Blue tick coon hound and the coon hunting man

My brother Richard, the one who has gone to his eternal rest,  was a coon hunter from the 10 year of his life if not before. His first dog was a blue tick female he acquired some where. You can't do much coon hunting if your female dog is in heat or nursing young so dad took Richard 's coon hound to the new vet in our town. Doc Goins to be worked on to stop her reproductive habits.
Doc Goins let the dog swallow her tongue and die when she was coming out of the anesthesia. Richard cried and daddy cussed Goins.
There after Richard owned many dogs most of which were male. I remember one he named Drum, Richard maintained Ole Drum was the best coon dog in the country. He owned drum for many years and I seem to remember some one offered so much money for ole Drum and he sold him because money was scarce in those years but I might be wrong.  I remember him walking the floor and nearly crying over some coon hound he sold and that probably was Drum.
Richard lost a dog once coon hunting and brother searched many hours for a couple of weeks looking for the dog. He finally gave up and decided the dog had been stolen.
There came a call from a man living near where Richard had  been hunting and the man said he had been to town and when he came home he found his screen door with a large hole in it and Richards dog was resting in the fellows bed after eating every thing in the house that wasn't  under lock and key. He told Richard the dog was just skin and bones.
Richard went to retrieve the dog and paid for damages. Richard believed the dog went into a small opening in a cave and was unable to get back out because of his size after losing all the weight he was able to squeeze back out the opening of course that doesn't explain how he got in in the first place. The dog was
strangely mute as to where he had been.


Richard would hunt raccoon with Billy Joe Rudd, Frankie Powell and others. He went to coon hunting meets and won many a coon hunting trophy.
Frankie Powell sold his coon hound to a guy from Kansas city one time for big money. The fellow wrote Frankie a check and went home then a couple of weeks later the check came back to Frankie. The fellow had put a stop on the check. The fellow told Frankie if he wanted the dog to come get it but everyone knew the dog wasn't worth the trip.
Richard saw the first Armadillo I ever heard of in this country while hunting about 50 years ago, he described the strange creature and we told him it was an armadillo if only this  had been the last armadillo seen in this country.
RICHARD ALSO SAW THE FIRST NEGRO TO LIVE IN OUR AREA. THE FELLOW'S WIFE WAS CAUCASIAN AND THE FELLOW HAD BEEN STAYING OUT OF SIGHT UNTIL RICHARD STUMBLED ON HIM COON HUNTING.  
My son Tony followed his uncle  on the trail of the coon. The last few years they went hunting Richard would set in the truck and Tony would go retrieve the dogs when they treed a coon.
My son Kelly has coon hunted some with Tony often owned a coon dog but never maintained a interest all the time like Tony.
One time the sons took a co-worker from Tyson coon hunting. They turned the dogs loose on Callen's branch. Son's dogs went one way and man's dog went another. They took off with planed to meet back at the truck.
Tony and Kelly went back to the branch and waited and waited! at about day break the county Sheriff came down the road with co-worker in the back with his dog to see if the poor boys would claim the hunter? seem he got lost and went to a house asking for help. They didn't let him in but they did call the Sheriff!
One time the sons were coon hunting in the fall and built a fire to smoke a coon out of a hollow tree after capturing the coon  and putting their fire out they began to make their way back to the truck. Kelly looked up the hill whence they had come and they had a large burn going. They went back and fought fire for some time putting out the fire then went home because they were give out from fighting fire.
I went coon hunting with Richard only one time, he carried the lantern and would run off and leave me every time the dog barked. We eventually came to the road below Cecil Meek's barn and I
 crawled over into the road and went home never hunting the coon again. The way I saw coon hunting, the dog would bark a 1/2 mile ahead and after wading weed falling over rocks and running into trees the dog would be barking a mile over yonder!
I remember a story Richard told about John D Seals , John D  was buying skins at Omaha in a old building with no floor. He hired this fellow to help him. The fellow was rather low life no good but John D wasn't know to pay much in wages anyway. The fellow would stack the hides against the wall in the back of the building. at night the fellow would come back dig a shallow ditch under the wall of the shed and using a wire hook some skins after filling the hole up with dirt the fellow would bring them back in the morn to sell to John D!
THAT ALL FOLKS UNTIL NEXT TIME!