Hallowed Years

I taught high school English at Charles Page High School in Sand Springs, Oklahoma for 38 years. I was never, ever, the smartest person in the room. I was blessed with students who were ten times smarter than me.

Because they were interested in my life and interests, as all students are about their teachers, eventually they found themselves in front of my desk, generally at the end of the hour and a test, with polite questions about those interests. They learned that I was a "bird hunter", and that I kept bird dogs and hunted quail with them with a near fanaticism. Some of them would walk politely away after learning this, but others would not, there being at that time (1966) a bird dog in nearly every backyard in town.

I trained my dogs with live pigeons whose heads I would tuck under one wing, grasp the bird firmly with two hands, wave them in circles which dizzies the bird, and then place it in a clump of grass and lead the dog trainee up to the bird on a leash and let him scent it and point it, which he will if he is any prospect at all. Which when the pigeon finally regains its equilibrium, it will flush, like a quail, and then you, or a partner, can shoot the bird. A good bird dog will put two and two together and get four in short order. The only problem is that the process takes a lot of pigeons, and catching them alive is not easy.

That's where Robert Fields, a student I taught my first year,1966, at Page comes in. Once he understood that I needed live pigeons by the gross, he immediately volunteered the answer. He knew where to get plenty, as he needed them also to train his hunting hawks and falcons. Yes, I said that. Can you imagine? Barely seventeen years old with an interest in a sport, falconry, thousands of years old? He caught all he needed in an old dilapidated concrete structure located near the intersection of old Sapulpa Road and Highway 51. The structure was a favorite roosting site for pigeons (still is); all we needed to do was enter after dark via a side door, take flashlights to blind the roosting pigeons, and then scoop them up with a dip net, which we did. There was some tricky climbing once inside, but we were both as healthy as we would ever be. Besides, these were hallowed years, those spent wildly by youth, and never forgotten.

You know what I did with my pigeons. Robert took his, alive, out into the countryside around Sand Springs until he spotted a hawk, and then using the simplest trick imaginable, one of pure genius and one that I would never have thought of (I told you I was not the smartest person in my classroom) he would have his hawk in less than five minutes. Tops. No, I'm not going to tell you how he did it. Why would I? If Robert's still with us, I haven't heard from him in years. He can tell you.

Robert would take his hawk (blindfolded) home, tether it on a wooden perch at one end of his garage, and wait for it to get hungry which didn't take long, a hawk's metabolism being what it is. He would approach the bird wearing a thick welder's glove clutching a piece of dead pigeon meat. He'd hold the meat out to the bird and it would eat, every time. In the next few days, he would lengthen the distance between the bird and his hand and gradually the bird would fly the entire length of the garage to get its prize. One day, outside the garage, he would get the tethered bird to fly the length of his small yard to the meat. Then another day, Robert would allow the bird completely off the tether, hope for the best, and allow the bird to fly completely unencumbered. Usually, done. The lessons had been taught. Robert was a far better teacher than me. I have never forgotten him. Those were hallowed years.

Probably 20 years later, another young man approached my desk and learned that I was interested in Indian artifacts. I still am. Phillip Bauer was a kid who lived on the south bank of the Arkansas River west of town, and practically lived on the river bottom itself when away from school. Phillip was one of those students of whom I spoke: so much smarter than me, and full of knowledge about a subject that interested me intensely. He became a teacher to me, as did Robert.

Phillip brought up to my desk all sorts of artifacts. Arrow heads of course, but also flint knives, hide scrapers, awls, and, incredibly to me, tiny decorative beads made of shell. Most of these shell beads (with holes in them) you would have to have had the eyesight of a neuro surgeon to have spotted them out there in the middle of the Arkansas River bed, low water or not. What else?

Buffalo skulls: whole or partial. Yes. So many have forgotten (or no longer care about more than their latest text message) that between Sand Springs and the Rocky Mountains lived one the greatest herds of quadrupeds on the face of the earth. Millions and millions of them. Their remains continue to show up years after the last one was killed by either Indian or white hunter. But where, exactly, do you find them? And how? Phillip taught me that. I haven't forgotten him, or the lesson that he taught me. He taught me so much more than I taught him.

You must wait for the Corps of Engineers to quit generating water. Check the generation schedules, and then get out on the river at its lowest possible level. Stay away from the sand bars. You'll wear yourself out searching them. Concentrate your efforts in the middle of any rocky shoals you can find. Bend over, and peer as if you are looking for your mother's diamond ring, only a quarter carat diamond. Do that and you will begin to find things, Sometimes just the tip of something which you must pry at gently with, yes, the expectation that just below is mom's long lost ring.

Easy. Well, if you have the same intense interest that Robert and Phillip had for things that, well, like Robert Frost require that you take the road less traveled by, the one that makes all the difference.

Thank you, Robert. Thank you, Phillip. Those were hallowed years.

© 2023 Conrad M. Vollertsen