Deer Season

It all seems to come on so quickly. There is a first whiff of Fall, the Harvest Moon rises, and then ZAP! I’m in the middle of deer season and my life is filled with last-minute shopping, running loads of hunting clothes through the washer, juggling acts in the dimensions of time, space and the vagaries of stand choice.

Before two months are out, it will all be over. The freezers will be filled, the checking account drained. The unmarked van of reality will pull up and dump me off outside a shopping mall, as I suddenly realize I’m behind on my Christmas shopping, and I still have half a dozen firearms to finish cleaning and put a way. All I’ll have to show for myself is a couple empty slots in my quiver, a few pieces of spent brass, and business card and a claim ticket from the taxidermist.

. . .and that’s if everything goes right.

Was it worth it? Yes. Does that give you any idea of how good it feels to put my sights on a decent buck? It is all worth it? The unused tags, the blown hunts, the wretched turmoil of a failed first marriage. The money, the pain, the ugly scenes in the diner when they find out you’re the out-of-state hunter. The blown shots, the missed shots, the shots that never were. The deer that see you, the deer that smell you, the deer that never show at all. And let us not forget the year I went out on opening day of bow season and found out I had a Muldar’s Neuroma growing in my left foot and had to crawl back to the pickup.

I still managed to get out a few times that year before the surgery and get in a few afternoon set-ups. I couldn’t walk too well, but I could crawl, and I found a stump and sat down and waited for something to come by. Nothing ever did, but it kept me from missing the season entirely. I tried to make it out for Shotgun Season in Ohio after the surgery, but I couldn’t get my bandages into a boot and the painkillers were still making it hard to drive.

Yes, I swear to you on the grave of my first wife (I can always dream) that it is all worth it.