Persistence is Futile. But I want to Assimilate!

November 20, 2010

Some time ago, I don’t mean years, or months, or even weeks; about 10 days ago Dad stopped receiving his newspaper. I won’t mention which because they undoubtedly have much more money to put towards legal fees than do I. The day I discovered this I had just returned from a weekend off from my duties. You see, I happily moved in with my parents when it became obvious that they had become unable to properly care for themselves. I spend weeks at a time there with the occasional weekend or week off to go home to… visit. I have three sisters who gladly relieve me at least two and sometimes three weekends a month, and again at least a full week or ten days a month. I didn’t completely move in. I sort of live out of a suitcase and occupy the same old room that I lived in some forty years ago growing up. Moving on, I returned home to learn that dad had not received his daily newspaper for the last three days, so a call to the circulation department was in order. Now, this particular newspaper is not of the local variety. Although we live in a rural area and the nearest town has a publication of sorts, it is not a daily paper. Dad therefore relies on the paper from the great metropolis that is about forty miles distant, but delivers daily. Well, we both thought.

My call to the papers main switchboard was answered by a rather male sounding voice, which in itself, was a surprise. I don’t know why. I suppose it may be because it has been many years since I was actually out in the workforce and exposed to what normal really is. I shouldn’t be all that surprised, after all, I do have access to the internet and am not completely cut off from the trends affecting our country. In any event the pleasant young man transferred my call to the circulation department whereupon I spent several minutes monitoring my own circulation while I listened to that recorded voice, “All customer service agents are presently assisting other customers. Please continue to hold and someone will be right with you.” Finally after what seemed like hours I hear a different recording. Progress.. “We are experiencing a high volume of calls. Please use our automated system. If you experienced difficulties receiving your newspaper, press 1.” *Beep* “If you did not receive your newspaper today, press 1.” *Beep* “Please enter your ten digit telephone number, starting with the area code, followed by the pound sign.” *Beep**Beep**Beep**Beep**Beep**Beep**Beep**Beep**Beep**Beep*

And after all that… “Please hold for a customer service representative.” To my surprise, a person then answered the phone right away. I guess all that was just a way to kill some time while an agent became available to talk to me. It didn’t really seem to do anything because the agent then had me dictate all that information to her again. I hate that. Why make us wear out our telephone keypads pushing in all those digits when they are going to ask anyway? These new phone are not made by Western Electric any more. They wear out faster than batteries in kids toy now days. But after all that I got a pleasant “Thank you, we will take care of this right away.” That’s it? Seemed easy enough, once I got to talk to a real person. I was happy, or so I thought.

Day two. Dad makes his usual early morning sojourn down to the highway to check the mail….and his newspaper; which of course, was not there. Another day and again I have to watch him return to the house empty handed. Besides from that I patiently sit and listen to the events of the trip. About the neighbor’s cattle and how the cows leave their young unattended (like the hawks are gonna swoop down and carry them off,) about how little they have to eat, and then analyze the trash he picked up in the ditch to bring home. Its trash, Dad, let’s put it in the trash. Well, to this day that trash is still on his desk. He is still wondering exactly what it is and why someone would throw it away. “We are experiencing heavy call volume and all customer service agents are assisting other customers. Please continue to hold or to use our automated system. For English please press 1.” All I want is for Dad to have his newspaper. That way, when he returns he will quietly sit and read his newspaper during breakfast. “Yes sir. I’ll send a message to the carrier and we will get this cleared up right away.”

Day three. Dad makes his usual early morning sojourn down to the highway to check the mail….and his newspaper; which of course, was not there. Another day and again I have to watch him return to the house empty handed. Besides from that I patiently sit and listen to the events of the trip. About the neighbor’s cattle and how the cows leave their young unattended, about how little they have to eat, and then analyze the trash he picked up in the ditch to bring home. Its trash, Dad, let’s put it in the trash. “We are experiencing heavy call volume and all customer service agents are assisting other customers. Please continue to hold or to use our automated system. For English please press 1.” Is there an option if I want to speak to a supervisor? I leave my phone number for the carrier to call. I have hopes of a newspaper by Thursday…

Day four. Dad makes his usual early morning sojourn down to the highway to check the mail….and his newspaper; which of course, was not there. Another day and again I have to watch him return to the house empty handed. Besides from that I patiently sit and listen to the events of the trip. About the neighbor’s cattle and how the cows leave their young unattended, about how little they have to eat, and then analyze the trash he picked up in the ditch to bring home. Its trash, Dad, let’s put it in the trash. “We are experiencing heavy call volume and all customer service agents are assisting other customers. Please continue to hold or to use our automated system. For English please press 1.” Any chance I can talk to a supervisor? “Please hold.” Finally, someone that will give me the attention that this is due. I have hopes. “Sir, my supervisor is unable to take the call at the moment but I gave her your phone number. She is really good about returning phone calls. You should hear from her today."

Day five. Dad makes his usual early morning sojourn down to the highway to check the mail….and his newspaper; which of course, was not there. Another day and again I have to watch him return to the house empty handed. Besides from that I patiently sit and listen to the events of the trip. About the neighbor’s cattle and how the cows leave their young unattended, how little they have to eat, and then analyze the trash he picked up in the ditch to bring home. Its trash, Dad, let’s put it in the trash. “We are experiencing heavy call volume and all customer service agents are assisting other customers. Please continue to hold or to use our automated system. For English please press 1.” By now you are wondering why I am wasting time with this antiquated communications system called the telephone. Why not simply get on the internet, look up the papers site, click on the ‘Contact Us’ link and be done with this nonsense of daily talks to the customer service recordings? You know? I fool around with designing pages such as this. I mean, after all, I have been in the hospitality business for longer than I care to admit, and I have contact us pages for customers to communicate with me. So, I recognize a well planned contact us page. So I did use their contact form on about day two. That day all went as planned. “I didn’t get a newspaper. Circulation was no help. Can you help me get a newspaper?” No worries, right. The next day I fill out the same form and I got a little long winded about how I had called circulation, then sent in the contact us form, explained that I was not all that hard to find, and listed the previous ‘case number’ provided in the email confirmation sent to me to acknowledge receipt of the previous days form. “Your form contains too many characters. Please edit your text and limit the number of characters used to 150.” What? 150 characters? How can you legitimately complain about anything in 150 characters? So that day’s complaint was about how the form did not allow enough room to adequately complain.

Day six. It is now Saturday. Dad makes his usual early morning sojourn down to the highway to check the mail….and his newspaper; which of course, was not there. Another day and again I have to watch him return to the house empty handed. Besides from that I patiently sit and listen to the events of the trip. About the neighbor’s cattle and how the cows leave their young unattended, about how little they have to eat, and then analyze the trash he picked up in the ditch to bring home. Its trash, Dad, let’s put it in the trash. “We are experiencing heavy call volume and all customer service agents are assisting other customers. Please continue to hold or to use our automated system. For English please press 1.” By now I had learned the keystroke sequence and entered them in without even listening to the recordings, and I get a live person. “Mr. Taylor, has anyone called you back yet?” Oh, yes, of course. But I was just calling to say thank you….NOT. Not only has no one called me back, but I still do not have a newspaper! So, I ask the customer service rep (I really don’t know why they call it customer service if they cannot provide any service) for the carrier’s mother’s name so that I can call her to see if I can get a newspaper by Sunday. I never got to speak to a supervisor that day and the call ended quite soon afterwards.

Later, and not very much later I receive a call from a nice sounding lady. “Mom?”, I ask. Well, no, but it was the local distributor. She was quite pleasant and explained that the carrier was indeed delivering a paper to what they thought was the correct address, and after a long conversation about how to recognize the correct location to deliver our paper I get a promise, and a phone number.

Well, things are looking up. I have a real local phone number to contact the actual local distributor in the event I do not receive a paper tomorrow. I really think that if we don’t get a paper the distributor will actually bring it out herself.  Wishful thinking. Tomorrow is another day and I think if I hear one more time about how little the neighbors cows have to eat I’m gonna feed them cows a newspaper distributor.


Copyright, 2010. All rights reserved. This article may not be reproduced without advanced written authorization from both the author and Google.

The Facts of Life

November 15, 2010

Recently my son of 24 years asked me the heritage of my biological parents. Now you have to understand, the technology generation that my son grew up in required him to text the question to me rather than use a conventional telephone. Instead of picking up the phone and hearing me answer in my usual round the bush diatribe, he texted me the question. Of course, having received the query via text message I felt obligated to answer using the same medium. Never mind the fact that I still use a cheap, bottom of the line, first time newbie phone that only has a telephone keypad on it (after all, it IS a telephone, right?) and not a full QWERTY keypad (I’ll bet he has no clue what THAT is!), and he knows this, I still felt obligated to attempt to fit 20 minutes worth of ramblings into that little 1 x 1.25 inch screen. Suddenly, I found myself searching feverishly for which of those 12 keys would produce the “=” symbol. You see, having found out that my ramblings simply would not fit on that screen I opted to simply send him a URL to the family tree on Ancestry.com  That is a wonderful thing, Ancestry.com, although sometimes I wonder if it simply allows some unsuspecting nitwit (me) to put far too much information into the hands of identity thieves. They say that they hide all information about living persons, and it does seem so. Still, that is a lot of information on the web about my family even if a Great Grandpa seems to have just appeared in Texas with no apparent previous history to be found. Maybe they did not keep prison records very well back in them days.

Anyway, having found a complete barrier to sending him a text message back with a URL to the family tree I decided it would be easier to send a link to the main site with a notation that he would have to search the database for my entry. Well again I found myself then looking for the “_” symbol. Darn cheapo phones. Someone told me just yesterday that I need to get a new phone. He even had a name for it, although it escapes me at present. It would connect to your laptop with one of those USB cables and allow your laptop to access the internet over the phone. I don’t need to get a new phone for that. That’s the way I do it now anyway. So I finally ended up sending him the information but had to use the word ‘underscore’ in place of the “_” symbol.

As it were he must have needed the information real fast because he sent a message back immediately that asked “What nationality?” Well I could see I was not going to get anywhere with getting him to do any research on his own so I finally just sent him what he wanted. My text back to him contained just the requested information. “Moravian.” Within 5 minutes I get another text message from him. “Never heard of it.” So much for a college degree…

So here is the information you requested, Son. I hope this fulfills your requirements and arrives to you within the allotted time that you needed.

My Great Grandfather, Anton, was born in 1861 in Freydek-Mistek, Moravia which, at the time was obviously a part of Austria. It was he who migrated to the United States because he married my Great Grandmother, Johanna (born 1866) in Fayette County, Texas in 1884. Now, since Johanna was born in nearby Zabreh Nad Odrou, Moravia she also migrated to the US. The story has it that they both arrived in the States about the same time but on different ships. Johanna and her family (Peter and Rosina Stavinoha) was in one ship bound for Corpus Christi (I think) but a plague there cause the ship to dock at an alternate port of Victoria, which at the time was on the coast and not inland as it is today. Near that same time Great Grandfather Anton fled his country for reasons unknown (that’s an author’s way of saying he really does not want to disclose the facts of the matter) and bought his passage on board a ship bound for the States as the servant of another family. And, he did so under a forged passport. This part we know to be true because my Aunt, who recently left us, has guarded that passport throughout the years and has preserved it in the family treasures. Well, Great Grandfather Anton’s ship was bound for Galveston yet some catastrophe in Galveston caused this ship to dock at its alternate port as well, Victoria.

It is unclear to me at this point if they met in Victoria or if the individual families both moved inland first to the settlement near Somerville and met there. Regardless, the Great Grandparents (mine, that is) married in Fayette County, Texas.

Back to Moravia. Although at the time it was part of Austria, it bears stating that the European states seemed to wander about aimlessly about the era of the various world wars and I really don’t know myself what political subdivision claimed Moravia in the ensuing years. But, looking at the maps of Austria the area labeled as Moravia appears quite close to some country called Poland. So, I guess you could say we are simply Polaks. Personally, I prefer the mystery of Moravian, hence my text message to you. And by the way, son, the Great Grandparents appear to both have the same Grandparents themselves. That explains a lot, actually…


Copyright, 2010. All rights reserved. This article may not be reproduced without advanced written authorization from both the author and Google.

Opening Weekend and the Doc Hollywood Method of Deer Hunting

November, 2010

Well, for 2010 at least, the first opportunity for deer hunting has come and gone. Again this year my father has decided that he just didn’t have the ‘want to’ to get out and go. Not to be deterred I was able to find a last minute hunting partner. Having property suitable for deer hunting is somewhat similar to being rich. You are never without ‘friends’ wanting to tag along for the hunt. But as it were, my friends really are just that. True friends that would make sacrifices for you. This time he sacrificed a good portion of his monthly income so that we could all eat this weekend. Of course, we could simply eat what we shoot but I made a promise that I would start that diet next week, so the security of knowing we would have food was a welcome treat. When Mike brings the food it is usually enough for an army and packed with home made things like extra large pans of enchiladas, made my his wife of course. But we would not have enchiladas this trip. More on that later…

And as is usual I left the homestead not having everything I needed. Speaking of ‘homestead’, I could write volumes, but that is well beyond the scope of this article. Suffice it to say that these days I stay confused about just where the homestead actually is. Anyway, I always forget something and this year was no different. Normally I do not use any of these fancy calls or rattle bags, or what have you. Of course I do use a grunt call that aids in stopping a wary buck in his tracks giving a hunter an opportunity to take his time while leveling his gun for a steady aim. But this year I thought I would give those artificial calls a try. Although I had a puny set of horns I cut off a little 6 point a few years back I decided to purchase a set of rattle horns from an online distributor. The price was right, and if it called up even one unsuspecting buck from out of the woods I would consider it a worthwhile investment. At the same time, in order to meet the minimum purchase on the site I purchased a doe bleat call. You know what that is…it’s a little box about the size of a ring box that when turned over it makes a sound like a doe bleat. Good for other things too. Like frightening the UPS driver that delivers to me. I’m sure he believed without a doubt his truck was haunted. Getting on with it, I left that box of rattle horns and that doe bleat back in Dayton. There must have been more that I forgot. Two items just does not seem enough. More on those rattle horns later…

I was sure I got an early start this year. After all, my sister surprised me with arriving early to take over my parent sitting duties and I was able to leave much earlier than expected. Still, it was after dark before I arrived at ‘The Bodine.’ And for those of you not all that familiar with my family history, ‘The Bodine’ gets it’s name from the original land owner, J. Bodine, of Abstract 1283 of the survey of Texas land completed by the G&BN Company in Leon County, Texas, and where my family put down its Texas roots. Somehow the name has stuck and the entire family knows the property simply as The Bodine. And I only own a small portion of it, having purchased it from my uncle on my fathers side some years ago. The trip up was quite boring as is the norm, with the highway congested with hunters on their way to their own deer leases. En route I spotted about ten or twelve deer within rock chucking distance of the road. As it turned out it would be the most deer I would see on the entire trip. More on that later…

Having arrived I proceeded to get the utilities on and the cabin somewhat cleared out so we would have room to move around. I seem to store things inside in between trips so that the locals don’t relieve me of any extra things left outside. As it was rather dark, the first of the utilities was the outside lighting. I have one of those lights that when you turn it on it takes a half hour to warm up before it is bright enough to put out more light than a key chain flashlight. While it was warming up I proceeded to unload my personal things from the back of the pickup. You know, the usual things. Ice chest, suitcase, boots, gun.. where’s my gun? My gun was here. I know I put it in the truck before leaving. Let’s see. I stopped to get gas. That was the only stop. I used a credit card at the pump to pay so I never left the side of the truck while filling up. But the gun just was not where I put it! So, here I am thinking, could someone have lifted it out of my truck while my back was turned at the Valero? At a long red light? It was a nice Remington 700 synthetic with a Nikon 3x9 50mm scope on it. And in a hard case too! I really liked that gun and was really ticked off about losing it and could only hope that I just somehow forgot to put it in the truck and it was resting comfortably back in Dayton. After that I had to rest a minute and allow the nerves to calm a bit, so I went in and ran the water some. If you have ever done any hunting at all you are very aware of the requirement to get the water running through the pipes before you expect to use it. Not only to get the stale water out but in my case to simply make sure all the air is out of the pipes before I turn the electricity on to the hot water heater. There wouldn’t be much else that I would hate to have to do than to have to change out the heating element on that hot water heater. It's situated up above the bathroom and has quite a bit of tools and left over materials from the cabin construction all around it. It would be a major event just to gain access to the thing. Well now that the water has run sufficiently smelling up the cabin with putrid water and the electricity to the heater is on I decide to vacate the building and resume unloading my truck. Now that the area light has warmed up it is finally bright enough outside to see around and finish unloading and getting stuff inside. Satellite box, couple of gallons of extra drinking water (remember the pipes?), heaters for the deer stands, gun, extra batteries and flashlights. Wait a minute. Gun? That wasn’t there a while ago. Where did that come from? As it turned out the gun, in its hard case had migrated from near the tailgate to come to a final resting place up under the gull wing tool box on my truck. I’ll never know how it was able to navigate the rest of the gear in the bed of my truck, but it did. I’m just glad I’m going crazy and some thief is not a couple of hundred richer as a result of some unsuspecting pawn broker. At least now I will be competently armed in the morning. No way I am going to miss with my trusty 7mm. More on that later…

Mike and his son were going to be running late due to an evening baseball game and I didn’t expect them to drive up until morning. And he was right on about the time. About 4:30 am I see the lights of his truck coming up the road. He didn’t bring his Gator this trip so we would double up and all ride in the Mule, which I hadn’t even bothered to unload the previous night. His first order of business was breakfast. At least he has his priorities right. For some reason deer hunters must have breakfast. Ignore the fact that we have a total of five occasions throughout the year we even have breakfast (and those seem to be for the spouses benefit, not ours,) when on the deer lease it is just a requirement that you eat breakfast. It must be something along the lines of never go grocery shopping when you are hungry or something. You just don’t go deer hunting unless you have had a good breakfast. Often though, a good breakfast is defined as a tortilla with a link of venison sausage topped with spicy mustard. I guess men and women just have differing ideas about what constitutes a ‘good’ breakfast. Today, however, it was bacon and eggs with biscuits. And the requisite coffee, naturally. I don’t do milk, and Mike’s son does not do coffee, so he was content with a Dr. Pepper for breakfast. Or was it a Diet Coke? It doesn’t matter, really, it only serves to remind me of one more thing I forgot this trip. More on that later…

After breakfast we had plenty of time to check on the weather, temperature, and to choose which deer stand we would each occupy this morning. Now, you have to understand something about deer hunters. They would rather have a root canal than to use a different deer stand than the one they shot that trophy buck out of last year. So, it was a short discussion. Transportation was another matter completely. While Mike and his son (Ok, yeah, he has a name) Jordan was cleaning up the breakfast dishes I went out to unload the Mule and pack it for the short trip into the woods. Now, my cabin sits atop a hill. Not much of one mind you, but a hill nonetheless. It is probably a quarter of a mile to the road and no more than a fifteen foot rise in elevation, but it is gradual all the way from the road up to my cabin. And when I parked the truck was situated facing uphill with the trailer behind. You can probably see where this is going already. Unloading the Mule I simply let off of the winch a little allowing the Mule to be move aft just enough to remove the rear restraints. Then I set the parking brake and let off the winch a little more in order to unhook it from the forward tether. Are you with me yet? Then I simply let off of the parking brake and give it a shove and let it gently roll off of the trailer. The slight tilt of the trailer hitch on the bumper gives it just enough of a slope for me to be able to get it rolling by hand. And roll it did. I never knew just how much area that slow-to-warm-up light illuminated, until now. I can tell you without a doubt it does not reach beyond the distance traveled by a rouge Mule in November. I hear the door to the cabin open and Mike asks if I am ready to go. "In just a minute," I say. "I’ll be right back…"

The short trip to the first stand was uneventful. Well, as much as can be with two big adults and a twelve year old on a two seat Mule. Fortunately I would be the first off and Mike and Jordan would continue on to a stand about three quarters of a mile distant. I can’t speak much to the events that occurred with them. Suffice it to say that Jordan was not happy that he was not able to take a shot at that doe. After all, it was just last week that he could shoot at the does. What difference does one week make? So they pass on the does and have to watch as several groups of hogs devour all the corn distributed for the deer. I mean, they were not hog hunting, right? Over in my area I hear a few gunshots just barely after day break. I don’t mean one over there; another there; and finally one over there. I mean three very closely spaced shots where the marksman (sic) was either operating that bolt at the speed of a scalded jackrabbit or using an AR-15. Just how many shots does it take to kill a deer? Was it running? Who in their right mind shoots a deer on the run? Never mind. I forget this is Leon County. It must have ran in front of three other hunters with ARs because those rapid shots in succession seemed to happen several times. Oh well. Much stranger things happen here. I decide it is time to try out my rattle horns in hopes of drawing out one of those running bucks. Yeah, I did forget the new ones obviously made out of some polymer or something, but I still had the authentic short horns of that small 6-point from a few years back. Better than nothing I thought, and began what I assumed would be the rhythmic sound of buck fighting despite never having heard it in person. They were small and quite difficult to get the small horns to click together effectively. After about an hour of not seeing anything I decided that the sound I was making must not be right so I gave it a rest. Figured it was time for a nap anyway. Well about a half hour into my nap I see a huge shadowy figure moving about in the trees beyond my feeder. Soon, a rather large black boar hog can be seen moving about as if to decide if it was safe to come out into the open. It took quite a while before he consumed the corn on the ground that had found its way into the edge of the woods and was forced to either give up or come out in search of more of that golden candy. But he would be safe. Not because I was deer hunting but because old boar hogs are just not fit to eat. He would stay there for the better part of an hour eating away like a pig. I finally decided to find out how the hog would react to my technique of the rattle horns. Not more than a millisecond after that first click of the horns that hog left a dust cloud that obscured my view of the feeder. Almost at the same time I finally get to see what I came here to see. From my right, coming up a road, well, trail, was a lone doe making her way towards the feeder. Apparently the hog had left a generous amount of corn on the ground because I watched that doe feed for more than an hour. Soon mother nature took charge and I have to disturb that doe with my movements. To take care of business I would have to stand up, open the door of the stand, step outside, then relieve myself off the steps of the stand about seven feet to the ground. There would be no way I would be able to keep from disturbing that doe while she snacked under the feeder, but I was willing to give it a try. Choosing my times carefully I was able to stand up and open the door to the feeder, which by the way, provided a nice wall between myself and the doe, and step out onto the top stair without being seen. I removed my gloves which generally gets in the way of doing what I was preparing to do. It was at this time that I noticed the damage that those rattle horns had been doing. Being a rather small set of horns they were generally clumsy to operate and I often found myself rattling my fingers into the horns rather then rattling the horns together. The cold weather basically prevented me from feeling the horns as they clanged against my cold fingers leaving a plethora of bruises on and about both hands. But I couldn’t be concerned with that now. My main objective was to take care of the business at hand, so to speak. Occasionally I would peek back to that doe, surprised to see that she was not paying me any attention at all. Sparing you any further details I completed my assignment and began the arduous task of returning to my seat undetected. I leaned over ever so slowly to have a peek one last time through the space between the door and the stand. Although I was amazed that she was still there, she was looking in my direction. Or staring in my direction like she had just seen the first human in her life. It’s not like I was walking around or anything. I was well hidden behind the door and only my boots could be seen. Knowing that I could not move my feet without taking the chance of her running off I remained still peeking only occasionally to see if she had given up on me and resumed her feeding. It took several minutes before she decided that I was of no threat to her and continued feeding. I then eased around and started a graceful dance to return to my seat within the confines of the stand. I was just about there and was reaching for the door to again secure it closed when I saw him. Off to the left, where I had least expected to see anything, there was a fine 8-point buck watching me as I moved about trying to get back into my stand unnoticed. Of course I froze thinking this would fool this buck into, I don’t know what. Thinking I was a limb or something? Right… So I said to myself, “Hello Mr. Buck. How about you stay right there while I get my gun? Are you ready? “ In just a minute," the buck says. "I’ll be right back…"

Although the cloud of dust left by that buck was a might smaller than the one left by the hog, it hurt worse. At least I learned not one, but two things this hunting session. Rattle horns make for an excellent hog repellent, and Neil Shulman just made up that scene in the movie.

Copyright, 2010. All rights reserved. This article may not be reproduced without advanced written authorization from both the author and Google.

2010 Youth Hunting Season is in the Books!

October, 2010


As is in most states, here in Texas there is a Youth only season where those under 16 get to have a weekend of deer hunting without the interference of boozed up adults. And every year I take a small group of hunters and dads up to my place for that weekend. Well, that was this past weekend.

But, this youth season also co-exists with Archery season, which I have been participating in for a couple of years now.

This year we took a doe and two hogs. Everyone was happy and everyone got to experience the thrill of the outdoors. Everyone was happy that is, except me...

Since my son is well into his twenties I was without offspring for this years hunt, again, simply hosting the group on my property and in my cabin. As it is, I am able to do a little archery hunting while the kids are hunting. And as does every hunter with 'misses' to his credit, I have a short story (excuse) to tell.

The morning was a crisp 38 degrees but the wind was thankfully not blowing hard. Wouldn't matter anyway because my archery stand is way down deep in the thicket where even the sun has to compete for admittance. I have an area about the size of a middle class suburban home carved out of the thicket about a half mile from the nearest of the kids. After I drop off the last father/son pair it takes me just a few minutes to get to my stand, but I was only there minutes before I could see the sun trying to shave off the tops of the trees.

All settled in I decided to take a little snooze, as I usually do. I could see the corn feeder had distributed it's morning portion of feed and that the hogs had already had their share. I figured any deer that happened by would awaken me with their chomping on the corn the hogs had left for them. And, I got a few more minutes than I usually do as a young yearling spike buck (a male with one single horn on each side, for those that do not know the lingo) sauntered out of the woods on the far side of the feeder. Being inexperienced in the ways of the world it did not notice me but a mere 30 feet from him as he began to delicately pick up the corn and chomp away.

As we normally do, we try to communicate with each other using text messaging and picture message to relay what each of the groups are seeing in the way of wildlife. I had already received one such report of a group of hogs feeding at a stand near a spring about a mile distance. So, I obliged by sending my report in the way of a picture message. I snapped a few with my cell camera and promptly decided on which to send based on the picture clarity. So, I dialed the number, still being as quite as possible so that I do not interrupt the buck feeding just below.

Pressing the send button I watch as the cell phone connects and attempts to send the picture. No luck. Timed out, and the cell phone asks, "Do you want to try again?" Well, yeah... So it goes through the connect sequence again and once again it times out without being sent. Ok, I check on the yearling buck still feeding below and not paying me any mind, and I decided to try one more time, but this time I raise my arm high in the air in the hopes that it aids in the cell phone service. As I watch hopeful that the picture will finally send I hear a commotion back over my shoulder where the young buck was last feeding. To my surprise out charges a very nice 8 point buck with it's ears laid back and it horns outstretched and making straight for the yearling buck. Of course the yearling flees instantly leaving the 8 point buck standing proudly in the middle of my clearing beaming as though he had won a major victory. (In reality he had, because instead of me being alert and at the ready, I am sitting with my arm outstretched towards the sky as though asking the Lord why I have my hand above my head while this 8 point buck is surveying his new found territory.) Well I can't move because the king of the clearing was looking around alertly to take in his new territory making sure everything was to his satisfaction. It sure was to him but I had a real problem with it.

It seemed like at least half an eternity before that buck finally decided to claim his newly acquired food which lay in wait all around him. He began picking up the kernels of corn seemingly one at a time and on each he would raise his head and look around as he chomped his candy kernels. At some point in all this I managed to get my arm lowered into what became a baby cradle position. I call it that because my arm had been up there now sufficiently long enough that not only had it progressed to a state where I no longer felt anything past my shoulder, the color had long left the fingers and was fast approaching the elbow, and my arm ended up being the 'baby' that was being cradled.

With that arm being all but useless the buck was free to roam about at his leisure feeding on the corn. Fortunately for me he had not spotted me. I don't know how as I am sure I made several grunts and groans during my ordeal.

Finally I managed to work myself into a position whereby I could raise my bow and prepare to draw back and take aim. At this point I was thinking how nice it would be if I had only listened to that salesman that claimed that a 70 pound draw bow would be more than sufficient and 75 just was not really necessary. Somehow at the time I just knew that I wanted that extra 5 pounds, but now in retrospect, I'm thinking 65 pounds would have been far better. No good. Just couldn't pull it. "Do you want to try again?" Well, yeah!

After 20 minutes or so I finally managed to draw the bow without my soon to be main course hearing me. But as it were, either the bum arm or the buck fever took over and I failed to do my part in the cycle of life. Oh well, there's always next year.

This was the last weekend of bow season and quite likely the last chance I will get to hunt at all this year. In January however, there is another week long youth hunting season. I am already making plans for that week. I just hope they pan out....

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