“...outside somewhere… alone with the heavens, nature and God. Because only then does one feel that all is as it should be.” Anne Frank
Jokingly, two years ago our oldest grandson forbid me from going pheasant hunting by myself on Thanksgiving Morning anymore. My going “pheasant hunting” alone, on Thanksgiving Morning is a nearly 40-year old tradition. I not really hunting, and I seldom even come home with a pheasant. Without getting too preachy, every Thanksgiving Morning I just get out in the hills with my shotgun, sometimes a dog, wander around, and “give thanks.” While I’m out wandering around, my wife (the best cook in the world) prepares Thanksgiving Dinner for the family – our daughters, their spouses and our grandsons. They all show up in the early afternoon, usually just before I come home.
Anyway, my Thanksgiving Morning pheasant hunt 2 years ago was a disaster. I managed to slip in the mud going down a hill. I fell, broke my right ankle in 3 places, and put a spiral break up my right fibula. I had a cell phone, but I was afraid I’d scare my wife if I called for help. So I just unloaded my shotgun and kind of used it for a walking stick to get back to the truck – it was only a couple of hundred yards. And no, I didn’t shove the muzzle in the mud. I sat the buttstock in the mud and hung onto the barrel. Then I drove home, about 5 miles.
Well, there went the “not scaring my wife” thing. As soon as I hobbled into the house, she and our son-in-law put me back in the truck and hauled me to the hospital in Pocatello. They x-rayed my leg and ankle, then called in an Orthopedic Surgeon who I took an instant dislike to – that jerk chewed me out for interrupting his Thanksgiving Dinner because, as he put it, “You didn’t have enough sense to not go hunting on Thanksgiving.” Besides, all he did was splint my leg clear to my crotch and tell me to keep it elevated. He didn’t operate on it until a week later.
When he finally did operate, he put some screws and metal plates in there, all of which had to be removed in another operation two months later. And he assigned me to 4 months of Physical Therapy. Because my wife was still working (not retired) then, our oldest grandson usually drove out to the house after school to haul me back into town for doctor and Physical Therapy appointments. When all was said and done, he told my wife that she wasn’t to allow grandpa to go hunting by himself on Thanksgiving Morning anymore.