“Over the river and through the woods to grandmother’s house we go, the horse knows the way to carry the sleigh through the white and drifted snow. Over the river and through the woods, oh how the wind does blow! It stings the toes and bites the nose, as over the ground we go.”
This holiday song is familiar to most people who have a few years behind them. Lydia Maria Child originally published it as a poem in 1844.
I remember singing it in grade school. I associate the song with Thanksgiving, when we went to my grandparents home, Oscar and Julia Hanson. I can still see the house where they lived when I look out the back window of the room where I sit and do most of my writing. There’s no river or woods between us and I never traveled to their place by horse and sleigh, and yet I still associate that song with going there for Thanksgiving, along with all my uncles, aunts, and cousins on my mother’s side of the family.
Things have changed a lot since those days. It’s a lot harder for families and extended families to get together these days because all the relatives don’t live within a few miles of each other like they did when I was young. Now we go to Amy and Tim’s home near Ixonia, a three-hour drive by car from Westby. And we can’t forget our grandson, Sean, and granddog, Sweeney, who also live there. Our son, Erik who lives in Madison will also join us. I wonder how long that trip would take by horse and sleigh? I’d have a real healthy appetite by the time we arrive, and would probably have a good case of frostbite from the wind that bites the nose and stings the toes.
Speaking of cold toes, nose, and fingers, the opening of deer hunting season in Wisconsin took place this past weekend and always seems to coincide with Thanksgiving week. It was January weather instead of November case weather.
I have to admit that I haven’t been deer hunting for close to forty years. Deer hunting was a family tradition and I always looked forward to it. Those nine days always went much too fast. Then Vietnam came along and when I returned, hunting was no longer fun. I won’t go into details, but after trying it again, more for my father’s sake, I put my rifle in its case and there it sat for all these years.
This year, our son-in-law, Tim, wanted to come up and go deer hunting in our woods. I didn’t want him to go alone. When we moved from Madison I had finally thrown all my old deer hunting clothes and boots. I hadn’t used them for many years and I was in a throwing mood as we packed up for the move to Westby. I went to Bethel Butikk in Westby and found an orange coat, stocking cap, and insulated boots that I could fit into. Actually, I wasn’t too worried about how I looked or how things fit. I just wanted to be as warm as possible and be visible in the woods so nobody would mistake me for a deer.
Next stop was to find some ammunition. The bullets I had for my two rifles were over fifty years old, and I didn’t want to see if they would still work. I managed to find a box of 35’s and a box of 30-30 shells. Boy, ammo prices have really increased since 50+ years ago! A real uff da. On the up side, my license only cost me $5.00 because I hadn’t hunted in the past ten years. I guess the DNR is trying to get new hunters or past hunters to try it again so they can make more money. To make sure that I didn’t do something wrong, I read the entire rulebook. After all, a lot of things have changed in forty plus years. I found one thing that hadn’t changed… the feeling that there’s still a bullet out there searching for me that missed me in Vietnam.
As we headed for the woods in the pre-dawn darkness, the temperature was eight degrees and you could hear the wind howling. It was cold! When we reached the woods we loaded our rifles in the dark. I told Tim we’d only load three bullets. If a person can’t get a deer with three shots, you may as well stay home. We didn’t chamber a round until we reached the spot that we would hunt from. You can’t shoot until it gets light anyway. Those are safety rules I learned from my father many years ago. I got Tim situated on a point along a well-used trail and I went to another area and found a snow-covered stump to sit on. Then we waited… in the dark… in the cold… with the wind howling through the trees. It was cold. My butt was cold from the stump, my hands were cold, my feet were getting cold, and my nose was cold. Did I mention it was cold?
After a couple of hours with no sign of a deer and very little shooting around us, we decided a hot cup of coffee and a warm stove would feel good. Thanksgiving was just four days away. Turkey sounded a lot better than "deer meat," and a whole lot warmer.
*
No comments:
Post a Comment