Some of the most cherished memories are those engendered within one’s own family. One of my two brothers was imbued with the same love of the outdoors and its plethora of components and their workings as I. Naturally the two of us tromped many wooded trails and stirred many fishing waters together. And we amassed more valued memories than anyone deserves. Sadly both brothers have died.

My outdoor life with Ron was a gift we shared that shaped a cherished part of both our lives. But our bonding in the woods and on the waters got off to a slow start. Having already begun school when Ron was born, I suffered from a communication gap from the beginning. Later, I was away at college when he was doing much of his important growing up, including the budding of his love of outdoor things.

Ron marched to a drummer that differed from most anyone else, including me. So in our early years in the deer woods together, our mutual well being was best served by hunting separately.

Then I got married and moved off to another state and the barriers to proper brotherhood intensified. But soon we were meeting at Christmas and on other holidays for brief hunts in Mississippi woodlands and shortly discovered that our appreciation of the outdoors was mutually intense. Soon we began to share outdoor pursuits at every opportunity, and even the ones we experienced apart were shared by telephone promptly after each adventure. “Hello Ron, I didn’t see a deer in the north oat patch but a huge bobcat walked through the field from end to end today. I sent a fawn bleat his way and he turned around, but didn’t seem too interested.”

“Hello, Otha, A barred owl lit in the tree right over my head after I gave a few hoots. I kept calling and he followed me out of the woods.”

These are the kinds of reports we exchanged regularly between the ones when we actually bagged game or landed a big fish.

Looking back for turning points in our relationship, I mark one that led to my appreciation for and addiction to my favorite outdoor sport, hunting wild turkey gobblers in springtime. I had puttered around on the edges of this grand sport for several years, trying on my own to learn the ways of these wily birds that in springtime become one of the worlds’ toughest game animals to get into gun range. My hunts had been futile. But my failures had taught me many things not to do; I was learning.

It would happen for me on a hunt in Copiah County with my brother, who was already hooked on gobbler hunting and had bagged several birds. I lived hundreds of miles away, but squeezed in a spring hunt while returning from a nearby business meeting. Ron and I spotted the gobbler in late afternoon crossing the corner of a large field. His steady march into adjacent timber suggested he likely would roost there for the night.

Before daylight I slipped into those woods and listened to the old bird’s early gobbles. When he flew down I called him in and carried him out of the woods to show to my brother. We were jubilant. Unforgettable.

Looking back now, that hunt not only tightened our bond, but provided one of the biggest boosts to my writing career. I sold the story of the hunt to Outdoor Life magazine, which gave me the confidence I needed to later expand my freelance writing.

Years later I got a chance to return my brother’s favor by introducing him to elk hunting. Colorado’s rifle season came on the tail end of the elk rut and some bulls were still bugling. We stalked amidst several herds of elk before the season opened, listening to elk talk and practicing bugling to them.

On opening day, Ron bugled once and a fine bull charged in. Ron’s hunt was over. In an hour he had bagged a bull larger than any I had taken in years of hunting them. What a memory.

One summer we fished a familiar lake near Ellisville for bass and Ron was catching fish with little effort and I was catching nothing. I was using the same lure, but later learned that his lure was a shorter model; by a scant half inch yet! Were the bass partial to minnows of a specific length or were they just trying to give us something to laugh about? Who knows, but their discrimination engendered another fun day for memories

When I retired and moved back to Mississippi, Ron and I squeezed hunts and fishing trips in the rare spare hours of his busy schedule. We filled our mental storehouses to overflowing with memories. A special time was when Ron’s assignment with the Methodist Church was to Ellisville in Jones County. Two of his church family were Clarence Putnam and Larry Walters and their families. These guys were fellow members of the “Order of Outdooraholics” and deep associations ensued and grew to lifetime friendships among the four of us. That association continues today for me with these friends he loved.

Ron bagged his share of game and fish, even with severely limited mobility as he aged. These trips, and actually every step he took, had its price in pain, a disheartening decline from the days when he would race through the woods to get ahead of a spooked deer. Knee replacements kept him going as he ignored pain for many years both before and after the operations. He never mentioned the pain when we were doing outdoor things. He taught me that the outdoor life is a perfect pain medicine.

Each day that I suffer pains of aging, I remember Ron’s cure and go to nature’s fields or woods or waters. Sure enough, the hours there push pain far into the background. Like my brother, I can forget discomfort and go to the back side of the mountain or the distant fishing hole unimpeded. And,with Ron as my guide, I can get on with the business of making outdoor memories.