Name That Buck

“I’m sitting in my recliner smack-dab in the middle of south Georgia,” a friend was relating, “and there’s a feller with a microphone standing on a beach in South California talking to me live and in color. You know, I don’t even want to know how that’s possible.”

Ahhh, good ol’ TV technology!

 That story came to mind whilst deciding if I really wanted to take half a day and attempt to explain how I was locked into a televised deer hunt even as it unfolded.

Of course, expounding on towers, cable, airwaves and such would likely take half an hour with any regular ol’ upstanding member of society featuring an IQ larger than his boot size.

But Jake The Hermit?

He had snuck in, downwind, and was eyeing the telecast over my shoulder through the winder. That’s window to you. The swirl-creating ceiling fan gave him away.

“Yer Ma yer?”

“You’d be beat to hardtack puddin’ if she was and spied you peepin’ through that winder. Er, window.”

“Whassat?”

“A television, you noxious nincompoop.”

“I KNOW what a television is, and if I knew what I just got called, you’d probly find yerself being drug through a winder. What dey doin’ wid dat deer?”

Well, dandy! I figured his avowed knowledge precluded any TV technology explanation obligation on my part!

“I’m not going to rehash the whole show; come in and watch.”

“How far off is yer Ma?”

“Granddaddy took her to town. You’ll hear the truck in time to run for your life. Her single barrel is in the closet, and I’ll turn every fan on as high as it will go and open the doors and winders. If she gets a whiff of you in here, she’ll turn that scattergun on me.”

As he shuffled aromatically in, I couldn’t help but wonder about the depth of his television knowledge. It was for sure and certain there had never been a hint of one in his two-room shack. So even as the video rolled, I had to ask…

“Whaddya mean how do I know about TV? Why, somebody’s got a camera pointed at somebody else and that means everybody what’s got a set like your’n knows everythang what that second somebody is a’doin’ all the time because that first somebody is a-keepin’ up with it. It’s that camera that does it donchasee?”

Uh. Yeah. I think I need a break in the action. But right then he glommed on to something…

“Wait; what wassat he said?”

“Who?”

“Hunter feller.”

‘He’s just talking about that buck. Named him Sir Keratin.”

Do you recognize flummoxed when you see it? Flabbergasted? Addled? Glassy-eyed?

Jake was all of the above. Looking into his beady eyes, I could see his elevator whirring up and down in vain attempts to locate the right floor.

“Named? A deer?”

“Sure. They get him on camera for three or four years, hang a nickname on him, then show the hunt.”

Muddled. Bewildered. Out to lunch. But never without opinion:

“Bout like shootin’ yer sheepdog.”

“Naw, Jake. All they’re doing with the camera is locating him; they still gotta put in the hours to get him. Especially bowhunting.”

“Wal, I wouldn’t know about them bows and arrers and spyin’ on a old buck. But I don’t like them cameras. Thang liked to scairt me into church. Why, if it had’a thundered when that light flashed Id’a thought mah time had come.”

Whassat? (Excuse me, “What’s that?) Jake. Camera. Flash.

Now MY elevator’s bouncing!

“How did you manage to get on camera, Jake? You ain’t been naming bucks have you?”

“Yeah; I names ’em Dinner and Supper and sometime Brakfus. And don’t you worry about me and cameras; it’s yore fault anyways.”

THAT did it! The ol’ dumbwaiter just ground to a halt!

“MY camera? In the white oak holler? What’re you doing in there?”

He was trapped. And the wheedle in his voice told me he knew it.

“I wuz just cutting through going to uh, well, over yonder a piece toward, ah, you know…”

“Yeah, I know. And what I know is that The Widder Sapp and nobody else lives at the other end of the holler…”

“Don’t start yer foolishness,” he broke in. “I just been helping her out a mite out of the goodness of ma heart…”

“You ain’t got no goodness in your heart, and there wouldn’t be no camera flash going off if you were helping out during daylight hours. Now, you want to tell me about it?”

“Not on yer life.”

“Look here, Jake. I’m gonna check that camera, and it’s a pretty good bet you’ll be on it just like Sir Keratin was—thinking he was hid!

“If I see you’ve been muddying up the creek with Octagon soap and slicking your hair back with that Vitalis instead of drinking it like you usually do, it’s right likely that word is gonna get around—’bout like this TV show.

“So what you been doing?”

He scratched both whiskers and shot a baleful glance my way before muttering, “Yer jes’ too young to know and jes’ old enough to get throwed around like a sack of taters if’n anything that happens on that camera after dark comes to the light of day.”

 And I believe him. Which is why my trail cam now resides quite some distance from the holler. And even if it’s likely that Jake, like Sir Keratin, IS in rut—you never heard it here…