180class
Well-Known Member
On my way to drop my oldest daughter off at school every morning, I pass this pasture area which is miles away from where we live (she open enrolls). It has been loaded with turkey every morning this week. There are at least 8 hens and 4 big strutters there every time I drive by. So yesterday I decided to look up who owned it on the county assessors page. Now keep in mind, the owner lives quite a ways away, so this is why what happens next was so shocking to me. I figured that this place was already being hunted by somebody else, or the owner wouldn't let anybody hunt, but what the heck, I'll give him a call. It's worth a shot, right? So, I call the guy up and asked if he owned the piece of land I was wondering about. He did. Then I told him who I was and what I wanted. He got real quiet and asked "what's your last name again"? So I told him. What happened next was pretty cool. He asked if I knew a Bob and Bernie Burke that used to live in Iowa. I told him, "Yes, they are my grandparents" All of a sudden the guy started crying. I was sitting there thinking what the heck did my family do to this poor guy? Apparently he said back in the day about 40 years ago, he owned a pharmaceutical company. My Grandma was his receptionist, and my grandpa at the time owned the garbage company in the county I now live in and he would make special trips to pick up this guy's garbage and help him with random things. This guy said that he hadn't heard those two names in over 40 years. He said that in his eyes, my grandparents were two of the best people he had ever had the privilege of knowing. I guess back when my grandma worked for him, there was a big Federal Lawsuit against this guy's company, and my grandma stood up and testified on this guys behalf. He said that without my grandma standing up and testifying, he would have lost his company and lost the lawsuit. He said that her testimony was the only reason they won. He then told me that anybody who is a relation to my grandparents is a friend of his and is always welcome to hunt any of his land. We talked a little longer and he said that just knowing that my grandparents were still alive and doing well, meant the world to him. I thought WOW, what a small world! I called my grandparents up after speaking to this guy and as soon as I said his name, my grandma started yelling and laughing, and apparently they felt the same way about him. I thought it was pretty cool that by chance I just happened to cross paths with this guy that had such a history with my family.
