My great-grandfather lived from 1895 to 1976. He was a pretty fair turkey hunter from what I gather, from a time when turkeys were scarce in PA. The turkey hunting genes apparently skipped two generations before landing on me with a vengeance. I never met old Pap pap, he died seven months before I was born, but I was weaned on stories of his prowess in the woods. Before my grandfather passed on in 2009, he gave me an old box call that Pap pap had built sometime around 1915-1920, best as we can figure. The lid is American chestnut, and the box is a mystery wood of an odd configuration . The side of the box was badly damaged, but I got the idea in my head to salvage the lid and fashion a new box to the lid's dimensions, and perhaps arrive at a functional call. So I salvaged the top from an old cherry end table and built a new box for the old lid. End result is a working man's box call, that while it may never win a beauty contest or fetch a premium price, an authentic flock of turkeys reside within the old wood, and the sentimental value of the call is absolutely priceless. I'm hoping maybe between the old man and me, we can waylay a tom or two this spring, and break the new call in right. Bridge time and space if only for one or two foggy spring mornings and share the hunt that fate would not allow.
