Confessions of a Poachin' Parson

About the Book

A preacher wrote this collection of absolutely essential nonsense. It is guaranteed that every word you read will be the purely fabricated and well-garnished truth based on solid and verifiable fiction. By necessity, the names of some of the folk on these pages have been changed in order to protect their guilt.

The preacher is a sometime fisherman and an every-chance-I-get hunter. He holds charter membership in one of the most notorious and exclusive sporting clubs in all of North America. And it is because of his frequent association with fellow members that he sometimes has difficulty handling the truth without taking some awful liberties with it. You would too, if you hung around with the likes of this crew.

He has traveled over a lot of the real estate of our wonderful globe. He has seen the beauty of Galilee's sea and Australia's great coral reefs, Hawaii's silver sand and Canada's magnificent Rockies. He has traveled by dugout log canoe to headwaters of the mighty Amazon and gazed on Niagara Falls. He's been from the bottom of the Grand Canyon to the top of the Sears Tower. But the most beautiful sights in this world, he declares, are seen from the top of Pole Creek ridge, Marble Creek pass, the knob on Greenhorn Mountain and an elk stand in Eastern Oregon.

---

About the Author

Dun says, "A doctor's degree on a preacher is like the curl in a pig's tail. It might be cute but it don't make no more bacon. It just tickles the hams." And even though he has earned graduate degrees including a doctorate, he is not overly impressed with his educational accomplishments.

He started as a barefooted country boy in Georgia, too bashful to answer questions in the first grade but has preached on every continent. He has been invited to preach in small churches and large congregations, as guest lecturer in Bible Colleges and keynote speaker in missionary conventions.

Dun has enjoyed being treated at a British High Tea in a swanky and expensive hotel in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia but he's much more comfortable beside a campfire. He has traveled the world but no matter where his body is, his heart is back home on a lonely mountain ridge in Oregon. One of his former students says "Dun isn't that good of a preacher. But he is a great story teller!"

Dun and his wife now live in central Florida. They have three children and six grandchildren.

---

Table of Contents and Excerpts

PART I

The Pole Creek Ridge Gang
Scatter My Ashes on Pole Creek Ridge
Those Newfangled Shotguns
Buck Hunting in a Black Hearse
Friends Dont Let Friends Hunt Chukars
Quail Monsters and Snot Bubbles
Olenes Funeral
A File By Any Other Name Might Be A Flat Bastard
Why Cant Women Get Married Without a Wedding?
Grant County Mountie
Chunkin Eggs Aint Against the Law
How Not To Rob A Georgia Bank
A Southern Belle Who Walks on Water
Land That I Love
Choppin High Cotton or British High Tea
Close Calls

PART II

Everyone in Florida is From Somewhere Else
Waking Up in the Wrong World
Snakes Dont Die Til Sundown
Brahma Betsy Goes Shoppin
Florida Cowboys

PART III

Loosing Aint Everything
Thanks for the Memorable Rats
Somebodys Dad
Did Jesus Subscribe to the Progressive Farmer?
Bear Meat, Butterbeans and the Board of Education
The Way Thanksgiving Ought To Be
The Next Best Thing To Being There?
You Can Never Go Home

From: FRIENDS DONT LET FRIENDS HUNT CHUKARS

"Can you tell me what's happened to Mick?" The sheer panic in Ruth's voice was enough to terrorize the telephone line.

"Yeah, we went chukar hunting," I answered.

"He passed out just inside the door. When he came to he was mumbling something about killing you in a method I don't even want to talk about" she declared

From: QUAIL MONSTERS AND SNOT BUBBLES

I hadn't gone 50 yards down the path when that monster that had been lying in wait, attacked me with such vicious fury I didn't have a chance to get off a shot. He was black and ugly and I have since calculated his weight to be in the neighborhood of 600 to 700 pounds. His big blood-shot eyes glared at me with vengeance and snot bubbles spewed from his flared nostrils. He drooled in anticipation of sinking those 8-inch tusks into my flesh. As I fled from the beast his hot breath nearly scorched my neck and the stink of it still gags me to remember

From: A FILE BY ANOTHER NAME . . . MIGHT BE A FLAT BASTARD

The problem with all of us talking the English language (if you call what them yankees speak 'English'), is that we assume that we know what the other fellow said just because we recognize the words. That is a basic erroneous assumption that can mean more than just misunderstanding and confusion. It can prove downright embarrassing and sometimes it can be a total disasterc

From: EVERYONE IN FLORIDA IS FROM SOMEWHERE ELSE

The first question one usually asks upon meeting someone in our state is "Where are you from?" In answer to that query you'll get answers from Albania to Alabama, from Boston to the Bahamas and from Utah to the Ukraine.

Harriet was born in what is locally known as U C L A -the Upper Corner of Lower Alabama. She was born in Mariana, Florida but she didn't like it and moved out of state when she was just over 6 months old. And she has always harbored the hope of returning to her native land one day

From: SNAKES DON'T DIE 'TIL SUNSET

A vision of hand-to-hand combat with an eight-foot snake in the close confines of a shower stall is not my idea of a way to start a new day. Probably because of some unconscious and stupid notion about a man protecting his family, I agreed to give it a tryc

From: BRAHMA BETSY GOES SHOPPING

"There is no such thing as a dumb question".

For the most part, I guess I still think that is a true. But then Have you ever listened to a television reporter interviewing a cowboy? Or TV reporters in general, Im afraid. It really comes out when you get a hot-shot young lady trying to startle the world with her brilliance and unseat Barbara Walters with one exclusive interview. Or maybe even worse, some young man still wearing diapers beneath his GAP wardrobe that wants Charlie Gibsons job next to Diane Sawyer ...

From: BEAR MEAT, BUTTERBEANS AND THE BOARD OF EDUCATION

You would need to have taste buds native born in the deep south with perhaps a bit of red Georgia clay still between your toes to really appreciate a saucer on the stove with left over bear meat and a cold biscuitc.

From: THE WAY THANKSGIVING OUGHT TO BE

Thanksgiving is the warmest season of the year. Oh, I do not mean weather warm. Not even back-up-to-the-stove warm. But heart hugging warm. Thanksgiving is family reunion timec

When Uncle Stanley prayed he didn't read a message to the Deity. He didn't just say a prayer or repeat a blessing. When he prayed, he talked to His Lord. If you didn't have an Uncle Stanley pray for you, you do not have as much to be thankful for as I do.

Times change and Thanksgivings change. The old black mule was replaced by a power takeoff on a John Deere tractor; the family grew so big the gathering had to be moved to the county park; Jane's piano accompaniment became a cassette player; Uncle Stanley went on to heaven and Sank is in a nursing home. But some things will never change. The ever loving, heart hugging warm memories of Thanksgivings the way they used to make them. I hope that you have as much to be thankful for as I do

---