this year turkey hunting was filled with terrible weather and a bit of birdlessness. i sat in my blind for long hours.
i released alot of ghosts in that nylon blind........thought about alot of people and things in my life....
one of my thoughts was of a old friend who was my doctor as a kid...but more than that he was a mentor. he used to take me hunting and for rides in his airplane (little single engine job)....i used to cross country ski with him too. he taught me alot. we once flew to south dakota in his little plane and i shared the passenger seat with is dog casey (irish setter). we pheasant hunted for a week...it was alot of fun and great to learn the ropes of wingshooting from an old master.
about 8 years ago he was finally put in a nursing home with severe parkinsons. his mind was still tack sharp...so i enjoyed visits with him....id go fishing and give him my trout...(well his wife...then she'd cook it in the nursing home kitchen). id ask him if he still likes eatin duck.....he'd say "does the pope crap in the woods"? so id go shoot him a couple ducks just to show him i hadnt forgotten my appretiation of all he taught me. his wife passed from a relapse of her stomache cancer.....then paul went shortly after her as he could barely even hit his mouth with his silverware anymore cuz of the parkinsons disease......
it killed me to see him all shakey like that but i still visited him to try n repay what he had given me....it was worth it when i could get a smile from him by dragging dead game into the home for him to see. im not sure if he was happy to see the beautiful animals he enjoyed so much...or if he was proud of me...or if he was just happy to be eating wild game....it didnt matter i was glad cuz he was happy and it always made me happy to allow him to escape his prison. i once loaded him up in my pick up and took him duck hunting. it was probably pathetic to see him slumped in a chair looking over a lake while making god-awful honks on the mallard call....but we didnt care...he was enjoying the smell of rotting leaves, fallen acorns and the sickening but awesome bog smell you can only appreciate if you know what life bogs hold.
those kinds of ghosts are what floated around with me in that blind while my nose ran from the cold and my hands turned blue.
thats only one ghost....but there were lots of em that made their way into the blind
