Finding Charlie

When outdoor writer Charlie Elliott passed away in 2000, his den in Covington was taken down and moved to the Charlie Elliott Wildlife Center in Mansfield.

For years now, I’ve driven almost by the front door at least once a month. One of these days, I told myself… then rolled on. Friends in the passenger seat have urged me to stop and get this thing over with.

One of these days…

Yeah, I know it’s silly, I’d say, never lifting off the gas.

And then, last month…

You can read about Clybel WMA a few pages back. Within Clybel, one may find the Charlie Elliott Wildlife Center. Who, you may ask—although I sincerely hope not—is Charlie Elliott?

He was my friend.

Or, as he wrote in the frontispiece of my copy of his book, “Prince Of Game Birds: the bobwhite quail,” “For a special friend…”

Special is what Charlie was. And, to me, still very much is. I don’t have space here to go into all his accolades; I remember him differently anyway. As Charlie Elliott the man.

As my special friend.

I’ve been sitting here reading some of his letters to me. Letters, by the way, are things that folks used to sit down and type or even write in longhand before there was such a thing as a computer…

Here’s an opening couple of paragraphs, my old podner at his best: “Forgive me for being so slow. All my reading has to be done through a magnifying glass and I get along like a terrapin—I believe the Yankees call him a tortoise.

“Also, forgive the typing. You know you could never read my scrawl, which is like an Egyptian translation of Sanskrit, and I can just barely make out the letters on this keyboard…”

The words were pounded out on the ancient gray typewriter that sat  directly under the window. Above it were a reading light and a large magnifying glass with its own adjustable stand. (I can’t describe the elation when he called and told me that through a medical miracle and the hands of a super-skilled surgeon, he had regained his sight.)

All this in Charlie’s den/office on Flat Rock Trail in Covington. A place I sat in many times, listening to, learning from and jibing with the one outdoor writer that I respect the most.

That den, you see, was taken down in Covington, each piece catalogued, then moved and perfectly replicated within Charlie’s museum at the Charlie Elliott Wildlife Center. You can see it all for yourself. And should.

This time, for me, there was no escaping it.

As I walked in, the memories came flooding back like a gut punch, literally locking me down in my tracks. I had figured as much.

Recollections such as the very first time I laid eyes on this legendary outdoorsman. I had run from a pouring rain into a motel restaurant in Dillard—and there sat Charlie Elliott with his lovely wife Polly.

And he called me by name. ME!

Over the years, I’ve interviewed a couple of folks; Richard Petty, Larry Bird, B.B. King among my favorites—but this was CHARLIE ELLIOTT!

He asked me to sit down and sup. Said he was pleased by my prose! And here I was a young writer trying to find my way who thought Charlie Elliott couldn’t know me from Adam’s house cat!

All that talent, topped with all that class.

Over the years we’ve talked pack trains for grizzly in Alaska, Wyoming elk, sleeping in hollowed-out trees, sheep at the top of the world, his Pout House, red-headed women and adjectives…

“Ooooohh, those adjectives!!!,” he’d cackle over one of my pieces. “But don’t ever stop using them. You write your way, I’ll write mine, and we’re in this together.”

Forgive ME, Charlie, for taking so long between visits. Part of you has been gone for 24 years now; but part of you remains in Mansfield. And there will always be memories made with a special friend. By the way, Podner, there was nothing morbid about this visit. Remember that time Miss Polly took you to the orchestra concert and you put in the same ear plugs you used when running the chainsaw?

Yeah, I left laughing…