Before “Bud” Oliver was one of the youngest football players at Baton Rouge High, and before he became a husband, World War II veteran, and father, he was a “swamp hunter.”
Somewhere in the DNA of this 100-year-old Baton Rougean – he and his family and friends celebrated this milestone this weekend – a researcher will find some swamp water from the Atchafalaya Basin in its veins.
Although he hasn’t been to a duck hideout in 10 years – and what an avid duck hunter would love to hunt until he’s 90 – he still remembers those days and last week painted a picture of his most memorable day at his beloved Atchafalaya- Swamp.
“It’s all there,” said Oliver, glancing at a duck collar adorned with “duck jewellery,” a set of leg bands derived from the wild waterfowl he’s captured over 70 years of hunting.
“I took three banded mallards one morning and all three were banded in different areas,” he said. “My son-in-law, Chet Thompson, was with me. What a hunt! Never heard of anyone doing that.
“We hunted from a camp I built, a one-bedroom house, in Sawyer’s Cove, and hunted from a pirogue I built. That’s what you had to do if you loved hunting and fishing like I did,” he said.
Oliver’s home is full of memories. His wife’s photograph holds pride of place among the memorabilia of his hunting and fishing treasures.
He recounted how one day he saw Shirley walking down Fifth Street asking her out, a day that passed shortly after he was drafted into marriage. He talked about playing for Butch Helveston at Baton Rouge High and how none of the nearly 40 players in his 1940 team photo were alive but him. Oh, that 12-7 loss to Catholic High at Tiger Stadium on Thanksgiving Day.
He spoke of his three years in the US Army, the invasion of the Philippines, his post-war occupation service in Japan, his return to Shirley and the founding of their family, and with a certain sadness in his voice, of their 75 years together before Shirley passed three years ago.
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