HOUSTON CHRONICLE
September 25, 2004

Brothers in Arms

For amputee dove hunters, competition, camaraderie and kidding leave no time for pity

Mike Tomblin isn't ready for a road trip.

He's just out of the hospital, recovering from an industrial accident that cost him his right arm.

So he's going to fly. The Midwesterner heard about a dove hunt for upper-extremity amputees in a remote town in Texas, and he has to know whether he'll ever cradle a gun and shoot again. Already he misses the chase, and the beauty of the outdoors, the campfires, the camaraderie, the laughter that comes along with it.

For Tomblin, usually the Good Humor man, there have been too many tears and too few laughs lately.

It's about 1,000 miles from Cincinnati to Olney, just south of Wichita Falls. Tomblin and his wife, Tina, arrive at the rodeo grounds on a Friday afternoon, well into the first day of the weekend extravaganza that is the 33rd annual One-Arm Dove Hunt.

There will be multiple events, horseshoe and cow-chip tosses, barbecues and an auction, in addition to the dove hunt. The Tomblins have stumbled into the trap-shooting competition. Amputees, row after row of men missing whole arms or just hands and wrists, are firing at clay targets. Some are excellent shots. Most greet each other like long-lost brothers. Several turn to the Tomblins, obvious newbies, and welcome them, too.

It's heart balm for folks who can hardly wait for the September reunion with their one-armed brethren but would only scoff at conventional therapy.

Northrup, the junior Jack at 69, lost his right arm in an auto accident in the Army when he was 21. He's not bragging when he says, "You can go to all the conventions and therapy in the world, but you'll get more real help by talking to Jack and me."

Bishop, 82 and the senior Jack, lost his left arm to bone cancer when he was 14 months old.

"I've lived in this little country town all my life -- I've never moved out of this voting precinct, " he says. "I know everybody, and everybody knows me. My wife and I were born a mile from each other. We played together as babies."

The mention of Imogene makes Bishop's eyes water. She was a prime force behind the dove hunt, but now she's sick with cancer. Bishop is terrified he's going to lose her. The retired county commissioner and rancher steadies himself with a cornball joke. "I've had one arm for 81 years. I'm about to get used to it."

Others in the dusty field catching Tomblin's eye are Doug Davis, 34, of Saukville, Wis., who lost not one limb but all four while he fought a blood infection in 1995, Thomas Navarro, 9, of Boerne, and Joey Lambrix, 11, of Beatrice, Neb. Thomas was born with one arm, and Joey was born with none.

Davis, the quadruple amputee, uses prostheses to steady his gun and pull the trigger. Thomas aims and fires with help from his stepdad. And Joey, working from a sitting position, steadies his gun with his feet and fires by blowing into a tube that activates the trigger.

Both boys are radiant. Joey, a first-timer like Tomblin, has never seen so many amputees in his life. Thomas, on his fourth reunion, basks in the love showered on him by his many honorary uncles and aunts. Several women have competed in the past, but this year, they are there to cheer.

"At school," Thomas says, "if somebody makes fun of me, I threaten to hurt 'em. Here, everybody just jokes around about it. Nobody means it."

Then trap shooting is over for another year, and the crowd moves to the civic center for hamburgers and tables laden with homemade desserts. Behind each dish is a townswoman eager to support the visitors.

Olney was a bustling place about 25 years ago. Then the oil boom went bust, the town's savings-and-loan went south, and, over time, a few hundred citizens drifted away. Today, almost 3,400 townspeople are holding their own, and the dove hunt is flourishing.

Northrup guesses they started with 15 dove hunters way back when and welcomed about 70 this weekend. A few come alone, but most bring spouses, parents, siblings or children. Bills are paid by charitable citizens, generous amputees and an auction that takes place after the hamburgers, the homespun entertainment and the introduction of newcomers.

Money that's left over goes to scholarships for kids in town. It's the amputees' way of saying thank you.

Outrageous humor

Both Jacks are masters of ceremony during the long evening, but it's "I have a mouth on me" Northrup who keeps a tight hold on the microphone. He calls Tomblin up to say a few words and razzes others, including a chiropractor who had an accident with a chain saw and a 34-year-old lighting designer who endured so many wrist surgeries that finally nothing worked anymore.

Northrup is funny and outrageous with each one. He asks the chiropractor whether he takes off his prosthesis, which has a hook at the end, for people he likes and whether he charges extra for "nub rubs."

The young man blushes and laughs.

With a Patsy Cline sound-alike crooning in the background, Prepura explains that her accident happened four years ago, in Chicago, on her way to work. She slowed to a stop with the rest of the traffic. The truck behind her didn't. By the time the wheels stopped spinning, the tractor-trailer was on top of her station wagon.

Her left arm was crushed beyond repair.

"It was like living a nightmare," Prepura says. "My family was so worried I was going to die they kept telling me how lucky I was. I didn't feel lucky. I didn't smile or laugh for almost a year -- until I got here. My family wanted to support me, but they didn't know what it felt like to lose a limb."

The accident was in the fall, so Prepura was able to hide her short arm, severed above the elbow, under coats.

Come spring, however, she had to face the stares and make peace with her new body.

"My husband was wonderful. I told him early on that if he didn't want to be with me, I understood. He told me he never realized how much he loved me until he almost lost me.

"I was still very self-conscious, very embarrassed about my short arm. One night on the couch, he reached over and kissed it."

Steppingstones

Before the accident, Prepura felt invisible. Now everyone notices her and remembers. "It's so painful to have to share with everybody," she says. "It's taken me a few years to get used to it. But now I realize I don't have stumbling blocks. I have steppingstones."

The entertainment is over, the introductions done, and Northrup swings into the auction. The items to be sold are simple things -- afghans, carving sets, homemade pillows, a porch swing, a birdhouse -- but Northrup will raise $9,000 before he's finished.

Right off the bat he scores $400 for a gun donated by the family of a one-armed dove hunter who died in the spring and $4,900 for an afghan made by Imogene.

He looks around the room thoughtfully. "This invigorates me. Now I can go home and put up with everybody."

At 9 p.m. Northrup is still pitching, but he's losing his crowd. Some are heading for bed so they can be back at the civic center for the 6 a.m. breakfast. Cost is 10 cents a finger. Others are making a beeline for their motel, the Pipeliner Inn, where they plan to crack open a beer or two with old friends.

As Northrup jokes, it doesn't take long to spend the night in Olney. It's still dark when the hard-core return to the civic center. After eggs, bacon, biscuits and gravy, which the senior Jack describes as tender enough to cut with one hand, he and his old friend huddle in the corner.

Hard to say, Joyce Baughn says later, who was comforting whom.

Baughn, 66, of Abilene, lost her husband, Bill, in March. He had both hands, but he was so active in amputee groups that virtually everybody at the dove hunt knew him.

Baughn still wears her wedding ring as a brooch on her shirt. Both hands and wrists were amputated when she was 6. She climbed under a parked steam train, she explains, then it took off.

Bill spent much of their married life, 33 years, trying to help Joyce, though she's always felt she could do everything herself.

"He'd give me these inventions very proudly, and I'd admire them, then slip them in a drawer," Baughn says. "If he saw me use something, he knew it was a winner."

Baughn was the first woman to attend the dove hunt in 1989, though she hastens to add she does not shoot anything that breathes.

"To me, this is a family reunion and a very good time. For one weekend a year, amputees are in the majority. We say, `Hey, I can do this,' or `How do you do that?' And each one of us leaves thinking, `I'm doing OK. I wouldn't trade places with anybody here.' "

At 8 it's time for the horseshoe toss and, for those not into horseshoes, coffee talk.

Tina Tomblin is reliving the day of Mike's accident. When she entered his hospital room, she didn't know he'd lost his arm.

"Yeah, Baby, it's gone," he said.

She ran out of the room crying, and one of their grown daughters -- they have two sets of identical twins -- ran after her.

Tina remembers, "She pointed her finger at me and said, `Mom, snap out of it. Stop crying. Get ... back in there, and do it now.' "

And Tina did.

Yelps of joy from the horseshoe field bring conversation to a halt.

Then it's time for the cow-chip chunk, lunch, group pictures and finally the dove hunt. Picture a vast field filled with a mostly dead crop of sunflowers. Add a circular dirt road and a couple dozen dove hunters with lawn chairs, coolers and sunscreen.

At a dove hunt, apparently, there's supposed to be a steady pop, pop, pop. At this one, there are a few pops, then 30 minutes of silence.

Of course, there's plenty of talking going on, some of it angry spewing, some of it gentle musing about wives, work, the state of the world.

Johnny Salinas, who lost his right arm in a rock-crushing conveyor belt, is missing his brother-in-law, who recently died of cancer. The two men used to hunt for doves from under a tree, with beer in the cooler and the football game playing on a portable TV. Whatever they caught they'd cook for dinner with bacon, jalapenos and butter.

Salinas does love these annual get-togethers, he says, as much as his birthday, maybe even more than his birthday.

This year the 55-year-old from nearby Graham taught little Thomas how to play golf. "Don't try to hit a home run ," he told the boy. "Think about an outside curve ball low to the ground."

Richard Gray, parked near Salinas, says his cardiologist wants to see him as soon as he is back home in Oregon. Gray figures he's due for some new metal in his chest, perhaps a stent to open a clogged artery. The doctor wanted to schedule the appointment before the dove hunt.

Setting priorities

No way, Gray said. Olney was his No. 1 priority.

Gray lost his right arm in an industrial accident and has the rare satisfaction, now, of working as an Occupational Safety and Health Administration inspector.

"I investigate accidents and fatalities," he says. "When I walk in, they try to hide things. I say, `Guys, you're talking to the master. I've done all that.' "

At 6 p.m., there's a horn blast, and the hunt is over. Everybody heads back for a quick sandwich, hugs and handshakes. Either hand, if there are hands, will do.

Jim Canfield, 69, of Great Bend, Kan., bagged the most birds. He not only saw 10 doves flying by, but he nabbed them. He also won the trap-shooting competition and almost won at horseshoes.

Captain Hook, he calls himself.

As far as the Jacks are concerned, the party is over. After all the work they did to make the weekend sing, they don't mind the sight of retreating taillights.

But some folks aren't ready to part, and they head for the Pipeliner for barbecue and beer. They settle in lawn chairs in the parking lot and talk until 3 a.m.

That explains why Oman's left side is paralyzed, and he teases, that he is a bit befuddled. "I have a reason to be half a bubble off," he says. "You guys don't."

One minute, half a dozen men are holding beers with their good arms or their prostheses. The next, the prostheses are off, the sleeves are pulled up, and they are comparing their short arms.

Earlier in the day, Tomblin and new friends did exactly the same thing.

He had a great time, Tomblin says from his home in Cincinnati, and he'll be back next year. He'll go dove hunting, of course, and maybe Johnny Salinas will teach him to play golf.

claudia.feldman@chron.com