By Pearl Carter | Guest Columnist

The traditional Thanksgiving week vacation at deer camp started off on a wrong turn.

Our menfolk had to delay a week due to work schedules, but the grandsons only had that week out of school. So, not to be outdone, soon-to-be 80-year-old Eva (Mae Mama) and 70-year-old Pearl (Granny) headed for Wilkinson County and the Cardiac Club Camp with two teenagers in tow.

After dropping the boys off to visit overnight with a friend in the big city of Bude, Miss., we girls arrived at camp before dark in time to unload the two vehicles, which carried all the usual requirements for a week of camping — or so we thought. After a delicious supper of hot chocolate and Nabs and a roaring game of Trash, we retired for the night.

Except for an occasional short stay of our menfolk since last deer season, the camp had been lying dormant. Waking early Wednesday morning to a bright shiny day and looking around the camp house, we could see a year’s accumulation of crud that must be cleaned up. We got down to business and by two o’clock had ye old Cardiac Club reasonably ready for habitation.

Then it was time to go pick up the boys. As soon as we arrived back at camp, they headed for the woods with Granny and Mae Mama secretly hoping they would not have any luck before our menfolk arrived the next day. We didn’t feel up to handling the venison, but little did we know how unprepared we really were.

Sure ‘nuf, just before dark… BOOM. One shot interrupted our game of Trash. Thinking it surely could not be the boys, we kept right on playing. A little while later, here came Daniel in a trot.

“Granny, we need the truck; Richard got a six-point,” he said.

“You’re kidding,” I said. “No ma’am, we already drug him up the Olivia ridge from the creek to where we can get to him with the truck.”

Off we went in a hurry to bring home the kill, a nice seven-point (in their haste they had miscounted) weighing approximately 150 pounds. This was Richard’s first kill and his grin reached halfway to Natchez. Back at camp, we realized we had locked ourselves out so Daniel had to crawl in a window to let us in.

We soon discover just how truly unprepared we are for deer hunting. The single tree to hang the deer is nowhere to be found. No rope. No pulley. No skinning knife.

It was dark by then and a storm was threatening. But country girls can survive.

Now, Richard is the deer slayer but Daniel was the one who said he knew how to dress the deer. Never had, but he’d watched and he knew how. Meanwhile, though we’d both watched and “assisted” our menfolk many times, Mae Mama was trying to call her son Gary for guidance on the subject of dressing a deer. Unable to reach him, she called her son James and had him walk Daniel through the process by phone.

Hanging up, Daniel said, “Well, that’s exactly what I already knew how to do.”

Looking around, we found an old swing blade handle in the storeroom. Daniel said that would work for a singletree. I remembered the rope I carried in my backpack.

Daniel and Richard got the makeshift singletree through the deer’s ankles. Using the rope, Daniel secures it to the singletree. Thinking the rope might not be strong enough to hold the deer, Daniel sent Richard to the chinaberry tree to retrieve the child’s swing rope for added strength.

Finally, after much grunting and straining, the deer swung from the 2-by-4 crosspiece under the porch shed.

Daniel was still not satisfied that the ropes and singletree were strong enough. The swing rope had a nice loop at the end.  He grabbed a shovel from the storeroom, threaded the handle through the loop and braced it on the 2-by-4s. Then he had Richard stand on the tailgate of the truck and hold the shovel handle so the deer didn’t swing while he worked.  Later, he told me he really had Richard hold it so he would have to watch and “learn how to do this.”

Ready to start skinning, the only knives we had were relatively dull kitchen knives. But, Knucklehead’s (Jim — Mae Mama’s deceased husband) whet rock was right where he left it on top of the kitchen cabinet. I did my best “whetting” job I could and Daniel got started.  I continued “whetting” the other knife and this continued with them swapping knives for skinning and whetting throughout the dressing process.

During all this preparation, the storm clouds gathered. It was now thundering and lightning and about halfway through, the rain started. With the wind blowing the rain in under the shed, the boys got soaking wet but progress continues until the job is accomplished.  For a 15-year-old who had only watched, Daniel did a fine job skinning, dressing and cutting up the deer.

After cleaning up with “wash pan” baths, we dined on a hot supper of hot dogs in tomato gravy (the deer slayer’s favorite food). We put ourselves to bed after sharing and rehashing the events of the day, certain that tomorrow would bring another big buck our way.

Menfolk. Who needs’em?  When the two sisters and the boys go camping you better know, country girls (and boys) can survive.

Pearl Carter is a Vicksburg resident. She can be contacted at pwcarter55@att.net.