By Randy Reynolds
Most people don’t know it, but there really is a game bird called the snipe. It flushes like quail and is hunted with bird dogs. Pranksters also use the word in a practical joke that, for generations, older boys have played on younger boys and country folk have pulled on city slickers.
Mormon elders on a mission from Utah, who got snowed in at the Allen Reynolds place in the Glade in Hall County , Georgia
Gold was just a couple of years older than Gene, who was 12 at the time of the last snipe hunt. They were in the same grade at school owing to the fact that Allen had kept Gold in the fields full time before finally allowing him to start school at the age of 10. (Kermit--almost ten years older than his baby brother Gold--had never been to school a day in his life because he had also been kept home to work in the fields at the age most kids were starting school and he just never left.)
The elders had been making converts in the hill country in the eastern part of Hall County , Georgia
As nightfall neared and conversation waned, Gene said, “Perfect snipe weather, ain’t it, Gold?"
“Oh, this is just right, Gene.”
“I sure would love to go hunt some snipes, but we ain’t got enough people. There’s me and there’s you, that’s two. But we gotta have four. Who else can we get to go?”
Allen Reynolds, warming his feet by the fire, stared into the fireplace, pretending not to notice what his son and grandson were cooking up. Chesty allowed herself a barely perceptible shake of her head, not wanting them to pull this prank on her honored guests but not going to tell them not to.
“Y’all probly ain’t never hunted no snipes before,” said Gene.
“Can’t say as I have. I’ve just never been much of a hunter, myself,” said the eldest elder.
“Me neither,” said the younger elder.
“Aww, they ain’t nothin’ to it,” said Gene. “All you do is wait down in a slough while me and Gold go to the other end and run the snipes to you.”
“What are we supposed to shoot ‘em with?” asked the younger elder.
“Ain’t no shootin’ necessary,” said Gene. “You just hold a burlap bag and stay still and don’t make a sound, and when you hear the snipes a-coming, all you got to do is open your bag and they’ll jump right in.”
“How do we know it’ll work?” asked the younger elder.
Gene (the future preacher) was a lying prodigy, so Gold let him do the talking.
Gene (the future preacher) was a lying prodigy, so Gold let him do the talking.
“It’s just in their nature, Brother. When snipes get scared, they look for the first hole to jump in and when they see a open bag, why that’s the biggest, safest hole they ever seen. They jump right in.”
The elder elder said, “Really?”
“Ahhh, man, you’ll have a bagful in no time. We’ll bring ‘em back here and Grandmother will cook ‘em for us, won’t you, Grandmother?”
Chesty, not wanting to lie, chose her words carefully. “Well, Gene, if you bring back some snipe, I will cook ‘em for you.”
“You ought to taste the way Grandmother cooks snipes,” said Gene. “Mmmmmm, mmmmmm. Nobody makes snipe gravy like she does. I mean nobody. Ain't that right, Gold?”
“I ain’t never tasted none better.”
Gene had the ability to look a person in the eyes and speak to their soul. A handsome charmer who had never met a stranger, he would grow up to be a highly accomplished salesman of everything he would ever try to sell: brooms and mops at age 17, cases of Standard coffee at 19, insurance policies on occasion, and religion for more than 60 years. With less than a 10th grade education, he would nonetheless become a member of a college Board of Directors. The same sales ability that would help fuel his rise to such prominence in denominational circles also helped him become the most polished boyhood liar in the Glade.
So, once he started in on the snipe routine, it was a foregone conclusion that the elders would bundle up and follow him and Gold out into the cold night.
They walked for thirty minutes into the wooded hills behind the Reynolds farm till they came to a shallow hollow with a partly frozen creek at the bottom. The boys handed each man a burlap bag and then Gene told the last, best lie of the night, the one that sprang the trap: “We’ll be right back. You’ll see us running behind the snipes. So y’all hold your bags open and don’t move.”
When Gene and Gold were out of sight of the hollow, they meandered back home in a roundabout way so as to ensure that the elders couldn’t follow them to safety.
The boys huddled next to the fireplace, laughing and bragging on themselves. They described every detail of the trick and their kinfolk laughed along with them—maybe even louder than the boys. There was much hooting and hollering about what suckers the elders were and how cold they must be by now in the hollow waiting for snipe to jump into the bags.
After a while, Chesty smiled that sly smile of hers and said, “Gold, you and Gene better go back and get them men. They’re not from around here, you know, and I’ll bet they’re scared and cold by now.”
Gene and Gold wanted to wait a little longer, but Allen told them to go.
Once they were out the door, the elders came out of the warm back room where they’d been hiding ever since they’d gotten home ahead of the boys. The younger elder, the elder elder and the Reynolds family had a rip roaring good time at the expense of Gene and Gold who hunted for the missing men till nigh onto midnight.
--------------------------------------------------
--------------------------------------------------
Long ago, when I was in my "poetry" phase, I heard my dad tell the story of this dirty trick that backfired and I tried to memorialize it for him:
THE LAST SNIPE HUNT
“Them’s big ‘uns,” Gene said,
Cocking his head
To pretend to be listening.
Gold’s eyes was glistening,
'cause he knowed when Gene spoke
It was time for the joke.
“Snipe hunt would be nice,”
He said once or twice.
“But look at that snow—
“Only brave men would go.
“Who the heck could we get?”
Gene started to fret:
“Been many a year
“Since a feller could hear
“Snipe of that size.
“We’d catch us a prize
“If we had someone strong
“To take along.”
“There’s me and there’s you,”
Gene said. “So that’s two.
“But it’s four we desire.”
Then he looked by the fire
Where the two Mormons stood
And asked if they would.
The elders said “Sho!
“If you need us, we’ll go.”
Uncle Gold and young Gene
Knew it was mean
When they left them with sacks
And the wind at their backs,
Sittin’ by a cold stream
In a frozen ravine.
Back home at fireside
They laughed till they cried.
Scorning the elders
As gullible fellers.
Then Chesty spit snuff
And said, “That’s enough.
“Go bring them back in.”
So they went for the men.
But the elders was gone!
Gene, chilled to the bone,
Gold, wide-eyed with fright,
They searched through the night,
Their hearts filled with dread.
It popped in Gene’s head
A search party was needed
And so they retreated,
Stumblin’ and freezin’
And coughin’ and sneezin’
Gettin’ home at midnight--
Where, in the firelight,
Them elders, God bless ‘em
Was smiling like possums.
They’d tricked Gene and Gold
And run in from the cold,
Hidden their sacks
In the room in the back
Till the boys left again
Then they’d come on in
And laughed themselves sick
‘bout the tricksters they tricked.
Gene don’t know as how
From then until now
He’s enjoyed very much
Huntin’ snipe and such.
~Randy Reynolds, 1974
