MEMORIES OF SAM ROBERSON

A TRIBUTE TO A WONDERFULLY ADVENTURESOME LIFE OF A GENUINE SOURDOUGH

I didn’t know Sam Roberson during the first years of his life. I didn’t know about his service in the Navy when he was caught directly in the open onboard a naval war ship when the Japanese launched a surprise aerial attack against the bulk of the United State’s Naval forces at Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941.  I heard the stories, though. How Sam and his shipmates fought Japanese bomber pilots that were flying just above the ocean’s surface with nothing more than Irish potatoes. Miraculously, Sam survived the attack and the rest of World War II where he was stationed mostly in the Aleutian Islands that extend off the southern tip of Alaska. For a Tennessee lad with a strong sense of adventure, the then wilds of Alaska offered every thing a young man and his new bride Eileen could ever wish for! The war ended and Sam and Eileen headed north.

From the time the young couple stepped off the north-bound ferry onto Alaskan soil and discovered their baggage had been lost, leaving them with only a few bucks and no winter clothing, Sam and Eileen lived a life of awesome adventure for more than four decades.

The first time I met Sam was during a SEOPA meeting somewhere in the South, when I was introduced to the man that would become my great friend for the next 30 years. Sam was a man’s man. A hard scrapple, no nonsense outdoorsman who was tough as nails. That evening Sam was wearing his cleanest dirty shirt. He had a stubble of salt and pepper colored beard, and a clear, far-seeing snap in his eyes like a man looking for the next major challenge in life. I could tell the moment I shook hands with him that this was a man worth knowing.

By that time, Sam’s beloved wife Eileen had died of cancer at their home in Alaska. Sam said he couldn’t live there after his partner and love of his life passed on. He took his savings, purchased a motorhome and cruised the highways of America for more than five years, looking for an off-beaten place to find another story.

Eventually, Sam purchased a farm near Lobelville in his home state of Tennessee. Tennessee. Years would pass. Sam joined the resurging Kentucky Outdoor Press Assoc. and attended every meeting. One time he showed up with a strikingly beautiful woman from Alabama. Her name of Annie and she and Sam had just gotten married.

What a pair! A gracious southern belle and a rough and tough pioneer. Over the next several years, they traveled, built a new home and live a wonderful life on the farm. Sam was writing a column for the local paper and continued to do so until the last few days of his life.
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I never faltered in my assessment of Sam during the decades that I knew him. Wanda felt the same way and through all these years, she never passed up an opportunity to dance with Sam who was famed for his ancient Alaskan back-shuffle style that most of the gals found a bit too much for their assorted two-steps. Four days before Sam died in mid February; Wanda phoned her long-time buddy and told him with tears in her eyes that Sam was one of the greatest men she had ever known in her life.

It has been a sad time here in Fern Hollow.

Like Wanda, I don’t expect I’ll ever cross trails with a person of Sam’s magnitude his honor, his integrity.. He was a straight shooter, and one of the finest examples of an outdoor scribe one will ever cross tracks with.

They don’t make many like Sam anymore. Wanda and I have been blessed to be a small part of his life and the members of the Kentucky Outdoor Press Assoc. who knew him can also boast of knowing a real sourdough, a real man!

See you over there Sam….

 

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