This morning, my thoughts return to the Bus Trip across America that Mom and Dad thought I was mature enough and big enough to handle at age fourteen. And I want to tell the story of my stay in Boise, Idaho where I visited the Morley Nelson family.
To this day, I do not know how our family knew the Nelson family. It may have been that Mom knew Morley Nelson when she was working in a hospital for returning Vets from WW II which she did right after the War ended. Or Dad could have known Morley from his days on the road as a salesman for Crown-Zellerbach, the paper and forest company. I do not know but suffice it to say, our families were connected, back then. So stopping for a few days with them was always part of the extensive planning my parents did before I left New York City that Summer, in 1964.
A little background on Morley is necessary here to know who he was back in the day. This background is what I knew about him and not from some other source, then or now. Walt Disney used to put out these films about Nature and all the life forms that inhabited specific locations across the World. These films explored in depth all the creatures, great and small that lived in a specific location. These films by Disney would explore all facets and the nook and crannies of a Region. So the one I remember is specifically was called “The Living Desert.” (Release date 1953) Disney went around the World filming and exploring a separate and distinct environments for these films which were shown in theatres across America. (for instance, the next in the series was called the The Vanishing Prairie, release date date 1954.)
Anywhoo, when Disney made these films, he would need help from various people who had birds and animals that were available so that there was some realism about how these animals would interact and be an integral, natural and indigenous part of that particular environment, in this case, the Living Desert. So Disney would recruit various people across the globe who could provide these animals for filming. And that is why Disney called on Morley and used his birds to film with in these films. In Morley’s case, Disney or his people knew of Morley’s world-wide expertise and his specialty was Birds of Prey meaning all kinds of hawks and eagles. At his place in Boise, he had everything one would need to raise these birds and keep these birds for extensive periods of time. I know he would rescue injured birds of prey from all across the region and nurse them back to health and releasing them back into the wild after they had healed.
One other thing I knew about Morley was that back in those days,(1950s) Saudi princes would fly him and his birds to Saudi Arabia so the Saudi princes could hunt with their birds and Morley’s birds and the Saudi princes could learn from him and his birds. Morley showed me photos of these expeditions where they would all pile into Cadillac convertibles with their birds and go out into the desert and hunt with their birds. These expeditions involved large convoys of support vehicles carrying supplies for an extended stay in the desert. These Saudi princes loved taking their birds of prey out in the desert to hunt and Morley had a world-wide reputation and expertise in Birds of Prey and the Saudi princes knew this and that is why they would fly him and his birds to Saudi Arabia from Boise to participate in these desert hunts. So that is the Morley Nelson I knew back then, 1964.
I arrived in Boise on the Greyhound bus and Morley and his kids picked me up and took me to their home. It seemed that I arrived just as the birds Morley was keeping, needing feeding. Me, Morley and one of sons loaded all of our gear into a full-size, four-wheel drive Ford Bronco and headed out to an Air Force base, near Boise. On the trip out, Morley told me that you never feed birds of prey store- bought meat, they only could be fed fresh-killed wild animals, in this case prairie dogs. The Air Force base had an extensive prairie dog village and the Air Force allowed Morley to hunt and kill as many prairie dogs as he wanted.
When we loaded up the Bronco, we brought several handguns. All this was new to me so I did not ask what we were going to do with these guns but it soon became apparent as Morley explained to me on the ride out to the base. As he explained, we would drive the Bronco to the prairie dog village on base and wait. Since Morley and his sons did this quite often to feed the birds, the prairie dogs would go back down their holes based on the Bronco’s approach to their village. Then, after awhile, the prairie dogs would get curious when the Bronco was silent and not making any noise or rumbling around, disturbing the ground. As the curious prairie dogs would emerge from their various holes surrounding the Bronco, we would wait in the Bronco until the prairie dogs would finally stand up fully at their respective holes and look around, eyeballing the area. When this happened, Morley explained to me that we would take up a handgun, in this case a .357 Magnum and shoot them. But this was not a guaranteed result because the prairie dogs legs would involuntarily propel them back into their holes, even though they were mortally wounded. So Morley’s son was positioned at the rear of the Bronco, to run and get the prairie dog before the prairie dog had a chance to escape back down his hole. I was seated in the passenger side of the vehicle and Morley reached into the back seat and retrieved the .357 Magnum. He gave me a quick but thorough course on gun safety which I absorbed wholeheartedly and said: “OK you got it, now sight down on one and pull the trigger.”
There you go but Morley did not understand that these prairie dogs blended so perfectly into the landscape that I had difficulty spotting even one as they were standing up. After awhile, my eyes adjusted and lo and behold, there they were, everywhere whereas, before my eyes adjusted, all I could see was the desert and no prairie dogs, anywhere. It was magic as my eyes adjusted so I sighted down one and fired. I missed but enjoyed the whole process of firing the gun including the recoil and just being able to shoot at a living target which would end up feeding the birds of prey, back home at Morley’s house. The missed shot freaked out the prairie dogs and they scrambled back down their holes. But this time, I was ready for them since I could finally see them. So the next shot, I nailed one and Morley’s son sprinted after it and got it before it’s involuntarily moving legs propelled back them down their hole.
Boy Howdy, as 14 yo kid shooting a .357 Magnum for the first time and actually hitting my target repeatedly was exhilarating and exciting, to say the least. I loved it especially since I knew I was helping to feed the birds of prey their essential diet. We spent most of the afternoon, shooting and killing prairie dogs but we, also, knew, according to Morley, that we needed to leave and get this fresh meat back to the birds. So we did. Upon our return to the house and Morley’s birds, I watched with fascination how the birds tore into these prairie dogs, efficiently and totally consuming the dogs. The eagles and hawks, housed in their aviaries were a sight to behold, magnificent and proud as they sat there and waited to be fed. Their steely eyes watching you warily, unblinkingly while you stood there. They knew Morley but I was a new entity, watching them, watching me. One of those great moments that day, along with all the other new experiences I was experiencing that day, all because Mom and Dad knew I could handle a Bus Trip around the country, by myself unaccompanied and alone. That day in Boise was, in retrospect, a peak experience, as we say now, forever etched and laid down in my memory banks.
Sitting here, 60 years later, this memory is still fresh as a daisy. The indelible imprint on my mind of that day is one I will carry as long as I shall live and in my opinion, righteously so. It was glorious day and one which possibly had an on-going effect on my development as a human, growing up as I did. In addition, I was able to grok the interconnected nature of all things (us, included) in the environment and in the world, in general. All in all, a very great day and one I am forever thankful for as I move through this life on this planet.
”What a looooong strange trip it’s been.”
