Squirrels not important at annual squirrel hunt

When I saw that the boys stayed home, I knew the squirrels in this part of the Ozarks were going to be safe this year.

The event was the eighth annual Crutchfield Family Squirrel Hunt, which is always held somewhere in the Ozark National Forest. This year, we returned to Haw Creek Falls campground, a good launching point to a lot of prime hunting country in Johnson and Pope counties. We almost never kill any squirrels, but that’s not the point.

We’re all flatlanders from Grant and Hot Spring counties. We always seem to have bumper crops of squirrels back home, but we don’t have the transcendent beauty of the Ozarks and that crisp mountain air. We go north for a lot of reasons. Squirrel hunting is merely the backdrop.

My boys used to accompany me on this hunt, but other interests have taken them away. My oldest son Ethan works weekends. Middle son Daniel is in the service. Youngest son Matthew is crazy about fishing, but he doesn’t care a whit about hunting. Then there’s my oldest daughter Amy. She’s always been my most predatory child. On walks around town as a toddler, she picked up oak or maple “rifles” and killed enough deer, elk, elephants and antelope to feed the Corps ofDiscovery for a month. She joined the Crutchfield hunt last year and started planning for this year’s installment in September.

Likewise, the Crutchfields brought a whole raft of boys the first few years. They were the ones that killed all the squirrels. We adults spent a few hours in the woods mornings and evenings, but we were content if we didn’t fire a shot. We were all about sitting around the fire, swapping stories and complaining about the Razorbacks.

Fewer boys came in successive years until finally it was just Austin Crutchfield and whatever friend he brought. This year Austin was gone as well, but Paul Crutchfield of Prattsville brought his daughter Lindsey, 12.

The transition appears complete. Girls rule now, and their presence kind ofsmoothed off some of the rougher edges. They are of an age when other interests will take them away as well, and then it’ll just be ... well, we’re not exactly old geezers, but some of us have a finger over the doorbell. I mean, Wayne Crutchfield, our wagonmaster, “likes” AARP on his Facebook page.

Some day, the kids will start filtering back as they return to their roots. It happened to me. It happens to all of us. We get busy, and then we crave a refuge where we can recharge and relax. We go back to familiar things that gave us so much joy in less complicated times. Those things - hunting and fishing - get better with age. The flavor is richer, and sweeter.

Traditions get established in eight years. Like me arriving late. I always drive up to the fire and ask: “Is this theCrutchfield Camp?” Paul said he doesn’t feel like the weekend has officially started until he hears that greeting.

Then there is Paul’s camp coffee, brewed on the little blue propane stove that he bought decades ago for $5 at a yard sale. It’s better than Starbucks coffee, and I love Starbucks coffee.

Or Wayne’s peach cobbler, which he bakes in his camper oven on Saturday night. Canned peaches, a box of white cake mix and two sticks of butter. It’ll put you down faster than a stiff shot of Crown.

Or the way Bryan Couch and his dad kind of take over the campfire talk on Saturday night. They start slow, kind of like distant thunder in the hollows. Before long, Bryan’s throwing zingers and oneliners around like lightning bolts.

His dad is his wingman, kind of like Johnny and Ed. They didn’t come for a few years, and those sessions remind us how much we missed them. Same with Marion Crutchfield, the patriarch. Whenever you feel up to it, we’ve got a place next to the fire for you.

And, we always relive that first year, when I led the entire group on a death march to an old homesteader’s cabin deep in a remote hollow. “Just a short hike,” I said. It was many near-vertical miles, and it took all day.

Since it was the last weekend of muzzleloader deer season, I hunted more than ever this year, but not for squirrels. In fact, we didn’t even see one to shoot.

If we were concerned about that, we’d go somewhere else.

I doubt we ever will.