Wes Coffey

Wes Coffey.

I grew up in Nashville, but my dad grew up in Fentress County, up on the Cumberland Plateau.

His dad, my papa, was named Earl Coffey.

He lived on 160 acres of land outside of Jamestown that had been in our family since the 1880s.

Papa died in March of 2022, pancreatic cancer, 91 years old.

He left the land to me, not to my dad.

That's the first thing that was weird, and I should have paid attention to it.

Dad was Papa's only son.

The land should have gone to dad, but the will said everything.

The land, the cabin, the trucks, the guns, went to me, skipped a generation.

dad didn't seem surprised i asked him about it once at the funeral and he looked at me for a long time and then he said that's how he wanted it that was the end of the conversation dad's not a talker he never has been i should tell you i hunted that land my whole childhood

Every fall, from the time I was 12, my dad would drive me up and drop me off with Papa for a week.

We'd hunt deer, squirrel in the morning, whitetail in the afternoon.

There was a cabin Papa built in 1971, back up the hollow, about a mile and a half from the nearest road.

Propane, wood stove, a spring for water, no electricity.

I loved that place.

I loved Papa.

He was a quiet man, but he was kind to me, and the land felt like mine even when it wasn't.

So when I inherited it, I was happy.

I was.