had made, takes me back to more simple days. The days when Keith Fleming could make one phone call, it didn’t make any difference who he called, Dean Thompson, Chan Fleming, me or my brother Rick, or Teddy Fleming of McRoberts and have 20 hunters lining up to drive to the George Washington National Forest in northern Virginia to camp and deer hunt.

We would get to spend time miles from civilization, the only way in or out by walking or fourwheel drive Jeeps or trucks. We used to pack that forest in love and compassion for each other and friendship. Those memories are old maybe, but they are still in my mind and heart. Hunters of today could not ever hunt under those conditions.

I recall looking at my best of friends, Leonard Fleming, standing around an open campfire, wind cutting us into, snow flying, all of us about frozen to death, and he grinned and said, “It don’t get any better than this.”

My mind travels back into time when we all would gather in the Daniel Boone National Forest for our annual squirrel hunt. There would be as many as 35 of us in camp. It was always fun to see nighttime around the campfire when Richard Fox and Junior McFall would start. We would laugh with them until long into the night. Ross Fleming, Teddy Neil Fleming, Marty Fleming, Clyde Maggard, Jimmy Hampton, and son Tommy Hampton, JD Griffin, and the list could go forever.

I know those days are gone forever, but I hope they live in my memories forever. Yes, the past grows old, but will live forever in my world.

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