I Was Married to a Mountain Man

I was raised in Logan County basically with a white collar background. I married a Boone County boy. He was definitely a hard working, blue collar type of guy. The combination created some interesting situations over the years.

When we first moved to Frog's Creek in Kanawha County, I was leaving for work when a rabbit jumped in front of my car. It ran about fifty yards down the road and then hopped back into the field. This happened every morning for a week. I really enjoyed this little routine.

One evening when I came home from work. My husband, Bobby, excitedly met me at the door and proudly announced, "I shot a rabbit right out the front door." he was beaming as he directed me to a wonderful home cooked rabbit dinner complete with all the trimmings.

The smile quickly left his face when I sputterred, "You shot my rabbit!"

Since I had never mentioned my rabbit's daily morning ritual to him, he immediately denied any involvement in killing my bunny. As I stood there loudly proclaiming my dismay, Bobby demanded to know what in the world I was talking about.

I explained the situation to him and we promptly made a new rule. "No fair shooting anything in sight of the house." Needless to say I could not eat the rabbit dinner. Also even though I looked hopefully for my little furry friend the following morning, I never did see him again.

There was another time I decided that I wanted to go hunting with my husband. We drove to a remote area of Boone County. We started climbing straight up the side of a very steep and rugged mountain. Although we used to hike the trails in Chief Logan State Park on a regular basis, we had been on trails, not stumbling up a dry creek bed with rocks dislodging under our feet with every step.

I was ready to rest after only about a hundred feet up. At this point Bobby grabbed my wrist and unmercifully half-pulled and half-dragged me all the way to the top of that mountain. Completely exhausted I stood at the peak of that mountain and admired the beauty of the scenery while he decided which way we needed to go.

Then the thought dawned on me, "hey, he is going to shoot something." I could not bear the idea of witnessing the demise of a poor little squirrel or possibly a deer. I started to run and shout and even slide down the mountain on my rear in the leaves. I had a ball. Unfortunately Bobby was not thrilled about joining me.

When it became obvious that I had scared away any animals in the area we settled into a nice hike and I was able to adequately make up to him for running off the game. After our return home a friend asked him how it went. Bobby told him that I had a great time and we were never going hunting together again.

We made another pact that day. Bobby would hunt it and clean it. I would cook it and eat it. It worked out well.

We used to play a friendly poker game with friends. My hubby was a very good poker player and to say I do not really understand the game would be an understatement. I could tell he was irritated with me on the way home so I asked him what was wrong.

He said, "I am so tired of you losing every penny I make when we play cards. I'll make a deal with you. If you never play again, I will happily give you half of all my winnings."

The only thing I have to say about that is I took many happy shopping trips after that.

Another agreement that worked out well for us.