GRASS ROOTS AND COCKLE BURRS- "You betchum, Red Ryder" By Jack Morgan Willis Submitted by: Pat Ezell From the Jena Times - Olla Tullos Signal, July 6, 2001 Thank You to Jack Willis and The Times -Signal for allowing the following to be added to the Archives. ********************************************** Copyright. All rights reserved. http://usgwarchives.net/copyright.htm http://usgwarchives.net/la/lafiles.htm ********************************************** Grass roots and Cockleburrs "You betchum, Red Ryder" There aren't many persons around that remember a popular comic strip and resultant comic book series entitled very simply Red Ryder. It was also made into motion pictures featuring "Wild Bill" Elliot as the star, even though he was NOT red headed. The strip featured, as you might guess, a redheaded cowboy and his little teen-age Native American sidekick L'il Beaver, who went around rightin' wrongs in the Old West. These fictional characters were the brainchild of a Cowboy Artist and Sculptor by the name of Fred Harmon. He had lived the life he wrote about around the turn of the century, and had had the privilege of rubbing shoulders with such artistic luminaries as Charles Russell and Fredrick Remington, experts in Western culture. Harmon was no slouch when it came to marketing and merchandising his creations either. The Daisy Company, a leader in the manufacture of air guns, approached him with the notion of crafting an air rifle utilizing the Red Ryder logo. The first models to hit dealer's shelves were quickly grabbed up by the public in buying frenzy. Soon the company had to start two shifts at their factory in a vain attempt to balance supply with demand. The air rifle model, at Harmon's insistence, exhibited characteristics of a real Winchester 1873 model carbine. The block of the gun had a swivel ring with a real leather strap that I never did figure out what it was for, except to look authentic. The Harmon flourish logo Red Ryder was burned into the stock of the weapon like a real cattle brand. The BB magazine located underneath the combination air cylinder/barrel gave the Daisy creation the final western touch. It was supposed to hold a thousand BBs, but I never did get that much money ahead to buy that many BBs to find out if it did or not. When I was about eight years old, I set in on my parents to buy me a BB gun, preferably a Red Ryder. There were some kids in the neighborhood that owned Daisy air rifles, but these were the regular models, with either a solid black finish or chrome plated. These models cost $7.95 and $8.95 respectively. The Cadillac of air guns, the Red Ryder cost $12.95 in 1943. Daisy made another version of their air guns they called a pump model. But you didn't pump it up; you simply utilized a pumping motion in cocking the gun. It had a wooden handle located beneath the barrel that slid down in a grooved action towards the forearm to cock it. It sold for $16.95, but in my estimation it was far inferior to the Red Ryder. For one thing the spring magazine had to be meticulously loaded one BB at a time. On the other Daisy air gums, you turned the plunger until a loading porthole was revealed. Then you simply the made a funnel in the end of the BB pouch and dumped them in the magazine. Some showoffs in the neighborhood would dump a whole pouch of BBs into their mouth, then put their mouth over the port and blow the BBs into the magazine. This resulted in having to take apart and clean and oil your gun more often than was really necessary because of all the residual moisture. Just as soon as school was dismissed for the year in late May, we settled into our summertime routine. It was now time to begin gathering garden crops for preservation of the various types of produce for the coming winter season. I was usually through with my part of this drudgery by dinnertime. A quick noontime meal, possibly consisting of string beans, newly "grabbled" Irish potatoes, sugar cured ham and big pone of corn bread usually rounded that little chore out. Then this was possibly topped off with a generous helping of fresh blackberry cobbler and fresh cow cream. While the grownups grabbed a nap, I grabbed my trusty Red Ryder air rifle and it was off to the creek for me. This creek wasn't just any ol' creek, but was the Middle Prong of Hemphill Creek, named for early settlers of the area. There was a wooden two-lane bridge over the creek on what is now Sycamore street and part of Jena City Park today. This wooden structure replaced a wooden footbridge along about 1942. Until then the road or street simply stopped on the West Bank. Underneath this bridge and for about a hundred feet down the creek was my own private eco-system. We would stop first on the bridge, under the shade of some monster beech trees on the West Bank. One of these trees was hollow on the backside and was frequently used for a depository for whiskey or wine by bootleggers. Beech trees were a natural drawing board for pocket knife carvers, and there were some talented people who had stopped long enough to demonstrate their prowess with their own Case or Kabar. Some one had carved a likeness of an Indian Chief complete with war bonnet on one tree. These huge sentinels ranged all up and down the creek. When we tired of shooting "top water" minnows we would go underneath the bridge to "splat" mellow bugs. We would find an old picket or shingle that had washed up on the bank and carve a paddle with which to eliminate whirligig beetles. These creatures, when the Lord called them home, after a devastating rap with our paddle, would smell just like an over ripe apple, hence the name "mellow bugs." The only creek I ever saw with more muscadine grapevines per linear foot than "Hemp's"Creek was Trout Creek located in the western part of the Parish. Along in the month of August, when these wild grapes that grew in profusion along the creek would get ripe, we would hunt up a good vine- covered tree. We would scale the tree just like boar monkeys and graze for an hour or so. Your mouth would be so blistered for a day or two; all you could eat was banana pudding. But we ate them anyhow. Come wintertime was when the Red Ryder came in handy. We would use our air rifles to kill enough robins and black birds to make a "pie". This was actually a pot of dumplings with the birds as flavoring. Talk about a good "suppertime" meal on a cold winter evening. A few days ago I saw a kid with a Red Ryder air rifle and asked him if I might examine it. Modern technology has taken over. The stock and fore arm are no longer real wood, but of plastic or fiberglass construction. The leather thong in the swivel ring even looked like some sort of petroleum byproduct. I've trudged a "gazillion " miles with my trusty Red Ryder air rifle nestled in the crook of my arm, in fair weather and foul. I wouldn't recall a single one… Jack Morgan Willis 6-12-01 .