Sports: Outdoors

With malice toward Henry

Bob Kornegay

As a rule, I am a man of good will. Other people's successes generally make me happy. I enjoy seeing my friends do well at any endeavor and am thrilled by any good fortune that befalls them. I must admit, though, sometimes it irks me when some of them go overboard withself-aggrandizement. Put simply, some folks are just plain jerks who won't shut up about it. I hate that "don't-you-wish-you-were-me" attitude.

For instance, I ran into Henry in a coffee shop not long ago. Henry O. Markham; he says the "O" stands for Oliver. I beg to differ. I'm betting the birth certificate reads "Obnoxious."

"Hey, Bob," the grinning, glad-handing, extrovert hailed. "Come over here, dude. Have I got a story for you!"

Henry sells used cars for a living. If you ever meet him and shake hands, make sure you count your fingers when he lets go.

I made my way over to Henry's table. Seeing his attention turned my way, the companions he'd been busily "impressing" seized the opportunity to scatter like rats caught in a corn crib fire.

"Morning, Henry," I greeted reluctantly. "Do tell."

"Yeah, boy. Took me a trip to Louisiana back in December. Went goose huntin'. This fella had a couple hundred acres of private land out in the middle of one of the prettiest marshes you ever saw. Bet if you broke it down there'd be at least a thousand snows, blues and Canadas per acre. I guarantee we had 500,000-bird fly-overs every day to and from the waterfowl refuge on the adjoining property. It was paradise, Hoss. Sheer paradise!"

"Wonderful," I replied, my smile as warm and sincere as I could make it. One, two, three, four, five - yep, still there.

"Four days, four limits," he continued. "Magnificent lodge. Great guides. And food? Man alive! Big buffet spreads for breakfast, lunch and dinner."

"Wow," I intoned, diplomatically refraining from mentioning the fact that Henry's emphatic use of superlative sentence fragments was a dead giveaway of his chosen profession. Not to mention the cheap plaid sport coat, cigar, white shoes, and matching belt.

"You know," he continued, "there are rich folks up north who pay $7,500 a pop just to reserve a pit blind on that property for a few days. Didn't cost me a cryin' dime. Fella that owns the place owed my son a favor. You remember Henry, Jr., don't you? He's the one with that big insurance firm up in Atlanta. Anyway, Junior traded it out and got himself and his old man a few days of prime goose shootin‚ in the bargain."

"Uh huh," I acknowledged.

"Great as it all was, though, I almost had myself a tragedy the last day. There we were, all gathered around the four-wheelers, 'bout ready to pack it in, when this big old Canada gander come flyin' over.

"Junior was one short of his limit and decided to take a quick blow on his goose call. You shoulda seen him, Hoss, blowin' that call and uncasing his gun at the same time.

"Well, the rest of us sorta ducked down behind the vehicles to hide and, I want you to know, that boy turned that bird and brought him in. He was comin' right at us when he shot. I heard the guide holler, 'Watch out!' and ducked just quick enough so he cleared my head by just a fraction of an inch."

"My word, man," I said with sincere concern. "Head on at that velocity, you'd have been killed. You were doggone lucky."

"You better believe I was lucky," Henry said. "All that private land, all them birds, fine lodgings, good guides, great food. And no charge. How lucky can you get?"

Then, that proverbial straw fractured the dromedary's spine.

"You never have got to do nothin‚ like that, have you, old buddy?"

Gamely, I maintained my composure and replied, "Nope, afraid not. But, say, could you maybe tell the last part of that story one more time?"

"Why, sure," Henry agreed. "You wanna write about it?"

"Nah," I said. "I just want to close my eyes and fantasize about that goose coming in about a half-inch lower."

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