Wow, I’m sitting here in absolute astonishment with tears welling up in my eyes. The Lord has always been good to me but what just happened is really hard to comprehend. I’ve been moping around this morning trying to put together a photo tribute to my father, Walter ‘Rip’ Smock who died almost 8 years ago. Tomorrow is Dad’s birthday, he would have been 89 years old. A few minutes ago, the mail carrier knocked on the door with a package.
The package looked like it contained a book but I knew I hadn’t ordered any books lately and I didn’t recognize the return address. The package contained a beautiful 400 page hard cover book with a shiny black dust jacket. The books title is A Hundred Years of Texas Waterfowl Hunting by R. K. Sawyer and it is inscribed to me and autographed by the author. I started to thumb through the book but it fell open to page 169 which contains a photo of my Dad and his uncles at their old Chocolate Bayou fishing camp. On the next page is one of their famous rattlesnake photos. Now, you’ll have to excuse me while I go read some of this fine book.
