You're twenty-five and the cold
and the wet and the dark
are calling you...you're up early
For it's autumn and the days
of duck hunting season
It is five a.m. and you're sitting
at the kitchen table
already clad in your Fillson
hunting clothes, complete
with a red/black 8 ounce warm
flannel shirt, heavy canvas
pants and jacket and Red Wing
waterproof hunting boots
and your favorite Jones' wool
cap
As you sip on the steaming-hot
mug of coffee, you feel
a certain strangeness about
the whole scene---who
ever gets up this early and sits
there, drinking real coffee---
no "de-caf" for wild-and-wooly
guys
In the dim light you spy your
trusty 16 gauge double
cleaned and oiled and ready
to go....over there
in the corner. Dad gave me
that gun back in '46,
(and it kicked my shoulder
blue when I was fourteen)
I sip coffee and eat a donut
and fill each jacket pocket
with half-a-dozen high brass
green Remington # 4's
and feel the quality and heft
of each round,
and note the colorful hunter-
with-dog-photo, then
common then on the boxes of
twenty-five shells
Guns and hunting in those
years were highly-
admired American customs
In those times I owned
only one belt knife, and
it went everywhere with me,
I had it riding on my
belt under my coat---
It was my sharp
Boy Scout knife!
As my marvelous little wife
snoozed away, I
was becoming excited
about this hunt...and meeting
J.T. and Bert and Don
on this frosty morning...soon
Oh, the camaraderie!
It really matters not so much
that we are successful
tho' wild duck is delicious
properly barbecued
It is all about the air, the
outdoors, the cold, and
crawling through the high
grass and brush and
mud to the lake to surprise
those clever green-heads
...and the sheer joy of being...
And maybe the most important--
reliving the day later at
Polly's Cafe, eating biscuits
and gravy, with more coffee...
Ah, the outdoors...and friendships ..
----------
MIL
4 OCTOBER 2018
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