Didja See Da Tirty Pointer?

Do you know how I know that it's deer hunting season?

My inbox starts to fill up with photos of eight-pointers and ten-pointers.

I don't hunt. I've never had a whitetail strung up on the buck pole. (I think that's the correct terminology, I'm not sure.) It's not because of a lack of opportunities...I've got a brother-in-law and a couple buddies who hunt, and I've had several invitations. And it's not because I'm too sensitive to kill Bambi, blah blah blah. (I looove me some venison!)

I just...haven't gotten out in a tree stand with a gun and the requisite percentage of blaze orange from the waist up. But one of my buddies, whom (who? whom?...is there an English teacher in the house? *ahem*) I've known all my life, sends me tales of the hunt each season, and I think I might be the non-hunter who gets most excited to hear his hunting stories. It helps that he's a great storyteller, too, but I get a big kick out of hearing what he's up to out there.

This year, he took seven shots, and put down six deer...three bucks, three does. And a maple tree. (I'm going to have to tell him to save me a couple loin steaks from that maple; I hear they're very tender.)

Growing up, we spent countless hours on each other's driveways, playing basketball...but now he's a state away, and it's not quite as easy to get together and just hang. It's been a while, actually. I need to take a road trip.

He's quite diligent about keeping people up to speed on his life, sharing family photos and hunting stories and golf stories. And I can hear him talking when I open up one of his e-mails and read his words. In the absence of being able to jaw in person, there's not much better than that.

I doubt that you could find a more personable hunting guide, and I've thought more than once about giving it a shot. *ba dum bump* Even if I didn't see too many deer, just being out in a tree stand as the sun comes up...alone in the woods with your thoughts. That can't be such a bad way to spend some time, eh?

(what's that line that's rolling around in my head? "...I thought I'd spend some time alone with my thoughts, and you know...turns out that I don't have all that many thoughts!" Is that a Joey line from Friends? I know I've heard it somewhere before.)

Well...some people are using this NaBloPoMo challenge to list one thing each day for which they are thankful. While I haven't used that as a template for my entries, I'll end this particular post by saying that I'm thankful I get to live vicariously through a good friend and read about his journeys through the woods and his time in his tree stands.

"There is a passion for hunting something

deeply implanted in the human breast."

—Charles Dickens