Every fall during hunting season, my cousin Lefty Hammelweis comes down from Georgia to hunt. He will hunt everything; since Mamaw and Uncle Muddy have 150 acres, he likes to come visit us, hunt and fish and see us kids, stuff like that.

Uncle Muddy says Lefty was born with a rifle in one hand, and a hammer and fishing rod in the other. He is a construction contractor and has a lot of crews that work and build houses for him. He has one of those four door trucks that you need a stepladder to get in and out of, and he seems to always drive a brand new one.

One thing about Lefty; he is just about the nicest man anyone on earth would ever want to meet. He treats everyone like they are his best friend when he meets them, and the girls run after him like crazy. He hasn’t had one catch him yet that we know of; he likes to say “I’m waiting on the right one, but she ain’t showed up just yet.”

Mamaw likes to plant a fall garden, with greens and such and the rabbits always tend to get to it even though its about ten minutes from the house. We always help her plant it, hoe it and fertilize it. Me, I love to work out there with her and Uncle Muddy, but Shady can’t stand it. He whines the whole time, guzzles the cold water, kicks dirt clods so Mamaw generally makes Shady stay at the house and do other chores.

Anyway, Lefty came down this fall to help control the rabbit population. Mamaw made sure to get a permit from the game warden so we could hunt these rabbits at night, since spotlighting game is illegal here. Me, Uncle Muddy and Lefty and Shady all went out after dinner with our headlamps and Muddy and Lefty had their .22 rifles. Mamaw called after us as we left, “You boys will have some hot peach cobbler a-waiting when you get back with that mess of rabbits.”

The field is about ten minutes from the house, and we were on the far side away from the house, which is probably as big as three football fields and flat as a pancake. It was really dark and we were trying to see if we could scare up some rabbits, when we saw a light in the sky. I knew it was a helicopter, and it was probably the Army boys from Camp Shelby doing night maneuvers, but I decided to razz Shady and tell him it was a UFO.

Shady bristled scared but didn’t say anything. We all stopped and looked and the helicopter was getting closer and closer. We all talked and wondered what they called themselves doing, since they got low and really close, and shined the helicopter light on us. After that they landed, right there in the middle of the field. We walked up to four men in Army uniforms, and they asked us what was going on? We told them we were spotlighting for rabbits, population control and they told us they had been flying for two hours and needed a pee break, so they landed here.

We all had a good laugh, and talked to the Army guys a minute before they got back in and flew off. Everyone except Shady. Shady was nowhere to be found. Poof! Gone! I wondered where he went since his rabbit bag was still there. I looked around and called his name and we all decided he probably went home. I knew what happened though..

We called it an early night and walked the ten or so minutes back to the house and there sat Shady, still bawling. Mamaw yelled, “Peter Hegelund, what did you and those other two do to my child? He came in screaming all mortal crazy about a ‘BFO’ and ‘green men’ coming to get us.” We were all laughing, which made Mamaw madder at me. “I know you scared that child on purpose Pete, shame on you and may the Lord have mercy on your wretched, tormented soul come judgement day, the things you say to that frightened child! Get to your room instantly!”

Needless to say, I didn’t get any peach cobbler that night, and I didn’t get to go fishing the whole time Lefty was here. Was it a mean thing to do to Shady? Probably, but I just couldn’t pass up that one time perfect opportunity. Mamaw could spank me ten times and starve me for a week, and I would still be laughing about it.