A great ‘hunting’ weekend

Our family had a great experience deer hunting this year. By good, I mean that I didn’t get anywhere near the woods and that my family deer hunter and darling bride didn’t bring home

a dead deer.

I would have been excited for her had she slayed a beast, and I was certainly happy that she was able to get some time alone in the woods doing something she loves to do. And that there’s nothing dead hanging in my

garage.

For those who don’t know me well, I consider myself a Great Indoorsman. I don’t hunt. I don’t fish. Oh heck, I’ll say it, I don’t even

like to get dirty.

I come from a long line of indoorsmen. My dad golfed. That was his outdoor activity. I used to golf, but at that time it was more of an excuse to drink beer with friends. I realized at some point that I didn’t like the golf part, and I could do the part I liked inside. So I

did.

I had a very short stint playing tennis. By very short I mean one session of lessons. My mom came to sign me up for session two, and the coach pulled her aside. I figured I was getting bumped up to the advanced group, or at least the kids of my own age group, but alas mom broke the news to me. We jumped in the station wagon. “We’ve been asked not to sign you up for session two. The goal of tennis is not to hit the ball over the fence, you’re just supposed to hit it over the net.”

What a dumb sport!

“How about piano lessons?” she asked.

Why not? What could go wrong there? Again, only while the money from the first check was being used by the instructor was Little Johnny welcome. You want to know what happened to me? Why am I the way I am? I’ll tell you: Second grade was a tough year!

Back to deer hunting: When my darling bride and I started dating, she took me Up North to meet her family. I had made the cut, but we had a rough start. Her uncle shook my hand and said, “Do you hunt?”

“No sir,” I replied.

He thought for a second. “Do you fish?”

“No I do not,” I answered.

In apparent shock, he just shook his head, “Huh,” and walked away.

I know he erased me from his memory, because I had seen him at lest annually for 20 years at my wife’s family reunion. In year 21, he asked my wife who the guy was that she was with.

The point is there are some things she does with her family, and that I don’t need to be involved. I’m giving her “space,” as they say.

The first time I gave her space, she and our son went hunting, and they brought back dead things. There we blood stains in the garage for years, and there’s still that big rope hanging over the rafters. I accompanied my wife to the place where the meat was getting processed and helped her haul the dead beast inside.

“You didn’t cut the head off,” the worker there said.

I don’t know what else he said, because I left when he fired up the saw.

I think I made a pledge that day. I don’t want anything to do with deer hunting.

I love that my wife was able to enjoy herself a little in the midst of this pandemic, and I really love that all she came home with was cheese curds that got left behind at deer camp.

by John McLoone