Small moments (an essay)

[gabe4]

The economy is terrible, both my wifes and my place of employment announced lay-offs, all my vehicles are ready to give up the ghost and this winter caused the pipes to burst in my garage and yet today I was reminded of how lucky I am.

I went out to sit on the deck to try and relax by smoking a Coronado knowing I wouldn't be purchasing anymore for a long time, when I heard one of the few sounds that makes me almost lose my breath, cerrik cerrik... a Woodcock had decided that the fallow field across the street would be the ideal place to attract a mate. I called to my 6 yr old boy now in his PJ's ready for bed to come out and sit with me and before I could tell him to listen he heard it and his eyes light up. I was so proud that he just knew whatever was making that noise was something special. Then the little timber-doodle took to the air making that beautiful sound, the twitter and the little peep peep, we were able to see him in the dim sky then he fell back to earth. The joy of being able to share that with my son almost made me choke up. Suddenly there was a rush of similer moments brought forward in my mind.

My life is made up of so many BIG things that I think will dictate my happiness when really it's the small moments that are what help me to survive. My family used to visit a lovely old camp on a lake in Canada, it had an old hand pump that was the only way to get drinkable water, I remember that sound to this day. It meant Grampa was up making coffee and that he would be up to wake me to go fishing. As always, life changes things, family moved away and we stopped going, maybe 15 years and two kids later we were able to return. One foggy morning after a fight with my soon to be X-wife my 2yr old daughter and I were sitting on the dock when we heard a loon her expression made me forget everything. She almost fell off the dock trying to see it through the fog.

The following fall after a bad divorce that resulted in my Kids moving away and left with no money and in bad shape emotionally. I decided to go hunting on my dads farm I just needed to get in the woods. I wasn't really paying attention, when a grouse burst out from right between my feet, without even thinking I was able to ground the bird, I recall yelling at the top of my lungs “You can't take that away from me”. That simple small moment woke me up and made me stop feeling sorry for myself.

We hunters are the luckiest people in the world we always have those small moments to fall back on to keep us level and to help us go on. And it seems so hard to explain to those who don't hunt that this is an important thing to keep alive, way more important then money or a new home or some politicians agenda.

I know it's long, but thank you for allowing me to share this.

 

[Rob Mayercik]

Hey, Gabe - good to see you still lurking about here. Interesting piece you wrote there.

I'll keep my fingers crossed that you and Patty dodge the layoffs.


Rob

 

[xjtrailrider]

I know how you feel and what you are saying, I'm on "furlough" today, my hours have been cut to 30 a week and we are facing more or even lay-off. I have been at this company for 22 years and I'm considered a master tech for them and have never lost a days work, in fact I have 22 years "perfect attendance". Its hard for me to be at home, I was raised to work hard, and work every minuet my body would let me.

My 7 year old son is home with me today due to an ear ache, so we are going to work on the Jeeps together and build a memory or 2. Niether one of us can just sit still!

Good luck on the job situation, but just remember, you are not alone in this mess of an economy. I don't think we will ever have it as good as we did through the late 90's and early 2k's. Dig in!

 

[kujito]

We hunters are the luckiest people in the world we always have those small moments to fall back on to keep us level and to help us go on. And it seems so hard to explain to those who don't hunt that this is an important thing to keep alive, way more important then money or a new home or some politicians agenda.

Well, I've never been an avid hunter and never hunted anything much bigger than birds. I can however, relate to the feeling of 'small moments.' Golf is one of those things that keeps me sane. It's too hard to concentrate on the shot (golf or dinner) and the rest of life at the same time. The feeling of a purely struck ball is one of the best around. Before you even look up, you know it was a good stroke. Even the bad ones(my majority, and I'm sure not unlike a fruitless hunt) that piss me off, are better than dwelling on everything else that's going on in life.
"A bad day on the golf course is better than a good day at work." I know hunters and fishermen who feel the same way about their pursuits.

 

[gabe4]

Hunting is just my way to collect those moments, there are certainly many other ways.

 

[gabe4]

Another Small moment that happened just this last fall really brings back the first feeling of freedom and in a way pride. I was fortunate (though at the time I didn’t think so)
to have grown up on a farm full of game, with several creeks and ponds to explore. One summer I think I was 7 or 8 my father had told me if I worked real hard in the hay fields that summer, he would give me a surprise. Well of course at that age and size what he really meant was stay out of trouble and not get in the way, I did this by walking behind the bailer and rolling the bails into piles, kind of a make work job but I was tired at the end of the day none the less. After a couple of weeks of what I thought was a good job and me making sure Dad was aware of it, he finally gave in.
One rainy Saturday (I don’t really remember if it was raining but it must have been or we would have been haying) Dad called me into the kitchen and there, leaning up against the door was my first BB gun, you guessed it a Red Rider single pump. Dad began the speech on safety and all the rules that came with it but of course I had tuned him out, all I was thinking was how I was going to bring home a huge buck with it. The feeling of now I’m a hunter was overwhelming, not the hunting part but now when my dad and his hunting buddies told stories I would finally be able to tell my own. The pride of telling everyone and anyone that I had a new rifle but trying to act as if it was just an ordinary thing is something I’ve never really been able to recapture, until this past fall.

When I had come back from the Army and found my own place my dad gave me a box of stuff that he had up in the attic that belonged to me and in it was that old Red Rider. At the time I just stashed it away. I ran across it at the end of summer while looking for my Grandpa’s old hunting hat. I pulled it out, it was a mess all rusty the stain on the wood had started to come off and the large cotter pin my dad had used as a repair because I apparently decided I needed to take the thing apart to clean it and subsequently lost the correct bolt, was laying in the bottom of the box. Man that feeling of summer vacation and the freedom to just be gone all day came over me. I decided that I could fix the wood and all the barrel would need is some paint, so I began the refurbishing. I decided to keep the cotter pin repair instead of replacing it with the right bolt, still not sure why. The whole time all I could think of is how cool would it be to give this to my son, and how am I going to convince his mom to let me.
Well this past fall after many trips a field scouting, all the while talking to my boy about safety, having him carry a stick as if it were a rifle and how a hunter walks through the woods. I determined it was time. I called him out into the kitchen one morning where the very same Red Rider BB gun was leaned up against the door like it was 30 years before. He actually said to me “Dad I thought you weren’t suppose to leave guns out”. I said well then I guess we better find a spot in the cabinet for your new rifle, his eyes got HUGE I thought he was going to lose it, he didn’t know whether to pick it up or to stay away from it. I finally picked it up and handed it too him and that feeling of pride that I thought I would never feel again came over me like I was a little boy again. The excitement in his eyes was contagious I really forgot where I was and how OLD I was. I tired to act all grown up and give him the safety speech I had prepared, but I forgot most of it, which didn’t matter cause he couldn’t hear me anyway you could see his mind was on the big buck he was going to take. I told him to get a coat and something on his feet and meet me outside. So I took the rifle out and set up a couple of paper targets, he came running out still in his pajamas two different shoes on but managed to get his only piece of camouflage clothing he owned out from the bottom of his closet. I showed him how to load it, we did three BB’s at a time, I showed him how to XXXX it and I fired it first, the whole time him just fidgeting and squirming like he was going to bust if I didn’t let him try it. Well the first time he loaded it he forgot to close the end so all the BB’s ran out, then once he got that figured out he had a hard time cocking it. Finally he was lining up for the shot, I was telling him to look at the bead and where it should be in the back sight and not to jerk the trig… when he fired and hit the paper, he yelled “I HIT IT I HIT IT”. Man I hadn’t felt that good in so long. The rest of the week I was telling anyone and everyone how I had given my son my old BB rifle and trying to act as if it was just an ordinary thing and that I wasn’t just braggin.