Steve Fielder
UKC Forum Member
Registered: Dec 2003
Location: Todd, North Carolina
Posts: 254 |
Great thread
When you talk of coon hunter's cafes and coffee shops my thoughts immediately go to the used car lot on the corner of Valley Drive and Prince Streets in Beckley, West Virginia in the early 70's. The lot was owned by the local Pontiac dealer, Raleigh Motor Sales and was operated by coon hunter Cliff Tolbert.
Cliff's office consisted of two rooms. One contained his desk and file cabinets. The walls of the outer room were lined with seats taken from school buses and it was there that a daily crowd of coon hunters sat and talked, beginning at about 10 AM and continuing through and sometimes after lunch. I was in sales in those days and had the time to stop in almost every day. Most of the members of what my friend Howard Meadows and I called "The Liar's Corner," including Howard, have died but the memories of that place will be with me for a lifetime. Should there be any coon hunters from that area and of that era around, you will well remember Cliff, Bob Bolen, Adrian and Kenneth Harper, Lacy and Virgil Adkins, Bill Booth, the barber John Bolen, Dickie Todd, Billy Vaughn, and a host of others.
Cliff would only grant access to the inner office to guys that he happened to be hunting with or who would brag on his old black and white Walker dog, Bruce. On one occasion, he even offered a pickle from his lunch to one of the guys that had said something positive about Old Bruce. From then on, guys would think of something good to say about Bruce and ask Cliff, "Where's my pickle?"
One day, Cliff was telling of a hunt the night before in which there was a deer race. My buddy Howard, who was old enough to be my dad, was a WWII prisoner of war and had been seriously crippled in a coal mining accident but would still hunt those rough mountains all night, asked “Did Old Brucie run it?” Cliff came roaring out of his office waving his cane in the air, red-faced and we were all sure there was going to be a killing. We all fell out on the floor laughing and Cliff retreated to his office and slammed the door.
Another character in that ample cast of characters was Bob Bolen. Bob had an old red dog named Tom. Bob was sold out to the color red, driving a ¾ ton International 4x4 pained bright red to support his breed. Old Tom would tree a coon but absolutely had to be walked over the track and in those mountains and strip jobs that was a lot of walking. Every morning Bob would come sliding in around 10 o’clock waiting for someone to ask him about the previous night’s hunt. Bob would slide into the school bus seat beside someone, grab them by the knee and whisper in their ear, holding up the third, fourth and fifth fingers of his hand and forming the “OK” with the index finger and thumb as he did so, “Honey, I treed three big ones last night.” I doubt Old Tom had treed three coon in his life. One time Bob told me, “Honey, I found a place last night up a big deep holler where the coon $%#t was literally dripping off the limbs.”
I’ll never forget the Liar’s Corner and its cast of characters. Thanks for rekindling the memories.
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“ I know in my heart that man is good, that what is right will always eventually triumph, and there is purpose and worth to each and every life. " - Ronald Reagan
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09-21-2013 02:22 AM
