Doves should take its place next to death, taxes

Doves, like death and taxes, have been around forever. I prefer quail; there’s more meat. Doves, unlike quail, are sneaky. You are strolling along when suddenly you are surrounded by thunder, a covey of quail getting up.

The dove is the bird that represents peace. There’s a popular soap called Dove, and Noah in the Old Testament turned the dove loose to see if he could find land. The doves landed in Williamsburg County and brought Noah back the wildwood flower. The doves thought they had been everywhere and seen everything until they showed up on the Burnt Branch Road where Dr. Charlie Dorn Smith No. 3 invited herds of riffraff, rednecks and radicals to his annual hog eating and dove-shooting jamboree.

When I speak of riffraff, rednecks and radicals I am speaking about the male animal, not the flowers of Southern womanhood, the gentle gracious steel magnolias of Southern culture. These ladies wouldn’t hurt a fly unless you lit their fuse. Then they can make Hurricane Hugo seem like a gentle breeze.

Dorn considers himself a master chef when it comes to pork ambrosia. He can barbecue mothballs and your taste buds will rise up and bless his name. Dorn’s wife, Debbie, says he can’t scramble a Tootsie Roll with a backhoe. There was plenty to eat and lots of doves to shoot at. The riffraff, rednecks and radicals all have names. After this column, they may have to go to Wal-Mart to shop for a reputation.

Blake Gibbons is a financial wizard. He once loaned a peeping Tom money to buy his own keyhole. Kingstree was well represented along with Peggy and I: Nicky Kellahan, Willie McCutcheon, Dr. Ernie Atkinson, Stan Williamson and Dr. Raymond Allen from Greeleyville were there. Dr. Allen asked me to announce that during November, he is having a belly button clunker sale in Greeleyville. You receive $4,500 for your old belly button toward the purchase of a new one.

And so it came to pass that they polluted the friendly skies over the Burnt Branch Road. They shot up 50 boxes of shells and didn’t cut a feather. The clouds over the dove field contained so much lead, you could have written a love letter.

Dr. Duncan Tyson wounded an old maid woodpecker that was hitchhiking to Sardis for a family reunion. Brian Harwell must be related to Hicks. He couldn’t hit an elephant on his rear end with a bass fiddle. Dr. Frank Lee says he don’t believe in shooting God’s creatures unless they got more meat on them than a head of lettuce. Ashley Wheeler couldn’t find Dolly Parton in a phone booth if she had the hiccups. But every one of them is a pillar in the community. They vote early and often. They don’t drink, smoke or run around with girls from Greeleyville. They are as pure as Obama’s health plan. And they are all lousy hunters — but the doves you shoot at and miss are getting feeble and Dorn is worried because they all have IRAs at The Citizen’s Bank.

There is one dove so old he remembers when the Lone Ranger hired Tonto, which means Dorn will have to build a nursing home for doves or talk Outback, Olive Garden, Cain’s Barbecue or Jack’s into putting doves on the menu.

— Charlie Walker is a local newspaper columnist. He can be reached at P.O. Box 441, Kingstree, SC 29556.