Dad, me, and our great prairie-chicken conspiracy
Dad, me, and our great prairie-chicken conspiracy
It was during the summer trips to upper Michigan that I learned of the boyhood magic still hidden in my father. Although he punched a time clock in the suburban reaches of Detroit at one time, he also successfully owned an oil company and an electrical store and then later on, he sold out and bought land in Florida and moved there setting up orange groves and raising cattle. Dad had been reared in the days before the great depression and learned to make do with life as it comes along with what he had available. I spent the many summers of my adolescence with him, eating up miles of dusty roads as we searched for grand adventures.
The sometimes work trips to the North was more organized than our usual excursions, with his constant need to work, but my father always enjoyed an opportunity to teach me the skills of the wild. After a few days of working the tasks he set for doing, Dad always developed an itch to get away from the usual chores he set out to do. This was usually a tread through the wild woods to see what it was like, a trip to the lake for fishing or at sometimes a hunting trip for what ever was available and in season.
It seemed my father and I had made a new friend as we ventured out to see what we could find, for me it was the venture, for him it was the bonding of Father & Son. It always became a spontaneous escapade poorly planed, fuzzy in purpose perfect for adventure. We fished or hiked most of the afternoons until near dusk and returned with the adventure’s find for the evening.
It was the usual find, the adventure of Paul Bunyan & his Babe, the Blue Ox & the tales of the old logging days of the wilds of northern Michigan. The running of the smelt & fishing all night long with a bonfire always, the man in the waist high rubber waders that had a little too much to drink and almost drowned. The local Indians and listening to the tales they had. My adventures of first shooting a “Real” gun. The building of the cabin and the team of horses used, the dogs brought to the camp, the black bear meandering through the camp & scaring us all.
The wilds of the northern Michigan woods were at first new to me, with the forest floor littered with years of fallen trees toppled one on top of the other due to age, weather or logging episodes. They rest there rotting on the floor with years of forest growth generating soil on top and new growth of trees growing everywhere. The forest was of a dense growth of pines, poplar and willows sometimes broken by earlier logging and tree stumps. There would be deep holes where a tree had fallen with the roots torn out of the ground leaving a hole filed with water. This left exploring hard work but a young boy’s imagination ran rampant with wonder.
When winter left a very heavy snowfall, we would go hunting for deer early in the morning. Sitting for hours near a deer run left me numb looking for the ghost like images of dear passing nearby enjoying the dead quiet of the winter with the noise of a rabbit thumping his hind foot somewhere.
One day he decided to buy a Bow & Arrow Rig and see how he and I could do with it. Neither of us ever dreamed we could ever use it with any skill. My Father and I peering into the forest, wandered out to see what tree stump we could kill in practice for that big day with the big game.
We decided on a stump of extreme importance, one of great stature, one that might be a little tough to eat, a trophy at the most. Suddenly, he drew still while aiming his bow & arrow at the stump and turned to me with a smile on his face that drew my attention and with a finger to his lips, commanded silence. He was peering into the dense forest, looking for something my city eyes could not see. His hand gently withdrew the bowstring never taking his eyes off of the trophy he was aiming for. For a few seconds he stood as still as the forest surrounding us, and my mind flashed with the many stories I had heard of his boyhood. I was seeing my father as a boy in his environment, learning the gifts he would eventually give me. The moment was electric. He let the string go and the arrow fly and a large bird fluttered around on the ground. A Grouse, Partridge or prairie chicken as it is called, flopped around on the ground. He had put an arrow right through the neck of that bird as though he had the skill of the ancient Indians of the territory.
Swiftly my father grabbed it by the head and flung it around until the faint crack of its neck signaled the bird’s demise. With hardly a word, my Father skinned and cleaned the bird. He secured some thin forked branches to make a spit and began roasting lunch over a fire as if this were our daily routine.
My friend and I stood in silent awe, broken only by the sweet smell of roasted prairie chicken. We ate and laughed and embellished the story, Dad cautioned that there was probably some ordinance against hunting grouse, so in the delightful conspiracy we all swore to silence.
I carefully tucked away that little snapshot of my Fathers youth and held onto it like a treasured gift. Now that he is gone as of one year this date, I take it out and give it to my family and wrap myself in his heritage. He died on March 15, 1998
The best gift my Father ever gave me was time by his side.
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I only posted this as an example of my life with my late dad. I don’t intend to publish it.
