Mark Rutledge: If Jerry Clower wasn't dead, he'd still be the funniest man alive

My grandfather, Wheeler Walters, enjoyed listening to country comedian Jerry Clower tell stories — especially “A Coon Huntin' Story.”

A master storyteller also, Wheeler had some great tales. But he marveled at Clower's superior delivery in that distinctive Mississippi cadence. Granddaddy called Clower “the funniest man alive.” They've both been gone now for years.

Wheeler loved to coon hunt. He took me with him one time when I was a kid. And when I say “one time,” I mean he never took me hunting again.

As much as I'd wanted to go with him, I found that I really had no desire to shoot woodland creatures — nor did I want to see any die by my grandfather's gun. So I talked and walked loudly enough to give the animals a sporting chance.

Clower used those same words, “sporting chance,” in “A Coon Huntin' Story.” His neighbor and hunting companion, John Eubanks, Clower said, believed in giving everything “a sporting chance.”

“He didn't believe in shootin' no coon out of no tree,” Clower said.

The legendary story has Eubanks climbing a huge sweetgum tree in the darkness of a hunt to knock out a coon their dogs had treed.

“But it wasn't a coon,” Clower says near the story's uproarious climax. “It was a lynx. We called 'em souped-up wildcats in Amite County.”

It is impossible to retell this story here with anything approaching the degree of hilarity that Clower achieved. But just know that by the time John Eubanks is being attacked by that wildcat, and starts begging for someone on the ground to shoot said cat, Clower has built up a wave of hysterical anticipation among the audience.

“Whaaaaaw, this thang's killin' me!” he has Eubanks hollering from the top of the tree. “Shoot this thang!”

“… John, I can't shoot up in there. I might hit you.”

John said, “Well just shoot up in here amongst us. One of us got to have some relief.”

After watching my 9-year-old daughter in a softball game the other night, I went home and listened to Jerry Clower tell “A Coon Huntin' Story” again. It had been a long time.

What made me want to hear it was a conversation I'd had with Dewey Keel during the game. Dewey is a tobacco-chewing, white-haired man who speaks with an eastern North Carolina rhythm and drawl that makes you want to keep the conversation going just to hear him talk.

My daughter was pitching, and Dewey's granddaughter was catching. As we stood watching from behind the backstop, I remarked that when a runner is stealing home on a wild pitch, the catcher should throw the ball toward the plate the very second she gets to the ball — without looking, if need be.

Dewey thought for a minute, spit, then said, “Yeah, sometimes you just got to shoot up in there amongst 'em.”

He knew somehow that I would know exactly where that came from, though we'd never discussed Clower or even coon hunting.

I sure wish Dewey could have known Wheeler. They would have had a lot to talk about.

Contact Mark Rutledge at mrutledge@coxnc.com or (252) 329-9575.