Sounds That Bind
There’s nothing like waking up before daybreak, putting on your clothes, lacing up your boots, and seeing what the morning sunshine brings with it. I’ve heard people talk about “the thin place.” A place where there isn’t much room between here and heaven. The spring woods is a place that is as thin as it gets.
New life all around. Trees greening after a winter-long rest. Birds singing their songs to anything that will take the time to listen. Seeing the sun come shining through treetops. All of this makes a spring morning—but they all pale in comparison to the moment a gobble sounds off.
For the better part of my life, my new year doesn’t start until I hear that sound. The first three months after hearing my other favorite sound at NYE are spent waiting for that moment. Sound. That sound ties turkey hunters together, just like the sound of the band ties us all together. We know it. We hear it. We love it. It encapsulates us from the first note—whether it’s the bird or the band.
Those two sounds have meant so much to me throughout the years. No matter what I was going through, those two sounds meant new life. They meant an adventure was about to begin. They’ve taken my mind to places I would have never dreamed it could go to.
You never know where either is going to take you—whether it’s a spring morning outside or a venue surrounded by your friends. That sound is happiness. That sound is lifeblood.
How funny is it that no matter how different we are, that sound ties us together? Those first notes of a show always send chills down my spine. No matter how bad I thought everything was going, that sound hid me from it—much like that first gobble.
A springtime gobbler and Widespread Panic. Two beautiful gifts. I don’t chase the latter as much as I’d like to these days, but they will always be the sound that plays in my mind—along with Mr. Longbeard.
—Han
