o
Good evening, dear hearts, and welcome to the show.
I'm Norman Johnson.
It is good to have you with us.
I would like for you to meet my co-host and my blushing bride, Lill.
Hello.
Hello.
Oh, you know, it's a big night.
We've already been to church, after a bash Wednesday, and ready to do the show now.
We're in Lent now.
Right, officially.
The, the quote, fun part is over, we have to not eat as much as this one.
As I have announced, my guest tonight is Dr. Bobby Johnson.
I don't know if you can get a shot of Bobby here, but if you can, this is, this is Bobby
Johnson.
This is the way I feel about Bobby.
Now, he couldn't be here, we had a last minute change in the program, but he will be with
us next week talking about World War II.
And I have had some interesting guests on this show lately.
I've had a robot, Department of Public Safety trooper, I have had Smokey Bear, I had Guinevere,
King Arthur, and now I have a wild turkey.
I've been accused of being a wild turkey, but, but nonetheless, before we get into that,
we will be talking about wild turkeys tonight.
And my guest is Dr. Jim Dixon, and he is with the U.S. Forest Service, he is a research
biologist, and a specialist in wild turkeys.
I've never talked to a wild turkey specialist before.
I haven't either.
And I understand he does perfect turkey calls.
I heard one a little while ago, it is very good.
Even turkey mating calls.
Well, I don't know what they say in a while.
I've done similar calls because people say, stop that turkey, but nonetheless, before we
do that, we want to talk to you about an event coming up at the Lamplight Theater.
It starts Friday night for two weekends, Friday and Saturday night at eight o'clock.
And then one week from Sunday, they'll have a special Sunday afternoon matinee at three.
This is sort of a sequel.
A year or so ago, they did East Texas Remembers, and you were in that show.
I was in that.
I played my parts, I had several parts.
One was a school teacher when SFA first began, and I was a southern lady.
A southern lady?
Do your southern accent.
Just say hi y'all.
Hi y'all.
And now this is a sequel called East Texas Remembers World War II.
For about a year now, we've been observing the 50th anniversary of World War II, and
Bobby Johnson has researched this for a long time.
Bobby's amazing.
He's a historian, he teaches, he sings with the barbershop quartet, the Timbertones, and
he writes plays and books, and he's researched probably for about 30 years, I believe.
He's interviewed people, taken oral history, and has put it all together in the form of
a stage play called East Texas Remembers World War II.
By the way, we want to mention an event coming up Friday night at the planetarium at SFA.
Life Beyond Earth is what that is, and it will be at 7.30, well actually from 7 to late
30.
All right.
Friday night.
So there's a lot of things happening, and a lot of things are going to be happening
here on the show, and we'll be talking about wild turkeys with Dr. Jim Dixon when we return
right after this word from some of the folks that make the show possible.
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I'm Stephen with Adam and Steve's Carpets on South Street.
We've been in business here in Nacodotus for over 20 years, helping local folks with
all their floor-covering needs.
If you have a new home or would simply like to give your old home a whole new look, come
shop with us at Adam and Steve's.
If you're in the market for carpet, no wax vinyls, ceramic tile, hardwood floors, wallpaper
or mini blinds, we'll see to it that you find just the products you need at a price that
won't break your budget.
So come on in to see us at 1622 South Street and shop with folks who'll give you the kind
of service you used to expect from all merchants.
Arielle Blanc, Gold Medal, Los Angeles, 1986.
Arielle Rouge, as you know, wines are recognized by the metals they receive.
And as you'd expect, the same premium de-alcoholized wines served at the Nobel Prize Ceremony
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Arielle wines maintain the flavor and bouquet of fine premium wine, but without the alcohol.
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Hi, everybody.
I'm Norman Johnson.
I'm delighted to tell you that my morning show moves to the all-new 860 KSFA this coming
Monday morning, beginning at 6.30.
On KSFA, you'll find the very best in talk radio, 24 hours a day, folks like Larry King,
Bruce Williams, Jack Anderson, Marion Upshaw, Andy Moore, and Gary Richards will have sports
talk every Monday through Friday afternoon, beginning at 5.
And you'll find the kind of local news you've been wanting on the radio, all on the new
860 KSFA, the talk of the town.
And welcome back to the show.
As I said, I appreciate Dr. Dixon being with us on short notice, and together we will massacre
Bobby.
But it's a chance for me to talk about a subject that I know very little about, and one that
I have suddenly found is going to be very, very interesting.
First of all, we welcome you to the show.
Thank you, Norm.
My pleasure.
You are a research biologist.
Would you say that research into wild turkeys is a specialty?
Well, I've been interested in wild turkeys for a long time.
Some of my research involves some other species or other animal groups, but I have been involved
in the wild turkey for some time.
I'm always curious as to how people get into their chosen profession.
When you were three or four or five years old, were you sitting around one day on the
floor playing with little cars and said, I'm going to be a research biologist?
Well, it's kind of odd that you ask that, but I think a lot of our programming is early
on.
It's innate.
I was interested in wildlife from the beginning.
I spent a lot of time in the woods when I was a youth.
Where are you from originally?
I'm from East Tennessee Mountains originally, and there weren't wild turkeys there then,
but I was interested in it.
You're the core of the country.
Absolutely, yeah.
That is gorgeous.
How did you happen to come into the East Texas area?
You're with the U.S. Forest Service.
I'm a research biologist, and we're here on campus of the Stephen F. Austin State University,
and that's how I ended up in Texas, although I have lived in other places in the south.
And of course, I'm originally from East Tennessee.
I have some good friends with the Forest Service.
Not too long ago, Al Mcaico was on the show and brought his personal friend, Smokey Bear.
I'm still trying to say Smokey The Bear, but it's Smokey Bear.
And not too long ago, he even brought me a copy of the original, since that show, the
original Gene Aultry Smokey The Bear song.
I treasure that.
I keep it in a vault locked up.
Now, is this sort of an average size?
This is a real wild turkey.
This is a wild turkey, and they're quite distinct from the domestic variety.
The domestic variety, which we use and raise in the poultry industry for food, is quite
different and quite distinct from the wild variety, which is quite wary.
Is that about an average size?
That's about an average size.
They vary somewhat geographically.
This is the one that we have here.
We're restoring here in East Texas, and it's found throughout the south on up into Canada.
This is the eastern wild turkey.
It's a darker.
It has darker tail tips and all in the western subspecies.
Now, you said that we were restoring in East Texas.
There was a time when wild turkeys were almost extinct, weren't they?
Yes, they were, Norm.
At one time, when the settlers were originally here and almost everywhere from early accounts,
they were real abundant.
They used them as the food staple.
The natives used them.
The early immigrants used them.
Then with the cutting, extensive cutting, they cut out all the forest and they hunted
them year round and they were eliminated.
Right now, we're working with the Texas Parks and Wildlife and the National Wild Turkey
Federation and the major forest industries are working together to bring back the wild
turkey.
It's a positive success story in modern wildlife management.
It's amazing how much game and wildlife and various species that man and all of his infinite
wisdom has managed to destroy over the years.
Well, we started off in what I call a conquer in the wilderness mentality.
When we started off, resources, everything was there and it was to be conquered.
Everything was regarded as either prey or a competitor and something to be overcome.
We didn't shift gears very well when we got beyond that into protecting what's there
and conserving and managing what's there.
But there's a lot of success stories now.
All right, kind of give us a little overview of the restoration process.
How did it begin and how has it developed up until now?
The low numbers in East Texas were about to turn the century into the early 1900s and
there were virtually none in East Texas at that time.
And what was tried that didn't work was the Rio Grande subspecies, which is a bird of
the drier Texas areas and it just didn't work here.
And raising birds and pens didn't work either.
And of course, that was a logical thing.
You thought at the time it'd be easy to raise them and put them out and they'd do, but they
just don't have the wild traits to do well in the wild.
What does work is trapped in birds from the wild and moving them in the wild.
And over the last those six years we've been able to get on the average of 500 from other
states to bring in and restore the wild turkey in East Texas and then we have two or three
thousand, something like that.
Would that be considered plentiful?
Well, no, I don't think overall it's just kind of the seed for which we hope will essentially
expand and occupy most of the available habitat in East Texas.
What forests in our area are we likely to find wild turkeys?
You'll find wild turkeys, they're usually associated with mature forest and particularly
hardwood forest in association with openings or conifer forest, mature pine forest with
openings, but that's their prime habitat.
Is hunting wild turkeys legal?
Hunting wild turkeys is legal nationwide now and it follows the restoration and sportsmen
have been the main ones that have funded the restoration efforts, the sportsmen dollars.
Hunting is now in 49 states, all but we have a hunting season in every state but Alaska.
Hunting of course in East Texas is very limited because restoration is in progress.
Is there a season?
Yes, in Texas overall we have a fall in the spring season and spring is the fun time.
That's when they gobble and when you can call them.
And the real grand turkey which we have lots of in the hill country in South Texas and
the panhandle is the main one that's hunted now and in the future we'll have a more expanded
season for the eastern turkey in this area.
Speaking of calling, during the second segment we'll do a little turkey calling.
Maybe we'll call something up here.
You never know.
Be careful driving down South Street tonight because they may just come.
Still lock the doors.
Well, you know when they say the turkeys we've got in the crew here there's no telling.
You don't have chaos here.
People are becoming, hunters are becoming more conservation oriented.
I just recently had a gentleman on with the Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation which is forming
a chapter here.
That's becoming sort of politically correct, isn't it?
Well, yeah, and critically, and correct in all ways really, the sportsmen overall have
taxed themselves to fund the restoration of many of your species in North America.
And the return of the pronghorn, the wild turkey, the white-tailed deer, and some other
species they've been mainly through sportsmen's dollars.
And overall it's a win-win-win deal.
It seems like when I was growing up in northeast Texas, there was a lot of illegal hunting.
It seemed like there was a lot more than you hear about now with their light hunting and
just all kinds of things.
Fishing and hunting, illegal activities seemed to be very prevalent.
Now, hunters and fishermen are really beginning to look down on that sort of thing, aren't
they?
Well, yes, they are.
And it has to be that way to be successful.
If we're going to have wildlife resources and have huntable numbers, we have to husband
them in a responsible way.
And sometimes we have trouble getting people out of that sack them up mentality when you
have to go out there and get the most and get the biggest and do it year-round and stuff
like that.
But overall we've made a lot of progress and a lot of sportsmen are behind through their
license fees and their self-imposed tax or through the restoration effort.
Yeah, I've never seen much fun in fishing or hunting if you had to really resort to
that kind of tactics to capture your free.
So I'm glad we're coming back to that.
When we come back, we're going to talk about what usefulness wild turkeys may have.
We'll talk about a new book that Dr. Dixon has, it's a great book.
And we're going to try to call up some turkeys.
And hopefully when we do that, our producer, Reggie Hudson, won't fly through the door.
We'll find out when we return from these words from some of the folks that make the show
possible.
I'm Stephen with Adam and Steve's Carpets on South Street.
We've been in business here in Nacodotus for over 20 years helping local folks with all
their floor covering needs.
If you have a new home or would simply like to give your old home a whole new look, come
shop with us at Adam and Steve's.
If you're in the market for carpet, no wax vinyls, ceramic tile, hardwood floors, wallpaper
or mini blinds, we'll see to it that you find just the products you need at a price that
won't break your budget.
So come on in to see us at 1622 South Street and shop with folks who'll give you the kind
of service you used to expect from all merchants.
I would give on hiring office workers is to let Fredonia Temporate handle it.
They can place people on a temporary basis or full time and if someone doesn't fit in,
there's no firing or rehiring.
Just call Fredonia Temporate for a replacement and paying a weekly bill is a lot easier than
handling all those payroll requirements.
Fredonia Temporate does that for you and all other people are pre-screened and tested so
that saves time and money.
I think calling Fredonia Temporate just makes good business sense.
Arielle Blanc, Gold Medal, Los Angeles, 1986, Arielle Rouge, as you know, wines are recognized
by the medals they receive.
And as you'd expect, the same premium de-alcoholized wines served at the Nobel Prize ceremonies
in Oslo, Norway is now a part of fine dining at Capellis.
Arielle wines maintain the flavor and bouquet of fine premium wine but without the alcohol.
The perfect compliment to a meal at Capellis, a taste of something special, Capellis, North
Street, Macaloshes.
I feel just like Jay Leno when I hold a product except Jay does better than I do.
I taped an interview today with Helen Reddy, one of the great, great singers that I'll
be running on my radio show Monday morning and she doesn't have a new record out, she
doesn't have a book out, she just wanted to do an interview and tonight I'm plugging
a book that's out of print, I mean, boy, I'm really doing good.
This book just came out in October.
Late October of 1992.
The first printing of 5,000 copies and it's gone.
When will the second printing be available?
Well it's in progress right now, it'll be out very shortly.
And Dr. Dixon wrote and I would assume designed and coordinated this whole project.
It's just a marvelous piece of work.
I don't know if we can do a close up of the cover, but this is, I'd love to have the
painting that this was taken from because it is absolutely gorgeous.
Who did this?
Al Agnew, who is a premier artist as you can well see, as part of our art print series did
that cover, it's called Sultan's Sunrise.
It's a long bearded gobbler standing on a white oak limb and we're real pleased, it's
a striking color cover.
This is one of those books that you wouldn't even really have to be a hunter or an outdoorsman
or anything like that to appreciate.
This is something to be good in any home, wouldn't it?
Yes Norm, what we tried to do there, we tried to take all the technical information that
we had and put it in a form that was readable to the general public.
So turkey enthusiasts could read most of that book and look at the pictures and the photo
captions and things and learn a lot about turkeys.
When I first opened I thought it would be real technical and like I say I only knew later
today that we were going to do this show and I was sitting here before the show and just
looking through the book and it's written so well that you immediately become involved
in it and I didn't want to break away from it, but it's a beautiful book so when it gets
back on the market, pick up a copy of it.
Just a book of this magnitude is going to be a huge project, when did you begin this?
Well we worked, actually I compiled and edited it and I wrote some of the chapters and I've
got a lot of the other experts in the turkeys, different areas of turkeys to do some of the
chapters, but we worked pretty closely for about five years on it.
Oh I can imagine.
Is this a difficult project?
Oh yes, it doesn't come easy.
Traveling and all this sort of thing.
Just putting everything together, for example the references there we had 1200 references,
a big part of it was putting the photos together, we had 400 black and white photos.
So there was lots, you know, acquiring the photos and deciding what you wanted, how to
get them and what they meant and writing the captions, it took quite a bit of effort.
Well how do you get the photos, I mean you can't just walk down the street and say you
get the pictures of wild turkeys.
We found a lot in New Orleans.
All of those in New Orleans?
Yeah right.
Especially in Mardi Gras.
Yeah that's right, they're up on their roofs, the New Orleans turkeys are on their roofs
today after Mardi Gras.
As I say, when this gets back on the market, first of all let me know and we'll either
do a radio show or we'll return to a TV show and I think it's a book you'd love to have
in your home.
Now why do we even need wild turkeys?
I mean, you know, so what if they become extinct?
Well I think as far as Mother Nature over the long haul has a pretty good plan.
Turkeys were here and they were abundant and they were eliminated and we really didn't
think much about it at that time.
But for one thing, to think everything that's part of our native faunum, part of East Texas
Forest has it right and certainly we'd be welcome back if we could and especially the
wild turkey being as it's such an American bird and there's such a fervent following
of the wild turkey.
Hunting the wild turkey and seeing the wild turkey is seeing a hen in her pokes in the
field feeding.
They're hearing a long beard like this gobble off the limb like that turkey is just an exciting
experience.
Or is he poetic or not?
Well it is, I'm not getting descriptions.
You can imagine just seeing an animal that beautiful out in the wild.
That would be great wouldn't it?
Now you said earlier that people used to eat wild turkey.
Oh sure, the native Americans did.
Can you still do that?
Oh yeah, they're delicious and it's not just for food, I don't even share it with people
that don't enjoy the wild turkey.
I try to share it with my hunting friends and other people that really have a special
appreciation.
It's a special meal when you do a wild turkey.
How does it differ from a turkey you'd buy in the grocery store?
Well I don't know, it's been a long time since I've eaten a domestic one but the domestic
turkey has the raise for the big pectoral muscles and their fast growth and they're
injected with lots of ingredients to make butter and stuff like that or margarine to
make them taste different.
The wild turkey is a lean meat and it's real tasty and you remember the hunt.
Now they tell me that you are an expert at calling turkeys.
Well I am of sorts, I won the Texas State Calling Contest three times I think and the
last several years I've judged the Texas and the Grand National Calling Contest and
I really enjoy calling turkeys.
The fun of hunting turkeys is the calling.
You can interact with them, you can call and he gobbles and he thinks you're a hen and
he comes if you're lucky.
It doesn't always work that way but sometimes it does.
A little deceit of mother nature.
That's right, sometimes you'd be the love-sick hen and you can have him amorous.
An amorous turkey, I've been galling before.
Now you said spring time is a good time for this.
There's two seasons for turkey hunting, in the fall when they're in the fall flocks,
in the spring is their mating time and the time in the spring is when the goblers strut
and that's their mating posture like this and they drum and it makes a sound that sounds
like and it's really exciting and they're doing this, they're in this strut, they drag
their wings and they make that drumming sound which we call drumming and they gobble.
When they gobble they sick their head out.
And that's the time that they're receptive to being called.
You can call them by using hen vocalization.
All right, now do me some of your championship calls and explain them if you would.
Most of the calls that I use, all the calls are either used, they operate by air or friction.
Now this is an air operated call, it's a diaphragm call and it just fits in the roof of your
mouth.
Now a few calls you can make just with your mouth and some people do fairly well, most
do not and I don't call much because when I really get into a hunting situation my mouth
gets too dry.
But this course you can do lots, that was a clock and a purr that they do, that's just
a contended type sound and this is a diaphragm call and you can make a hen yelp or lots of
variations of it, it sounds like.
But that's a hen yelp and if you get the rhythm right you can sound like a hen and you can
call goblers.
Matter of fact if you sound very good you can sound better than some hens in the woods.
Some of them sound bad but they don't even know it.
And I love it with me, have you ever had a desire to, you know, sit in the middle of
the congregation at church or sit in a movie theater and let out a good yelp?
Oh yeah and I have, yeah but you just can't tell, yeah you just can't tell what you're
going to call up if you do that.
I'm going to take a little of my wrap up time to find out about this.
And then tell me about the most unusual circumstance you ever did a call.
Oh you mean as far as people, circumstance, oh in crowds and stuff like that, you know
on the subway in Washington D.C. you know you break out the thing and they're afraid,
they're kind of scared but they're interested, you know they're interested but they're not.
Or Allen, you know now Allen is another thing, we use the sound of Al to get a turkey to gobble
and he won't come to that but he listens to that.
Can you do an Allen turkey you kind of talking to each other?
Well the turkey will gobble at an Al so then you know where he is and then you can go and
call him sometime but he will, they will gobble at an Al song and it sounds like, whew, whew,
whew, whew, whew, whew, whew, whew, whew, whew, whew, whew, whew, whew, whew, whew, whew.
Sounded just a little bit like Travis Tritt to me, I don't know, just, just, you get lots
of unusual responses to that and you can do it and you're talking about an Al now you
can do it in the subway, it really sounds, New York subway really carries well.
Give me one quick male turkey mating call?
Well now they will gobble but they do the yelp, the same things that the hens do but to me
the, in the gobble but the thing that really sets them apart is the, the strutting and the
drumming and it sounds like...
Like that.
And it's truly an exciting sound.
And the hens are impressed?
Well I think they are.
It impresses me.
I think it impresses the end well hey I'm Bobby Johnson has done me a lot of
favors before and one of them is not showing up tonight we'll get we'll get
we'll gig him on that one he will appreciate this so Bobby will be with
us next week talking about East Texas members they had to have an extra
rehearsal tonight and we'll talk more in detail about World War two but again
we're gonna have to do this on the radio show and maybe come back here
sometime and do it do you ever go around and speak to groups or oh sure yeah
it's I've been working I don't about two decades so it's all my talk and do a
little presentation you do that oh sure yeah if I have time for it well we'll
just make time how do they hold up you just call the college they'll just call
me yeah all right hey that is yeah that's it's fun for me you know and it
doesn't take much preparation like no no immediate preparation I've been
working at it a long time now I'm almost that time what's that gizmo that's
this is a box call it works by friction it makes the same type of sound but a
based on friction or you can that's a hen you help her this see you couldn't get
a warrior but you got a turkey flock and Johnny Carson used to have Jim
Fowler on and he thought he was up and thanks a lot for being with us and
that's just about gonna do it and we'll see you tomorrow morning at 6 30 a.m. on
the talk of the town 860 KSFA back here next Wednesday evening at 8 30 with Dr.
Bobby Johnson until then bless your house dear hearts
you
