Farewell to a Man of Passion and Grace

Recently I lost a dear friend of mine who had introduced me to the pleasures of hunting and had opened my eyes to the wonders of nature. Joseph Helbly, an unassuming and humble backwoodsman, passed away last week and was laid to rest in the same hallowed land where he was born some 80-plus years ago in north central Pennsylvania.

Joseph Helbly (Oscar to his family and Buddy to his friends) was an unusual man. Not many people outside Lock Haven, Pennsylvania, where he lived and worked, knew him. But in that small town nestled in the Allegheny Mountains on the west branch of the Susquehanna River he was as well known as some of hollows and the creeks in those mountains. He belonged to a rare breed of mountain folk who cling to their land to eke

out a meager living and live a full life while doing it. In the process they pass on the cherished traditions of courtesy, generosity and grace to a new generation.

Our paths crossed almost thirty years ago in Lock Haven Hospital when I operated on his wife Thelma for a ruptured appendix. She had driven to the hospital herself because her husband had gone fishing. I took an instant dislike for the man even before I had a chance to meet him. Buddy was finally located fishing on one of his favorite creeks hours from the nearest dirt trail. I had expected a rough and tough backwoodsman, angry at being pulled away from his favorite pastime but instead I found a soft-spoken, pleasant and humorous man. In time I learnt more about him, his work and his passion for hunting. It was the beginning of a friendship that spanned three decades.

He was active until a few years ago when the death of his wife accelerated the process of aging and decline. He had worked full time at the Piper aircraft factory in Lock Haven, farmed couple hundred acres of land operated a small sawmill on his property and was as a volunteer fire marshal. In between he hunted what ever was in season and in the

mountains of Pennsylvania there is always a season to hunt something.

As the world around him changed he did too but to a certain extent. He traded his team of horses and handsaws for a tractor and a gasoline-powered engine but he remained attached to his land and his passion for hunting. His life was not compartmentalized into pigeonholes of work, leisure, family and other activities. Seamlessly and effortlessly one flowed into the other and by the time the day was called, it was a usually a well-spent day.

I hunted with Buddy and his hunting gang the first time in 1974. In his fifties at the time he was strong as a bull and sure-footed as a billy goat. The gang included older men of all ages, including young men in their teens. The young ‘uns’ as the teenagers were called, minded their manners, watched their p’s and q’s in the presence of elders and in due course developed a healthy respect for wildlife, for the environment and for each other.

During one of our hunting forays into the mountains we came across an abandoned carcass of a doe. Apparently the hunter had shot the wrong gender or perhaps had shot one too many. Buddy looked at the carcass with sadness and said, ‘I wish I could wring the neck of that bastard’. There was concern for wildlife and anger for the wanton killing in his spontaneous remarks.

At the conclusion of each hunting season we would gather in Sonny Sorgan’s barn to process the deer and enjoy each other’s company. In that setting the soothing glow of home made peach wine added to the comforting warmth of a pot-bellied wood burning stove. As we butchered we related stories, both short and tall, of our previous hunts. How bill Nestlerode got lost along the ridge in Queens Run and was rescued after dark, how they came across a hibernating bear while trekking an injured buck and how an irate wife refused to let her husband set foot outside the home during hunting season.

The conversation always drifted to the row of deer antlers nailed to the walls of the small barn. Dwarfed by the trophy antlers were a pair of spikes that I had bagged near the Rock Hollow. Buddy, with a twinkle in his eyes, would narrate the story how Sonny had to shave the hair from the pit of the spikes to make them pass the legal length (length of a spent 308-caliber cartridge or the width of a dollar bill) but only by a hairbreadth. Ever the master storyteller, Buddy could relate the same story many times over and still keep it funny. His passage has left a big void in his hunting gang and also in the community.

In a fitting tribute to their buddy the young ‘uns’ of his hunting gang, now in their thirties and forties, carried his casket for burial in the cemetery on top of the hill that overlooks the Swissdale hollow where he was born and had lived all his life.

(Dr. S. Amjad Hussain is an op-ed columnist for the daily Toledo Blade).