Dud up early for opening day of deer season.

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Slim Ran­dles

Cof­fee always tastes per­fect before day­light on the open­ing day of deer sea­son, Dud Camp­bell thought as he sat in near-total dark­ness in his kitchen. He was being extra quiet so as not to awaken Anita. Turn­ing on a flash­light on the kitchen counter, he wrote:

Honey, I’ll be up Pine Canyon, hunt­ing up a feeder creek 1.4 miles to the right. The truck will be at the camp­ground. Doc and Steve both know the area I’m hunt­ing. I’ll be back no later than 10 p.m. unless I call.

An hour later, Dud qui­etly got out of the pickup and left a note under the wind­shield wiper:

Hunt­ing to the west between here and the ridge. Should be back here no later than 9 p.m.

Dud Camp­bell

Dud was sit­ting on a rock out­crop­ping as the sun rose, feel­ing the warmth spread from inside out as another great day of antic­i­pa­tion came.

He smiled, and then prayed. He always did dur­ing hunt­ing sea­son. His prayer wasn’t wish­ing for suc­cess, but sim­ply express­ing grat­i­tude for this spe­cial time. This was the suc­cess. Sit­ting here in the sun, hunt­ing yet another year. An actual deer for the freezer is sim­ply gravy on this feast.

After lunch, Dud decided to try a dif­fer­ent loca­tion, so he returned to the pickup and left a dif­fer­ent note. He got home about 9 p.m. and raved to Anita about the won­ders of the day in the woods.

You left me that note, Dud,” she said, “but I don’t even know where that is.”

No. But the sheriff’s depart­ment does, and search and res­cue knows, and both Doc and Steve know.”

She still looked puz­zled. “You’re a good out­doors­man, though, aren’t you?”

Well, yes I am. That’s why I left the notes. Any­one can twist an ankle or fall up there.”

He smiled at her. “Hunters have an old say­ing, Honey. If you take crutches with you, you’ll never break a leg.”

Brought to you by the national award-winning book “A Cowboy’s Guide to Grow­ing Up Right.” Read a free sam­ple at www.slimrandles.com.

Posted by kpotts on Nov 26 2012. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS Feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.