One Man’s Treasure is Another Man’s Junk

 Like everything else in life, when considering turkey hunting equipment - one man’s treasure is another man’s junk. As a matter of pride, two key pieces of hunting equipment held in very high regard for a young hunter is your truck and your gun. In the spring of 1979 it never occurred to me that our old ’71 Ford 2-wheel drive truck was anything but a piece of superior hunting equipment. Likewise, at ten years old I considered my H&R Topper 12 gauge, 3 inch magnum mouth-buster to be cutting edge & big medicine for gobblers! I never thought I’d see the day when hunting season would become a fashion show of sorts where our old equipment would be looked down on as “hillbilly.”



You reckon a fine truck like this could grow grass in the floorboards?  No matter - if'n it gets you to the huntin' woods its a treasure!

  Dad had bought our old Ford pick-up (ol’ Bessie) sometime in the mid-70’s. The truck was a 3-speed on-the-column with an AM radio and no power steering, no power brakes, and no a/c. She didn’t have any seat-belts because we had taken them out to use in our hand-made hanging tree-stands. Back then we didn’t worry too much about having a wreck but we sure weren’t gonna take any chances on falling out of a tree! You could see plum to the ground through the passenger side floorboard and grass was growing in the dirt in the floorboards just under the front edge of the seat. She had a solenoid with connections that would not stay tight so you always had to keep a pair of piers handy in order to jump across the solenoid to get the starter to engage. Seemed like every time it rained this would happen and dad would grin real big and tell me to jump out and use the pliers. He really thought that was funny. I didn’t care a bit – I was proud of ol’ Bessie. By today’s standards ol’ Bessie was not much but at least we had a truck to take turkey hunting. She’s long since headed to the scrap yard but she is a treasure in my turkey hunting memory that money couldn’t buy. If we rode in her today to the turkey woods I’m sure we’d be called “hillbilly.”

Priceless to me - $15.00 at the pawn shop.

As for my gun, Dad had received a Topper H&R shotgun as a safety award from AMAX Lead Company in the summer of 1976 and I had received it for Christmas that winter. It had been hidden in my sister’s closet for several months leading up to Christmas and I had bribed her to show me my “Big” gift she had been telling me about. By the time Christmas came around I had taken the shotgun out of the box and petted it several times. It was the proudest I had ever been of a Christmas present to that point of time in my life - prior to that I had used Grandpa Stephens’ old pump shotgun that was as long as I was tall & too heavy for me to hold up.

I remember getting a box of 3 inch magnum #2 loads from Wal-Mart (box of 20 for $5.00!) and heading to the back yard. The first time I pulled the trigger I thought I had broken my jaw and knocked my glass eye clean out of my head! WOW! She sure must be powerful, I reckoned. Every time I pulled the trigger it brought tears to my eyes but I wasn’t about to admit it hurt. She patterned low and right at 25 steps. She was a treasure I’ll never forget.

While I was in college in the mid ‘80’s some low-life stole my H&R shotgun from my apartment. I’m sure the thief thought they would take it to the pawn shop and get rich. I figure as they walked out of the pawn shop sorely disappointed because they got only $15.00 for a pawned single shot shotgun, the pawn shop owner was thinkin' the thieves must be hillbillies to think they were gonna get a load of money for that old gun!  It wasn't even worth the gas and time to drive to the pawn shop! That was the first gun my dad ever gave me and I wouldn’t have sold it at any price… instead some jerk sold it for $15.00.

Kinda funny how a fella’s perspective changes as they get older about the value of certain things. Just like the title of “Hillbilly” – 35 years ago how dare someone say I was a hillbilly (although I was), I thought that I was just as up-and-coming as the big-city folks. Now days they can keep their up-and-coming - I’m proud to be a hillbilly. One man’s treasure is another man’s junk. So says the One-Eyed Hillbilly.

Greg Stephens is a 35-year veteran & life-time student of the great outdoors. His column appears weekly in print & online publications. You can email him at gregstephens@one-eyedhillbilly.com. For more columns go to www.one-eyedhillbilly.blogspot.com.