Thunder At Prayer Rock

Deer season has come and gone. Bradley Carpenter had a typical season harvesting a couple of does and one nice 3.5-year-old 8-pointer, all on public land in north Georgia. It was a mild Saturday morning in the middle of February, and Bradley was out walking on Lake Russell WMA. He was there before daylight, listening for a gobble or the sound of a turkey flying down as the first rays of sunshine kissed the eastern slopes of the ridge line. To his dismay, only the calls of northern cardinals was heard along with a lone crow calling as it flew overhead. Bradley began to slowly make his way up the ridge lines along the small creeks that eventually made their way to where Bradley found some sign, but not the sign that he had hoped for, so he started to make his way out.

Bradley noticed a person sitting up against an oak tree. It was an older feller.

“Morning, how are you doing?”

“I am doing alright,” the older gentleman responded.

“Are you out scouting like I am for turkeys, or you just out enjoying the morning?”

“Actually, I am sitting in my bedroom.”

“What do you mean, sitting in your bedroom?”

Bradley was starting to wonder if this gentleman had Alzheimer’s or dementia and had roamed off from his home or a nursing home, which was alarming since neither a home or facility could be found nearby.

“I can tell by the look on your face young man that you are confused by what I said. Ya see, this management area was once the home to many families, including mine. I am one of the last ones alive who was born in these hollers and ridges. That rockpile over yonder was the foundation for the chimney of my parent’s house. The rest were knocked over by loggers over the years. These scattered rocks were once the cornerstones of our house. I, at one time, would stack them up, but I am not strong enough to do that anymore.”

“I have seen some of the old homeplaces over the years of hunting here, and I have even walked through Farmers Cemetery and looked at the tombstones and wondered about the stories of the people who are buried there,” Bradley said.

“Well son, I am actually a Farmer. My name is Oscar Farmer. My folks are buried there, and most of the people in that cemetery are, I guess I should say were, my kin folks.”

“Nice to meet you, Mr. Farmer. My name is Bradley Carpenter.”

“I can tell you have a respect for this land. Would you like to learn more about it?”

“Yes sir! That would be amazing. I have often sat in the tree deer hunting or on the ground waiting on a gobble wondering about the history of some of these places.”

“This was my parent’s house. Their names were David and Patsy Farmer. I had two sisters and three brothers. I was the fourth of six children. My oldest sister and brother both died from the Spanish flu before I was born. That disease killed a lot of people in this area. You know we didn’t have any hospitals or doctors back then. My aunt helped bring me into this world.

“When the Great Depression hit, the Federal Government under FDR came and took the land from us, and we moved to Tallulah Falls where my dad got a job working on the power plant. The goal was to get people to move into the cities where they could get aid to them better, and where the jobs were.

“The old home place stood for several years. Most of the people who lived here would return to take care of the flower beds and have picnics together. As the adults got older, people came back less and less. Most of the visits were only for funerals.

“I would come and squirrel hunt often. There were no turkeys back then. The deer that were here were scattered until they started restocking them from Texas.”

Oscar talked about all the adventures he had hunting squirrels and taking several of the children of Habersham and Banks counties on their first hunts introducing them to the outdoors.

“You know one time I had this young man with me… I cannot recall his name anymore… but we were just south of here on the Broad River hunting. All of a sudden, the kid jumped higher than I knew a person could jump. When I asked him what had happened, he could only say snake. It took him saying it three times before I could understand him. When I looked, it was only an old corn snake. I laughed and laughed at him until my ribs hurt.”

As Oscar would recount the stories, a sparkle appeared in his eyes, along with a grin like a possum eating persimmons.

“I could go on for days. Do you have any questions for me young man?”

“How many homes were in this bottom area?” Bradley asked Oscar.

“Oh, there were about 15 to 20 as best I can recall. You know this old brain does not work as good as it once did.

“Now that was just in this area. If you are asking about the entire WMA, I would guess 40 to 50, and that is just what I can recall.

“You see this was prime fertile bottomland. The people raised a lot of corn and beans in this area. A few planted cotton and tobacco, but not a lot. Everyone had a milk cow and some chickens and hogs, along with their personal garden by their homes. There were no grocery stores back then except in town, and if you got food from there, you were considered a bad farmer. Before we moved, I can only remember going to town at most once or twice a year.

“You mind giving me a hand up young man? About time for me to make my way out of the woods. Dad never let me stay in my room long when I was a boy. He would tell me there is always something that needs to be done.”

Bradley reached out to help him up, and they started to work their way down the creek. Oscar would point out various landmarks from his childhood as they went, stopping at a large rock that overlooked the small creek.

“Ya see that rock over there? That is what we call Prayer Rock. We had a traveling preacher who would come to our church that was once up by the cemetery. People from this area and surrounding communities would come to pray with him when he was here. He would even stay at our house from time to time. I was even named after him. His name was Oscar Meister.”

“What all did they pray about, if you know?” Bradley asked.

“Well, they often came to pray about a habit they wanted to change, or something they needed God’s help with. They would bury things around the rock to help remind them that they needed to leave their worries behind because God had it in His hands.”

“No telling what you might find around here if you look around,” Bradley said.

“No. You don’t do that. It was buried for a reason. The people gave it up to God, and not for another to be burdened with,” Oscar stated emphatically.

“I understand. I would never do that. It was just a thought,” Bradley said.

When the two men got to the road, Bradley saw that Oscar had parked at the gate on the opposite side of the road from his truck. Bradley walked Mr. Farmer across the road and the two men said their goodbyes. Bradley would have never thought it would be the last time he would see Oscar.

• • •

As he continued to scout and enjoy time in the woods, several weeks passed without Bradley running into anyone on the WMA. He had hoped to see Mr. Farmer once again, but he hadn’t.

Today, the roads were abuzz with traffic because it was opening day of turkey season. Hunters were stopping at almost every pull off blowing on their owl calls before sunrise, and then it was the sounds of crow calls and turkey yelps after daylight. Most of the calling was subpar at best—it would not even get a lonely farm turkey to gobble.

As noon approached, most of the traffic was heading off the WMA, but excavating equipment could be heard up on the hill a few miles away. Bradley slowly made his way back to his truck, always careful not to run off a silent gobbler that might have been in the area. There was still not a lot of sign in the area, nothing that got Bradley excited about a spot, but he knew his area almost always had a gobbler or two.

After reaching his truck, Bradley’s attention turned to the sound of heavy equipment, and he made his way up the road wondering if the area was about to be logged. To his surprise, Bradley found a truck with a trailer parked beside Farmer Cemetery. He parked the truck and walked up to where two guys were standing with shovels while a third was on an excavator.

“Morning fellers,” Bradley said. “Who passed away?”

One of the workers told him that it was Oscar Farmer who had died, and that he would be buried in the morning at sunrise.

Sunday morning found Bradley making his way to the WMA, but not to hunt. He was in a button-up shirt with a tie. Bradley was the first person there an hour before sunrise. He could hear the hunters making their way throughout the WMA. Then he could hear people coming down the road at a much slower rate just as the hearse rounded the bend in the dirt road. The funeral was held just at sunrise as Oscar Famer had requested. He was laid to rest with his parents, and with his brother and sister who had died from Spanish flu. He was the last of his siblings, but the others had been buried at their home churches in the towns where they had settled. Oscar would likely be the last buried in the old cemetery, marking the end of an era.

As the family left, Bradley returned to the graveside for one last goodbye. The only people around were the workers who were waiting to lower the casket into the earth that Oscar called home. As Bradley kneeled in prayer, he gave thanks for the morning when he met and spent with Oscar. He made a promise to the old man that he would respect the land and the animals that called it home. He would take others hunting, and when he did, he would teach them about the people who once called the bottom home. He would teach them about Prayer Rock.

As he said his amen, the woods came to life with the rolling thunder of a gobble, cut off immediately by another, and then another. Bradley raised his head with a tear in his eye in amazement at the number of gobblers he heard.

Birds gobbling in every direction, it seemed, including several in the area Bradley usually hunts.

Bradley looked to the workers, but they either were not turkey hunters or had poor hearing, because they did not even look up from their conversation.

Bradley smiled. He knew Oscar had one more lesson for him that morning. It was almost a story straight out of a Tom Kelly turkey hunting book that no one would ever believe if they were not there. Just as soon as it started, the gobbling ended, including the gobblers that thundered the loudest—from direction of Prayer Rock.

Bradley stopped on his way to the truck to tell the workers goodbye. As he left, he went by his usual parking spot, and he was thankful that no one was parked there that day. On his drive back to his hometown church, Bradley began to think about next weekend. As he went through Sandy Cross, he began to think about who he could take hunting… like Mr. Farmer would have done. The perfect person came to mind. A coworker whose only outdoor experience had been frog gigging when he was growing up in Louisiana. But he had always seemed interested in turkey hunting when Bradley talked about it at work.

“I will ask him tomorrow.”

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