Saturday, March 15, 2008

The Cart Whisperer

I've been a hunter most of my life.

I started out with a Daisy BB gun. Didn't take me long to master the art of poppin' sparrows, Field Larks, Mocking Birds.........and once in the snow.....a Cardinal.
Tin cans were toast....a cardboard box became a German pillbox to be overrun.

But............when my boyish enthusiasm led me to consider larger prey.......such as my sisters (sorry girls)............My FATHER made it clear in NO uncertain terms that I was using the wrong caliber weapon.

Eventually I moved on to a single shot .410 that blew back and tried to blind me.....
.......but was hell on squirrels and an occasional foray with Dad and Uncles after "Birds", the delectable Bob White Quail. On my 16th birthday I received a Fox Savage double barrel 16 ga. shotgun. I loved that gun (still have it in my Gun Case ..........already I had been allowed to venture into the woods on our farm alone with a gun and as many shells as could be stuffed into a pair of jeans. Later......in Germany I moved up to a Winchester 12 ga. and was quite deadly on the skeet range. An HVA Carl Gustof of Sweden .308 Win. made at Forenade Fabriksverken rounded out my long gun collection until my Dad died and I inherited his guns which include my Great Grandfather's 10 ga. double barrel English field gun made by J & W Tolley in Birmingham England about 1865.

Gradually I somehow moved away from going after prey with a gun. Somehow loses some of it's allure after you've been both prey and hunter of the top of the food chain. I survived that test and figured if it couldn't shoot back, half of the fun was missing.

Today I hunt for hidden treasures and bargains that have more value than I pay for them.

But others have different talents for coaxing the object of their desires to come.

Witness one fellows relentless pursuit................



Makes you tear up a little doesn't it.

1 comment:

US said...

Just makes ya think........
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some people have WAY too much time on their hands,