Fall has finally arrived in North Texas and, after a long hot and dry summer, there is a definite hint of a nip in the breeze serving as a prediction that colder weather is to come. Spring and early summer means fishing weather, but fall is for hunting. It is something my dad engrained in me. There is something in the autumn air that triggers fond memories, especially of my father. From the time I was one year old until I was five, our little family lived in Connecticut, the boyhood home of my dad. In those days, he worked in my step-grandfather’s restaurant supply business in New Haven during the week, but on weekends he answered the call of the woods in the beautiful New England countryside. Some of my earliest memories were of hunting with my dad. Even autumn in Texas triggers the memory of walking through the birch and maple woods as the leaves changed, hunting pheasant or deer. I can still smell the smell of autumn in my memory, the rustling of the leaves as they changed color and fell from the trees. This time of year, it is so easy to close my eyes and remember my dad as a young man in his twenties who looked just like James Dean, carrying his shotgun in the crook of his arm and wearing his tan bird hunting vest. In my mind’s eye I am still a toddler walking along the Housatonic River trying to keep up with my dad who was patient to teach me, more intent on passing along his knowledge of the outdoors than his quest for game.
My dad’s teaching continued when we moved back to Texas in 1961. We lived in Hondo where he worked as an airplane mechanic at the old air base. The base was only in service as a military base for four years, beginning a few months after the bombing of Pearl Harbor, but it continued as a civilian base long after the war to this day. On weekends dad would take me to his deer lease in D’Hanis a few miles from our house. There he would teach me how to hunt deer. I have told before that dad would wake me up around 4 in the morning and take me to the deer blind where he would bundle me up to make sure I was warm. The blind didn’t have a roof and I would lay on the floor and watch the stars… and listen. I distinctly remember I could hear music that was coming from the stars. Maybe that was the product of a little kid’s imagination and maybe it is something you hear as a child but lose the ability as you get older. There is a scripture in Job that says: “while the morning stars sang and all of the angels shouted for joy.” (Job 38:7) One of my most vivid memories was hunting with my dad on November 22, 1963. We had been hunting all morning with my dad’s friend from work, Bobby Dial. We were dropping Bobby off at his house in Hondo just after lunch, when his wife burst out of the front door sobbing uncontrollably. She finally gained enough composure to tell us that three hundred miles away in Dallas, President Kennedy had just been shot. It was a day I will never forget.
This coming Saturday is the opening of archery season in Texas. I plan to continue the tradition my dad passed down to me and share it with my kids and grandkids. I am so anxious that I am like a kid again. I am anxious to share the experience with my kids, and I know that we won’t be alone. My dad will be with us….always.
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