Uncle NoPass is always excited to go on what has turned into a annual rabbit hunt in Wedowee, Alabama. It’s homecoming, of sorts, for my eighty two year old uncle since he was raised on a dirt farm about 12 miles east of Wedowee. He says that there are more rabbits, bigger rabbits, and the rabbits are easier to shoot. He neglects to mention that there are more hills, steeper hills and taller hills and that there are more briars, sharper briars and taller briars mixed in with the planted pines that are planted thicker than the bars on a jail cell. Not that I have any experience with jail cells. At least here in the States. The Mediterranean is a different story and even that was a bum rap. While I might have been instrumental in starting the bar fight that quickly escalated out of control, I didn’t burn the taxi during the riot.
But I digress. Uncle NoPass decided to ride with me to Wedowee while Brag drove Aunt Katie, who would spend the day catching up on the gossip with friends who still live in the area. She had to have considered it a welcome relief from listening to NoPass tell his story’s to me again.

NoPass started talking as we were backing out of his drive.
“Three years, nine months and twenty two days without a pass in the South Pacific. Did I ever tell you that I wanted to be a driver in the army but they said that I shot to good for that and gave me one of those gangster guns that fires three times before you could……”

“....Fred was his name and I knew him for a week or so before I ate him for supper, one night in the Philippines. I served three years, nine months and twenty two days without a pass in the South Pacific. Did I ever tell you that I wanted to be a driver in the army but they said I shot to good for that and gave me one of those gangster guns……”

Whoa! Wait! Ate Fred for supper? Don’t remember that one. It took some doing but I finally got Uncle NoPass back on Fred. I wanted him to finish the only story he had started in three years that I couldn’t finish for him.

“...I won Fred in a poker game in the Philippines when I was serving three years, nine months and twenty two days without a pass in the South Pacific. Did I ever tell you I wanted to be a driver in the army but they said I shot to good for that and ……”

Finally my eighty two year old rabbit hunting partner got back to who Fred was and why he ate him as we passed Opelika heading north on Highway 431.

“…..That’s how I came to win Fred with only a pair in a poker game. He was a good’un for a monkey. Least ways, the man who lost him to me said so. But I have to say that he was sure smiling for someone who had just lost such a good monkey to only a pair of three’s."

"We got into a fight with some Japs that attacked our camp about a week later. That monkey was so skeered that he crapped all over me and my stuff. Got it all over the place, he did. Well I couldn’t stand that since I already had to clean up my own mess and decided to give Fred as a pet to one of the village kids that was hanging around all the time, scrounging things. I know that when I was a kid, I sure would have wanted him. I couldn’t hardly speak any Philippine , but I got it across that I wanted him to have Fred cause I served three years, nine months and twenty two days in the South Pacific. Did I ever tell you that I wanted to be a driver……”

As we passed Roanoke, Alabama, I steered Uncle NoPass back to the topic at hand, which was since he had finally told me who Fred was, why did he eat him.

“Later on, that boy brought me a bowl of stew to thank me for that monkey. It sure was good after that crap the army fed me. I didn’t know I was eating Fred till one of the other boys translated for me. I have to say Fred made a tasty meal after eating that crap the army fed me for the three years , nine months and twenty two days without a pass that I fought in the South Pacific. Did I ever tell you I wanted….”

The rabbit hunt at Jim Paul’s place was a good’un.

I got to meet the legendary “Bob” that I had heard so much about. Uncle NoPass had one habit he has never broke despite Brag‘s pleading-- He gives away dogs. Good ones, bad ones it, didn’t matter. Bob was one of the good’uns. “He was the best rabbit dog in these parts, leastways, everybody says so” according to Uncle NoPass. Since all of NoPass’s dogs were the best in these parts in his humble opinion, it took Cuz and Brag backing him up to convince me though I wasn’t about to tell my uncle that. A little long in the tooth now, Bob still ran three enjoyable races.

We brought Kate and Lady with us. Kate is little bigger and faster than most of our other short legged dogs, so she fit in well with the pack long legged beagles. She should since her sister and mother were in Jim Paul’s pack.

They jumped quick and it was off to the races. The rabbit led them in a large circle on the thickly planted steep hill side. The heavy patches of briars mixed in with the extremely thick pines handicapped the longer legged dogs some and allowed Lady to occasionally lead the pack.

I had stopped in a patch of briars weighed down with honeysuckle vine that was still mostly bare from the winter’s frosts and listened as the dogs looped down the hill toward me. I heard something move in the wet brown leaves and glanced down to see the rabbit, a little sager, slowly hoping past me under the web of vines and briars. I only had to tip the 16ga. Fox and pull the front trigger. A few feet in either direction and I, probably, couldn’t have seen him.

The next race ended quickly as the rabbit made a quick loop that brought him into Robert’s sights. Another double barrel, a 12ga. Stevens this time, “banged” once ending the short race.

The third and final race of the day was a long one in the thickest growth of pines, briars and honeysuckle that I’ve ever seen. You had to turn sideways to pass through large sections of the steep gully riddled hillside. If you shot at a rabbit in most of it, you had to check your boots for shot holes.

I positioned myself on the lip of a wide shallow gully that you could see the bottom and far side in patches. The dogs had come through twice without me seeing the rabbit when I decided to move to a narrow ribbon of a cane break. Finding a tall stump where I could peer down at the marshy bottom, I waited as the dogs brought him back around in my direction again.
Bam! Another double barrel, this time, Brag’s, only yards from me, unseen in the extremely thick cover.

It was a good hunt and a good day. They all are.