Seth
Active Member
Today there is a metal pole barn full of farm equipment, but once upon a time there used to stand a small, ramshackle house across the road from my family's farm house. Although my grandpa owned it, the house was always known as "Cotton Eye's Place."
"Cotton Eye" Joe Umbdenstock was a WWI veteran that rented the house from my grandpa for the longest time. He was one of those nostalgic old-timers who also happened to be quite the carpenter. Now I never knew Cotton Eye, but my dad did very well. He used to go fishing with Cotton Eye all the time while he was growing up. They would cruise in to town and buy a can of worms and head out to Lake McBride and sit in lawn chairs along the shore. He was always known for wearing his red Beachnut Chewing Tobacco hat. During hard winters the pipes in his house would freeze and every morning it was my dad's job to take a 5 gallon bucket of fresh water down to him. As he grew older his vision was failing and his body was ailing. A nurse would come to check on him from time to time and make sure he was doing alright. On one particular visit she was apalled to see he had been eating a very moldy green loaf of bread. Now the nurse knew his eyes were bad and that he probably couldn't see the large amounts of mold on this bread so she asked him if he knew that he had been eating this moldy bread. He simply replied, "No, but it tasted alright to me."
These are just a few of the fascinating tales my dad told me about Cotton Eye. Unfortunatly Cotton Eye passed away in 1983 when I was just shy of two months old. However before he left this world he gave my dad a Ranger 20 gauge double barrel shotgun. Cotton Eye told my dad that he got it as payment for building a chicken coop for some woman way back in 1912.
My dad used it hunting while growing up and since then my brother has used it from time to time and has taken a couple of deer with it. Well I decided to try my turn and see if I could take one with it. This morning I was hunting in Jones county with a friend's shotgun group and I was blocking on a drive and a good sized button buck came trotting by me. With two quick pulls of the double trigger the deer had two slugs in it. As it stumbled past my friend he put the finishing touch on him.
I called my dad immediately after and left a message on his cell phone, "Cotton Eye's old double barrel downed another deer, I'll call you if we get anything else." Later that afternoon I got a text message from my dad that said, "Stopped @ old st marys cemetery 2 tell cottoneye u got a deer w/ his gun. He died dec. 4, 1983. 23 yrs ago 2day." I couldn't believe it so I texted the old man back once more asking if he was serious and his reply was this: "Yep. If u lose or break that gun don't bother comin home, pilgrim."
It was a fitting end to one hell of a deer season for me. Needless to say, Cotton Eye's old double barrel might be hung up for good after that one. Or who knows, maybe on December 4th next year I'll take it out and continue the legend of Cotton Eye's old double barrel.
"Cotton Eye" Joe Umbdenstock was a WWI veteran that rented the house from my grandpa for the longest time. He was one of those nostalgic old-timers who also happened to be quite the carpenter. Now I never knew Cotton Eye, but my dad did very well. He used to go fishing with Cotton Eye all the time while he was growing up. They would cruise in to town and buy a can of worms and head out to Lake McBride and sit in lawn chairs along the shore. He was always known for wearing his red Beachnut Chewing Tobacco hat. During hard winters the pipes in his house would freeze and every morning it was my dad's job to take a 5 gallon bucket of fresh water down to him. As he grew older his vision was failing and his body was ailing. A nurse would come to check on him from time to time and make sure he was doing alright. On one particular visit she was apalled to see he had been eating a very moldy green loaf of bread. Now the nurse knew his eyes were bad and that he probably couldn't see the large amounts of mold on this bread so she asked him if he knew that he had been eating this moldy bread. He simply replied, "No, but it tasted alright to me."
These are just a few of the fascinating tales my dad told me about Cotton Eye. Unfortunatly Cotton Eye passed away in 1983 when I was just shy of two months old. However before he left this world he gave my dad a Ranger 20 gauge double barrel shotgun. Cotton Eye told my dad that he got it as payment for building a chicken coop for some woman way back in 1912.
My dad used it hunting while growing up and since then my brother has used it from time to time and has taken a couple of deer with it. Well I decided to try my turn and see if I could take one with it. This morning I was hunting in Jones county with a friend's shotgun group and I was blocking on a drive and a good sized button buck came trotting by me. With two quick pulls of the double trigger the deer had two slugs in it. As it stumbled past my friend he put the finishing touch on him.
I called my dad immediately after and left a message on his cell phone, "Cotton Eye's old double barrel downed another deer, I'll call you if we get anything else." Later that afternoon I got a text message from my dad that said, "Stopped @ old st marys cemetery 2 tell cottoneye u got a deer w/ his gun. He died dec. 4, 1983. 23 yrs ago 2day." I couldn't believe it so I texted the old man back once more asking if he was serious and his reply was this: "Yep. If u lose or break that gun don't bother comin home, pilgrim."
It was a fitting end to one hell of a deer season for me. Needless to say, Cotton Eye's old double barrel might be hung up for good after that one. Or who knows, maybe on December 4th next year I'll take it out and continue the legend of Cotton Eye's old double barrel.
