Updated: men stories- "Biscuit" Thompson (Corney Lake) & Sherwood Atkins, south of Minden.

I’ve randomly ran into elderly men that really had some interesting stories -imho. Two of those were “Biscuit Thompson” of the Corney Creek area near Summerfield, and Sherwood Atkins of a small town just south of Minden. I’ve got several stories from each of them, but I’ll start with Biscuit Thompson’s.
Years ago, I was doing a plant survey south of Corney Lake in Claiborne Parish. I was a college student and had an old chevy impala. Well, I decided to drive down this dirt “road” towards the creek. Of course, I immediately got stuck in sand. I’m a half mile off the road and got this heavy car that should be in the junk yard stuck and I’m in the middle of nowhere.
I hear an engine and here comes an elderly man driving a tractor. He turns around and backs it up to my car and drags a chain to the front of the car, looks at me, and says, “So your four-wheel drive didn’t kick in, huh?” I laugh (I learned to always laugh at an old man’s joke no matter what), but that was funny anyways. He hauls me back to the road and starts talking.
My name is “Biscuit Thompson, I was born right down the road there and lived here all my life. What you do?” I answered. He had seen the last of the virgin forest of Claiborne Parish cut down when he was a kid, had several stories of plants he had seen that were very unusual (2 separate stories), and a story about vultures.
Vultures – “I saw them building highway 80 when I was a kid. (Now I don’t know if this was the original hwy 80 or at some point thereafter when it was improved.) You know the first thing that goes when a hwy is built? Small animals. There were so many dang squirrels, rats, dogs, raccoons, possums, deer and other creatures that the buzzards feasted! Well, after a few years the numbers of the various creatures living near the highway was greatly diminished! And the dang buzzards were in the hundreds. Hundreds!
Well , them buzzards didn’t have much to eat, so they started attacking newborn calves, deer, little dogs and anything they thought they could eat. You know I really don’t know if they ate them there or put them varmits somewhere to rot, but whatever, they got them. Yeah, the folks around them parts got really upset and starting trapping buzzards. Well, the farmers and cattle guys built them a 7 foot by 7 foot and 7 foot tall chicken wire box. They left one end open and put up a section that would close when they pulled a rope. The next large animal they had to die on the farm went into the cage. I was there! The dang trap was full from side to side and top to bottom with vultures in no time at all. A farmer pulled the rope and they were trapped! Dang birds didn’t care. Well, they didn’t care till a farmer went up and started pouring kerosine of them! They started vomiting and crapping on each other! They cared then! Farmer lit a torch and threw it in. A big box of fire! A stinking fire! Lord, it was a sight! They probably did this at least 10 times before they were satisfied the buzzard population was low enough.”
Don’t know if this type of story is interesting to yall or not, but I am really happy I stopped and talked with this man. If anyone else wants to add stories, I will continue with his and Mr Sherwood’s later.