Duck Tale

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, "e;Boy."e; "e;Kid."e; "e;Son."e; Images of our many shared experiences, undervalued during my adolescence, paraded across my mind. My mother reached up to stop my hands, "e;Ricky, it's not helping. We have to let him go."e; 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. "e;Good times"e; 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 "e;going for"e; 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 waterfowler'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!