A BS story about how the "Turd Bird" got it's name
Since the expression "BS" and the name Baldy Baldwin are so closely entwined as most who frequent this site are aware, I thought you might be interested in hearing a story about how a new species of quail got it's name.
The story takes place in the mid to late 70's around the area of Lake Corpus Christi, Texas, or more specifically a piece of land that Baldy had leased for quail and deer hunting. If there was one thing he loved as much or maybe more than boat racing and the people involved, it was the sight of a good bird dog on point, another honoring, and then the sound of a flushing covey of wild Texas quail and the taste of same from a good days hunt. I was fortunate to have been invited to hunt with him quite a few times, and also fortunate to have a wife working for an airline that allowed me to hop on an airplane for practically nothing and go to see and hunt with him at the drop of hat,as I had an outside sales job and my time was pretty much my own as long as I did my job. Anyway, he called, I went, and we found ourselves together with a couple of dogs and Ray Hardy (no, the dogs werent Ray's wives) and we were having a grand old time watching good dogs work, shooting wild quail (hard to get those kind anymore) and all the good natured harrassing that goes along with hunting with Baldy. If you never hunted with him all I can tell you is you better not miss an easy shot or a hard one either or you would never hear the end of it. He shot a 28 guage 1100 Remington automatic, and I shot a 12 guage pump and there is probably twice as much shot in the 12 guage shell as the 28, but you better be on your best behaviour if you wanted to outshoot him, even with that advantage, and it happen very rarely, not only with me but many others we hunted with. He was just an excellent shot, a skeet champion many times over, as was most of his family.
It was getting late in the day, probably 5:30/6:00 pm, and we were probably already hunting too late in the day as it was getting dusk and hard to see. In addition I was wearing a pair of prescription sun glasses, had left my clear glasses in his Suburban, and wasn't really seeing that well because of the dark tint of the glasses and the approaching darkness. Just about the time we were going to quit and go back to the car, the dogs went on point. Somebody stepped in and flushed the birds and I dropped one on the other side of a fence that bordered an open field with nothing but fresh plowed dirt and clods in it. I ran as quick as I could and got through the fence so I could get to where I had marked the bird down. I saw what I thought was the quail lying partly under a big clod of dirt (remember it is almost dark and I still have my sunglasses on) so I bend over to pick it up, as the dog is trying to find a bird either Ray or Baldy knocked down and just as I touch it I realize it is not the quail but a cow turd or in other words "real BS". I immediately raised back up because I knew if Baldy saw me come up with a turd in my hand I would NEVER hear the end of it. TOO LATE..... He saw what I had my hand on,and the He Haw's started and continued all the way back to the house and late into the nite and until he dropped me off at the airport a couple of days later for my trip back home. I thought it would die down after a couple of weeks, but it went on and on and on like he was prone to do if he caught you making an *** out of yourself, and as anyone who knew him well can tell you, he was an expert at catching you.
Several months went by and Eileen and I were in a resturant in southern Missouri, called "Lamberts, Home of Throwed Rolls" where the waiters and waitresses toss your rolls from 20/30 ft away instead of putting them on your table in a basket. Just another hot spot to frequent if you come to Missouri, but anyhow,as we were paying our bill, I noticed at the cash register among the knick/knacks for sale, was a small bell jar, like you would hang an antique watch or other memento in, with a glass cover over it, with small brown turds fastened together with toothpicks and adorned with pink feathers so it looked like a small bird with a cardboard beak. Eileenmmediately said "we have to get that for Baldy, as it is a real turd bird", so we bought it and I wrote a quite lengthy description with the appropriate latin phrases, like "Turdis Birdis, Ozark species, etc., etc., and we boxed it up and sent it to him. As Wayne mentioned in another thread I believe, it immediately became one of his prized possessions and was displayed on his book case in the bar/kitchen/ area and he would tell the story to anybody who would listen about the "Turd Bird", and the dumb *** who killed it.
Wayne said in the other thread that it was burned in the house fire that destroyed Baldy's home, but I visited with him in the mid 90's I believe,after the fire and he showed it to me as one of the very few things he saved besides a few of his guns,when he woke up in the middle of the night with his house on fire. There was certainly nothing funny about the fire, but Baldy did tell one amusing story about that nite. When he discovered the house on fire in the middle of the night, the phone line was already burned in two, as the fire started in a laundry room where the junction box for the phones was located. He ran out to the car port, backed the Surburban out and got on the radio to his business in Alice, to have them call the fire dept. The house burned to the ground either before they got there or was so fully engulfed by the time they did, that they were of little help. Anyway, the Surburban had about 150,000 or more miles on it and Baldy always said he should have pulled it back under the carport and let it burn too, as it was the only thing that was not a total loss and it was worn out. He said "that was the biggest case of dumb *** I ever saw, and it was right here at home".
There are many story's that can be told with him at the center, and he would be proud I know to be known as one of the biggest "BSr's" of all time.