One of those windy, bleak , late November days with a lead- graysky and too much wind out of the North.
I'd had enough and quit early for a blessed cup of coffee and sandwich at the Diner.
I was a long way from home, but I enjoy these late season hunts. A genetic flaw, I guess.
I'd made meat on a doe in October and this was a buck onlyhunt--really, just another excuse to get out.
It was about 5:30 in the afternoon as I remember and the Diner's lights looked inviting. When I opened the door, the warmth hit me like a furnace along with the smell of apple pie just out of the oven, and I knew right away what I wanted.
The only available seat was at the counter next to an old man, his liver spots and wrinkles advertising his extreme age. I flopped right down and ordered my pie and coffee(sure, I'll take a dip of ice cream on it)
"Cold ain't it", the old gent said.
"Cold isn't the word. Must have gotten all the way up to zero today!" I quipped
"I see you're a bowhunter" the old man replied and at my quizical look he said, "you left your bracer on"
"Oh. I was in a hurry and forgot. Yes I hunt with a longbow"
"Me too! That is, I used to" a sudden sadness in his voice.
And so it went through his plate supper and my pie, two old- timers talking bowhunting.
Some of the light returning to his tired eyes,
He told mehow he'd loved the Mountains and rough weather and still-hunting alone.
He told me of the Osage bow he'd made in 1939 and of the deer he'd killed with it.
How it was still good , solid and strong and how he oiled itoften.
More so since his wife had died, and how he missed her.
He told me of a dozen arrows-his last dozen- made from Ash cut on his farm and how he'd taken a deer each with eleven of them before the ravages of time and the "Roomy-tiz" had made him stop.
"I sure wish I could have used that last arrow. I kinda hoped to get one last deer, you know...before the Reaper gets me!"
I liked the old gent and offered to take him out with me the next weekend, but he wasn't up to it and we exchanged phone numbers and promised to keep in touch.
Just before Christmas, he called.
"I'm leaving next week. I sure hope you'll come see me before I go"
"Where are you headed?"
"I ain't sure yet" was all he'd say. He told me he was feeling better and planned to shoot his bow a little this week.
Well, I hadn't intended to make the drive just to say goodby to a guy I'd only known a few weeks, but on Saturday, I got a call telling me the old fellow had passed away.
I took a day off and went to see him in the Funeral home.
There weren't many of us there. He'd outlived most of his friends and relatives and he'd been an eccentric and a loner like most of the really good bowhunters I've known.
He was dressed in his wool hunting clothes and I got to see his Osage bow--a real beauty--since he'd asked to be buried with it.
And then I noticed his empty quiver.
At first I was angry, thinking someone had takenthe arrow, but I slowly began to understand, and asked the Funeral Director how the old fellow had died.
"Well, He must have been a little Senile at the last. He had always been a hunter you know. They found him frozen, sitting by a tree with his bow as if he'd been hunting.
One odd thing, there was some blood on the ground , but of course, it wasn't his"
"Why do you say he was a littleSenile?"
"Well, He was much too old to be hunting, and he didn't have any arrows."
The old man knew all along what he was going to do. He knew when he called and said he was leaving.
I can't help but think this may prove someday autobiographical . Not a bad way to go really.
__________________
I do not seek the good of others as a sanction for my right to exist, nor do I recognize the good of others as a justification for their seizure of my property or their destruction of my life.- Hank Rearden
Fishin'
There was a time long ago--before I became
"civilized"--when I made my living guiding bass fishermen and
duck hunters in Florida.
The work days started about 3am to get the boat
ready, find bait-usualiy wild shiners about 10" long-- mend
tackle and attend to the seemingly endless tasks necessary to
make the day go well for my clients.
They paid for and got a full day--daylight till dark-- on the water.
By the time the fish were cleaned and all the good-
by's said, it was around 10pm and time to hit the sack.
That was the hardest work I've ever done and some of
the most rewarding, if you don't care about money.
Something always needed fixing or was worn out and
it took most of what I made to keep the boat and tackle In good
shape.
But the good part was I got to watch the sun rise and
set EVERY day, and learned to recognize the lake's changing
moods by little things like a slight shift in the wind or the flight
pattern of the gulls. That lake and I became friends over time
and she confided in me.
What's it worth to watch an Osprey dive from 60 feet
and come off the water with a half-pound shad in it's claws,
turn it head forward as easily as you could while shaking the
excess water off itself, only to have it taken away in mid-air by
the sheer power of a bald Eagle?
Apple snails as big as golf balls laying their lavender colored eggs on
the marsh grass and being picked off by the Everglades Kites
flying as silently as owls, or Purple Gallinules out for a walk on
the carpet of weeds a mile from shore, the grunt of pig-frogs
and 'gators, the sweet piping sound of a flock of shorebirds as
they all turn on a dime or the rowdy, incessant calls of giant
Sandhill cranes.
The marsh itself, living and ancient, with a complex
and self-sustaining matrix of plants and animals formed over
centuries.
I dislike the word "ecosystem".
It sounds too scientific and catagorical.
A marsh is a place of the senses! There are sights and
sounds and smells found nowhere else on the planet, and it
has the feel of the original cauldron we were mixed in.
It is an antidote for the blahs of modern, air conditioned living.
Guiding was a fine and honest way to make a living,
but it changed. The sportsmen and women went out less and
less for a natural experience and more and more to just catch
fish.
I saw the developement of the "Tournament
mentality" which dictates that to have been fishing, you must
have caught a limit of fish.
Later, this was amended to mean
that if you hadn't caught a BIG fish, you'd wasted your time.
There is a genetic flaw in mankind that causes our
competitive nature to reduce a wonderiull sport like fishing to
a game of pounds and ounces where the winner can brag
about making a thousand casts in a day.
Guiding stopped being a lifestyle and became work.
Fishing shouid be about kids and home-made tackle
tied to a willow pole.
It should be done with bait you caught
yourself and put in the old Prince Albert can you kept for just
that purpose.
Or about the sweet meat of bullheads and the
one that got away, leaky old green wooden boats with
groaning oar-locks and home-made anchors made from old
paint buckets filled with cement.
Or farm ponds in the evening
with casting gear and a Jitterbug tuned just right to make the
"plop plop" sound when slowiy reeled or about a bluegill bed
and a fly-rod with a tiny popper--and it should be respected.
I still miss the Marsh and get out on one as often as
time and circumstance will allow.
I always take a rod or gun,but as often as not it isn't baited or loaded.
I like to talk to the ducks on the old reed call and pretend they understand.
I tell them how much I miss them and express my envy of their
beauty and how I wish I could fly wild with them too,
and they fly by for a look at what's making all the noise.
I never forgot those first lessons the Lake taught me:
If you try hard enough NOT to fish, you'll always catch
something worth remembering.
