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 Old
Jasper Blankenship went out to hunt deer the other day, the same way
he’s done for decades now. He’s slower than he used to be, of
course. Deer season has changed a lot for Jasper over the many years
he’s been at it. As a kid, he couldn’t wait until he was old enough
to get a license, because he wanted to bring a buck home to show his
family. Not just any buck, either, but a big one.
As a young man, he wanted to see how many hunting seasons he could
have in one year: duck, goose, quail, pheasant, deer, about anything
that moved.
As a middle-aged man, he turned to the technology of hunting and
wanted to learn about the newest gizmo that would make you quiet,
make you invisible, make you irresistible to deer.
But things are different these days. Oh, Jasper still enjoys going
through all the outdoor magazines and orders catalogs, and each year
he orders some new gizmo that guarantees to bring home the meat. But
he just chuckles at them, even as he orders them. Hunting, to him,
means a reattachment to nature, a return to his roots. [to top of second
column] |
It is a time to see if his
personal skills are still adequate. It is also a time to sit on a
ridge and look around and appreciate what is there. And if what
isn’t there happens to be a deer, well, that’s all right, too.
Venison isn’t getting any easier to pack back to camp after all
these many seasons, either. But there is something in the hunt,
something in being allowed to silently stalk the nameless essence of
fall, something in moving in near invisibility. There is something.
Sometimes it’s just nice to go out there and see what happens.
[Text from file received from
Slim Randles]
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