Deer Hunting With Dad

Opportunity of a Lifetime: Deer or Dad?

Some of us have had that life changing experience spent with our fathers or mothers. The bond between a father and son can be something truly magnificent whether it is a small or a large event. The accumulation of memories is what makes a relationship so special and deep, and what keeps a parent and child so close throughout life. Such memories become embarrassing stories in front of new dates, toast at weddings, eulogies at funerals, and lifelong memories of someone who might just not be around any longer. This is an account of the single most incredible bonding moment I have ever had with anyone, and fortunately it is a memory of the coolest man I have ever met, my father.

For twenty years I have been gathering memories of my father and while some are bad, ninety nine percent of them are great ones. The one funny thing about memories is that you never realize they are going to be memories until long after the occurrence takes place. For instance when I was very young, if I were to misbehave in public my father would take me on what we now call "spankin' walks" where I would be lead out the door by the wrist while my father spanked my lil' bottom until his message was clear. At the time it was not such an enjoyable walk, but now I can look back and laugh with an appreciation for how I was raised.

Unable to predict the magnitude of such an experience, at the age of twelve my father took me deer hunting for the first time ever. It was late October and as a high school football trainer, he finally had a Friday evening off and wanted to make the most of it. We drove south to my uncle's farm in Owen County, Kentucky, and stayed the night in his very primitive trailer to stage an early morning hunt. That morning my father and I headed into the woods with our muzzle loading rifles; his was a hand made replica of a Kentucky Long Rifle and mine was a $100 starter rifle. We took our spots in a tree stand we built the Saturday before. The stand was perfect for two people; sitting back to back we could each see our respective ends of the fields as well as a decent distance into the woods on the opposite side of the stand.

Most of the morning went by without any action at all, but I grew to learn just how squirrels prepared for the winter. As the afternoon approached, my Dad asked me if I was ready to go back to the trailer for lunch to which I replied "in a lil' while, I'm not too hungry yet." About twenty minutes later in a blur came a deer out into the field in front of me, so I shouldered my gun, took aim and fired. My father was half asleep and with no warning of my shot he almost fell out of the tree stand. When he turned and looked he saw the same magnificent eight point buck that was just as scared as he was. The deer took to running and Dad spun around his gun and took a desperation shot at the sprinting whitetail but his bullet found the side of the ridge instead of his moving target. With the deer out of sight we began to look at my gun and to see why the weapon had malfunctioned when I pulled the trigger. Upon further investigation, we