Warning; Long post. "Son of the South"

[Goat]

As I sit here and reflect on who I am at 42 years of age I am proud. Proud not because I am in any way superior to anyone but glad to be, in many ways, the product of a remarkable heritage. My forebearers were Scottish/English on one side and Irish/German on the other. I cannot trace them very far back but far enough to know that they were, like most, a hard working people. Both sets of grandparents were people who worked the ground --- farmers and more. As such, both of my parents spent their childhoods on working farms. Crops and livestock provided both food and a commodity to be sold or traded.
This close connection to the land spilled over in the life of my paternal grandfather beyond farming and logging. He was a hunter. He grew up in southern Indiana and eastern Missouri where he began hunting small game with a muzzleloading shotgun. Following work he later settled in central Louisiana where he lived the rest of his life.
One of my favorite photographs is of him standing next to a buck he had taken with his Browning A-5 magnum 12ga. shotgun. He loved deer hunting and all it entailed.
Deer hunting, up until about twenty years ago, in Louisiana meant deer dogs---hounds that were bred for running deer. While this might seem distasteful or unsporting to those who have never had the opportunity to be around it, deer hunting with dogs was far from easy. Far more often than not the hunter never had the chance to kill the deer who eventually lost the dogs and lived to be hunted again another day.
I grew up hunting this way and although it was a lot of excitement I killed very few deer. Those days of hunting with dogs are gone but the love of hunting remains. I watched as the hunter of Louisiana transformed from the buckshot shooting shotgun hunter to leveraction and autoloading rifle hunters to the scoped bolt-action rifle and bowhunter of today.
I remember one of my father's friends who had an oddity in my early years of hunting. He had a scoped rifle. It was a Marlin 336 in 30/30 with a Weaver K-3 in tip-off mounts. He continued to hunt with that combination until his death about fifteen years ago.
Now days a scoped bolt action is the most commonly seen combination. Everything from 223 youth guns to 300 magnums abound.
I hunted for several years with a Browning A-bolt Stainless Stalker in 25/06 with a 2.5-8x Leupold. One day while sitting in a climbing stand in the midst of a briar thicket I almost laughed out loud at the combination when my longest shot in that scenerio was about thirty-five yards. The leverguns of the past began to make perfect sense. The next year found me in the woods with a Marlin 336 in 35 Remington.
Then my love affair with guns really took off. I had always liked guns and hunting but the guns began to be more than tools to hunt with. I realized that the ownership of firearms represented a lot of who I am. It allows one to not only provide for your family but to protect it as well. It is no wonder that our forefathers put the Second Ammendment in our Constitution to protect the right to bear arms. I pray that our nation never again bears those arms against itself but they are there if they are needed so that life and liberty may endure.
My Marlins remind me of a day gone by and they speak of those who choose to hunt with them. They are a gun for the working man. They are rugged, durable and they work.
Many more Marlins have since come my way but that 35 is still my favorite rifle for hunting the hills of central Louisiana that I call home....my home.
If home is where the heart is then my heart was won over at an early age because I have never wanted to live anywhere else. Perhaps this contentment was instilled in me by my parents. I come from a Pastor's home where my folks learned to be content on very modest means. My father always pastored small churches and usually had to supplement his income with secular work. By my parents example I learned that "godliness with contentment is great gain."
Yet, they were more than content. They realized that there was a lot more to life than possessions and riches. Their lives were rich because of relationships. Our family was not perfect but it was a haven from the raw world. I have always had a great relationship with my parents and siblings. (Momma is gone on now but we shall meet again.) The real connection that my parents knew was not just based on a love of family but on a greater relationship with Jesus Christ. This is the foundation on which my parents based their lives and the legacy that they have left to me.
The South has long been known as the "Bible Belt" and a bastion of Christianity in these United States. Of that I am proud. I am Christian, a husband, a Daddy and a hunter. I have been struck by "Marlinitis" and I like it. Would I be the same man had I been set in a different environment? I somehow doubt it. I am proud to say, "I am a son of the South."
Goat

[Hobie]

[JerryB]

Well spoken Goat, very well. I reckon alot of us here can say basically the same.

[C. Cash]

Excellent Post Goat...you are a blessed man, and more blessed still that you know why. The firearms are just wood and steel, but the memories and bonds created around them are powerful things.

[Charles]

It is a very comforting and stabilizing for a man to know who he is, where he belongs and who his people were and are. Those things are the raw stuff from which we are made and makes us unique.

I am a tenth generation American and a sixth generation Texan. We came to Virginia and thence to Georgia and the Carolinas. When Texas was still liquid in the mold, we came here. I too am a Son of the South and come from folks who are "natives to the soil" as the Bonnie Blue Flag states.

I feel sorry for the man with no roots, and no people to call his own. They are not lesser than me, but they have to plough new ruts wherever they go.

[olyinaz]

That was a wonderful post Goat, very enjoyable and I thank you for it.

There's one thing I'd like you to consider. I'm just a few years older than you, I grew up in rural Minnesota from Norwegian and German descended kinfolk who were farmers one and all, and despite being a died in the wool son of the Northland I feel exactly as you do about family and our faith in Jesus Christ. Isn't that something? Worlds apart yet pretty much the same. That's what's great about America!

We're all down in Arizona now (been down here for more years than I was up there but I still have to say I'm from Minnesota, not sure why that is...) and here we go again - worlds apart but still pretty much the same! I love the West, just LOVE IT. Love the people, the country, the weather, the way folks out West just out and say what's on their minds, the strong Christianity that runs through it out here, the hunting, the shooting, RV-ing the outback - it's a great part of America!

But yes Son of the South, I was based down there while in the Army, had to learn to speak Southern to make Sergeant (bit of a joke there, but some truth to it) and I LOVED North Carolina and Georgia. Good Lord it was beautiful! Did some great shooting there too.

Oregon, Alabama, Minnesota, Main, Arizona - it's all dramatically different and it's ALL GOOD! God bless this land!

Best,
Oly

[Bill_Rights]

Goat,

Thanks for that post. You talked about relationships in various ways, including your and your fore-bears relationships to the land. You mentioned farming and hunting, but I think there is probably more you didn't mention, like fishing, exploring, camping, church picnics + more and probably even kinda ordinary stuff like getting, processing and putting up firewood in a good way.

What struck me from what you wrote was commitment. And goodness. And commitment to goodness. I see you have commitment to family, both living and dead, who caused you to live in that land, and who keep you there - gladly. You have a commitment to the land, too. I bet it is not just because of the people and your commitment to them, either. You love the land for what it is. And for the things and creatures that are on it. It all goes together. You also contribute to and build up your family, the other people, the land and the things on it. And you see that it is good, very much like God worked each day of creation and, at the end of each day of work, "saw that it was good". You have a commitment to making it and seeing that it is good.

Many people don't have what you have or see what you see. Therefore, they won't be committed to building it up. That's a problem, a real one. You, as a man of God, do see these things and their goodness. You know that you came from small beginnings by people of faith, and those people built up what you have. You want to (although you didn't say so specifically) proclaim this and its goodness to the people you know, build upon what was built up for you and train up your children (or those you can) to know and build likewise. In all that, you are in complete agreement with the One we love, who taught us to pray: "Thy Kingdom come on earth, as it is in heaven."

So what you and your people are doing is, in fact, building up the Kingdom of God. That's a good thing. Thanks for letting us know!

P.S. - To get back to guns, you also wrote about deer hunting with dogs in your youth. I also wrote about that here http://www.levergunscommunity.com/viewt ... 73#p309973. I said

I grew up in southern South Carolina, in the transition lands between the sand hills and the low country. We had plenty of deer and turkeys, but I never happened to get either. The deer hunts in those days were "dog drive" hunts, with hunters posted every few hundred yards along roads and field lines where it was expected the dogs might drive the deer. We'd walk 30-50 yards INTO the woods, post ourselves looking deeper into the woods, and the deer would be driven from deep in the woods outwards. In any case, a slug in a birding shotgun was considered all you needed for the distance of shots expected.

Now that I think about what you wrote, I remember hearing the dogs and their barking as they chased the deer, sometimes coming closer, sometimes (most times) heading father away from my post. Also a technical correction: mostly we used buckshot rather than slugs in our shotguns. -BR

[gamekeeper]

Great post Goat.
I truly envy you and your way of life, here in the UK we have either lost or never even had a lot of the things you Americans take for granted.
It's so pleasing to read your post and to know that you certainly do NOT take it for granted.
You are a good man.

John.

[firefuzz]

Great post. Good Sunday morning read.

Rob

[AJMD429]

Being a "Southerner" is more a state of mind than a geographic location - I think there are many of us north of the Mason-Dixon line...

[TedH]

Being a "Southerner" is more a state of mind than a geographic location - I think there are many of us north of the Mason-Dixon line...

+1

Enjoyed your story.

[KirkD]

That was a great post, Goat. Remembering and preserving one's family history is very important. I love those Marlins as well. When I was a kid, Winchesters certainly got my attention, but the neighbour's Marlin 336 stood out to me as even more desirable.

[Rustolium]

I agree with all that has been said.

[RIHMFIRE]

Very nice post....

I was born in New York City....
grew up in the mountains of New York....

But I am.... "Southern By The Grace Of God"

[rock-steady]

What this thread needs is a theme song...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I4s0nzsU1Wg


11th generation American here. American by Birth Southern by the Grace of God.

[dr walker]

Great post Goat.

It got me thinking about roots and family. Something I should do more often.....

[Goat]

Thanks to everyone for their responses to this thread. I guess that this thread was the most I have ever said about my personal life on the internet. It was great to see that so many others have a similar connection. I knew that what I was describing was more about a way of life than a geographic location. Yet I doubt that I would really be the same if I lived somewhere else. This is a great place with some great people here at Leverguns.com. I do not remember how I even found it but I am very glad I did!
Goat