Leukemia had ravaged Pop's body for more than a year. On October 2, 1991, he fell into a coma. It was then that I made a desperate attempt to bring him back to consciousness by slapping his sallow face. At first, the strikes were temperate, but they grew harder. I was hoping he would come to at any moment and hit me back. I thought I could hear Pop calling to me like he always did, "Boy." "Kid." "Son." Images of our many shared experiences, undervalued during my adolescence, paraded across my mind. My mother reached up to stop my hands, "Ricky, it's not helping. We have to let him go." At that moment, I understood Pop's fatherly goal - to teach me how to be a man. The struggles of maturation had kept us at odds most of my formative years. Now it was too late to show my appreciation and make amends. He was gone.
As a boy, I did not understand the extraordinary value and importance of the time-sacrifices that Pop made for me. "Good times" were when he could be outdoors, especially during hunting season, no matter the weather. It seemed as if I was no more than a gofer. Always "going for" stuff made me angry, so I tried to reduce Pop's enjoyment of hunting on occasion by acting like a petulant child.
The lower part of the Palmetto State is full of swamps and marshes, a water-fowler’s paradise. Pop and I spent many weekends around Rimini Swamp, Lake Marion's northernmost area. South toward Charleston and Georgetown's coastal regions is a wildlife refuge teeming with fish, amphibians, reptiles, birds, and mammals. It's a wilderness wonderland, fuel for a growing boy's imagination and sense of adventure. Join me on a quacking good trek to manhood!
