Ever since I became old enough to join my father, grandfather, and older brothers to go hunting with them in the Catskills I always looked forward to one particular day each year. This was the monday in mid November in which the deer season opened. It would start off as a normal weekend going upstate. We leave home friday night and enjoy two full days upstate. Instead of going home sunday night after dinner we would stay an extra day. This day is the first day of hunting deer since the year before. This means everybody is anxious and enthusiastic about hunting.
We pack up all of our gear and load a few ATV's onto the trailer. We haul it behind our big SUV to my great uncles large property 20 minutes away. Here we meet up with several other family members and friends. A large dinner is enjoyed after many long conversations and we go to bed earlier than usual. Alarms start blasting around 4:30 am. I think of how damn tired I am. Everybody groggily dresses in warm layers and heavy insulated blaze orange pants and jackets. We eat a quick breakfast and walk outside into the frosty below freezing morning. ATV's are started up and begin disappear up the mountain or through the fields of blackness after wishing eachother "goodluck". We all sit in our predetermined tree stands scattered throughout the several hundred acre property.
Sitting in silence I think of how cold I am and hope that the tree stand I am sitting in does not crash to the ground with the next gust of wind. I listen and watch animals going by and occasionally fall asleep in the hard, cold chair. I hear the occasional distinct sound of a gunshot in the distance and think how another deer was harvested at that moment. I think of where I would be in school, listening to which interesting and entertaining teacher. I continue to sit for hours at a time sometimes waiting for a nice buck to step into view. I contemplate what is better, freezing in the middle of the woods or being warm in school. Definitly hunting any day.
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I liked this story a lot. I also enjoyed how descriptive your story was in terms of how early you got up and how cold it was out in the woods. One suggestion i have is that the story "Leopard" has more "you's" instead of telling the story from your point of view.
ReplyDeleteI like your story a lot it seems like you really enjoy hunting. There was one like that i really liked in your story and that was "hope that the tree stand I am sitting in does not crash to the ground with the next gust of wind." I just thought that this line was very funny
ReplyDeleteI really liked the step-to-step details of your story, starting with early, early in the morning to sitting for hours through the afternoon in the woods. I also liked how you used "I" and wrote from your point of view as if this were a memoir and not telling the reader "you" did this and "you" did that.
ReplyDeleteI would like to go hunting. When I think of hunting, I think of of Elmer Fudd, and how he hunts "that silly Wabbit", espacially when you mentioned "deer season". Elmer Fudd is always waiting for "Wabbit season".
ReplyDeleteI feel that hunting is a useful sport. I would like to go hunt some cows, and bring home fresh cheeseburgers.
This was really good. I liked the fact that its not in the past tense and its more in your view instead of someone else's. "I contemplate what is better, freezing in the middle of the woods or being warm in school. Definitly hunting any day. " I like those lines because you show how if you really enjoy something the conditions of it doesn't really matter as long as your doing something you really like to do.
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