by Greg Bean

Created on: July 04, 2008   Last Updated: July 05, 2008

Savor those magical and special moments in time

I gave up big-game hunting decades ago when I moved away from the state where I was born, a place where most people filled their freezers for the winter and fed their kids from the bounty of the land.

And even though it's been a long time since I got up at 3 a.m. on the first morning of deer or elk season and made the steep haul into the mountains or foothills so I could be in a good place for a shot at sunup, I still get a pang this time of year when the pumpkins are ripe, the leaves are golden and there's a skim of frost on the grass in the morning before the sun warms up enough to melt it off. Those mornings when steam is rising in light clouds from the backs of horses waiting at the food and water troughs in the pastures and in front of the barns I pass on the commute to my office on Route 9.

On those mornings, I often wish I could turn back the clock to the days when I was a hunter, sitting in the warm cab of the pickup in the false dawn of the Rocky Mountains, smelling the hot coffee in my Thermos cup and thinking about the mule deer buck or bull elk I'd been tracking and scouting through most of the summer to learn his ways.

I don't miss the killing that is the result of a successful big-game hunt. Fact is, that was never the point for me. For me, harvesting a big-game animal was simply taking the food that the creator had so graciously supplied in as humane and efficient a manner as possible. That's the way it worked in ranch country, and everybody did it. So many of my friends and neighbors depended on the big-game harvest, in fact, that where I grew up, schools were closed on the first day of the season.

What I do miss is the companionship of the hunt itself. I miss my father and grandfather and my favorite uncle, who were the masters of our family hunt. I miss hearing their silly stories. I miss seeing their faces around a campfire meal of chili, cowboy coffee (a handful of grounds thrown into a pot of boiling water) and my mother's carrot cake after a long day in the field. I miss the company of my brothers on those hunts, the one time of the year when the men (and sometimes the women) of our family were all together in wild country, engaged in a common pursuit.

When I remember my father and grandfather and uncle, I remember them most lovingly as they were in hunting camp, not as they were at their jobs wearing ties, or when they dished out discipline for our misbehavior. I remember their competence, their

• 1
• 2
• Next Page >>