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NOVEMBER,30,1959! Memoirs of a young boy.

722 views 5 replies 4 participants last post by  triggercreep 
#1 ·
The 29th. Had all my hunting stuff packed,what little i had? Dad took me to my Grand Paps house.
Seemed like a very long trip? Took about 30 minutes to get there.
On top of the mountain i can see trees and forest for what looks like miles and miles.
Pull into Gram and Paps driveway. Cars all over the place.6 uncles,their hunting buddies and Pap,out side laughing and kidding each about who will get a deer! More than a dozen men there in the yard?
I don't know most of them and am shy,i just listen to them talk.
They are kidding each other about the season before and who had missed deer because so and so couldn't shoot straight or because he should go get glasses?
Wow! These guys are all big men. I am 5 foot tall and skinny.
2 married Uncles went home for supper and friends of theirs left to.
Gram had supper on the table and we ate. Dad had left while it was still light and it is dark now.
They told me to get to bed at 9 pm.
Just laid there most of the night? Must have fallen asleep because someone got me up.
House is a little chilly,coal furnace needs stocked up.
November 30. Ate something and they showed me how to dress for the hunt.
My uncle,who is taking me on the hunt,says "I am going to clean the car off and warm it up."
Look out side and there is 6 or 8 inches of snow.Cold and wind is blowing snow in circles.
Uncle says roads are bad and puts tire chains on his brand new Oldsmoble.
Still dark and we put the guns into the car and head to the mountain.
Tire chains making noise like boomp-boomp-boomp.
Turn off the snow covered highway onto a woods road. Parks the car and tells me to watch down over a steep hill by the parking spot.
Uncle says"Stay by the car so if you get cold just set in it and warm up. If you see any deer with horns shoot it."
Other men come i had seen the day before and they head down the road on foot.
Its still dark and very cold and the wind has the tress creaking.
I am standing by the car,wind has my face froze.
It is getting light. All of a sudden shots start and deer are all over the place running and jumping the log road.
Snow blowing,face is cold,hands and feet to. Can't see that well because of the snow flying in circles around me.
I see my Uncles coming on the road. They are covered with snow and pulling 3 bucks.
They load their deer up and are going to put on drives for me??
I see deer but they are too fast for me to shoot at and i can't see any horns?
we go home. I am froze. Call dad and beg him to let me take another day off school. It works.
Next day December 1,1959. Lots of snow and very cold and still windy.
Not much shooting . I am cold and tired but don't want to give up.
My feet have never been this cold ever.
All day i seen 35 or 40 deer ,no horns.
Loosing light,time to go home. No deer!
Maybe next year?
Dad came and took me home. Cleaned up,ate and fell asleep early and dreamed of all the deer i seen and the sounds of all the shoots
December 2,back to to being trapped in a school building and looking out the windows and day dreaming of the days before.
 
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#5 ·
Update: Of my 6 Uncles,4 had pasted and the other 2 are in their mid to late 80's. They still live on the mountain but have quit hunting.
Grand Pap hunted,in back of his garage he had an old chair he kept there and would sit there the first day of buck.As far as i can recall his last trip to the chair,he was 90! He passed the next summer.
The mountain and their property,are still forest and lots of area to hunt on,just very few deer since we have had the large amount of doe tags being used?
Quite a bit of it is now Game Lands also!
The sounds of traffic,before day light,the cars parked in every spot you could get one off of the road and the sounds of salvos gun fire are all gone! The snow has not amounted to anything over the last decades either?
These folks were not mountain men,per say,but,we were Mountain People.
God bless all of us that are left and the young ones who are trying to take are places.
 
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