The Last Day of the Hunt

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It is the last day of the hunting season for mule deer in Idaho. It is Wednesday, October 24, 2012. It’s snowed three times off and on the last four days.  I have tried to go hunting in the weeks before but it’s been too dry and every tree still has its leaves still on the branches. So with the dry conditions and the leaves it made it very hard to hunt. So I waited for the weather to change and finally it has.

With the new snow I think that I can find the buck deer that I’m looking for in the mountain. But I have to help Dave feed his livestock first. We have to go up the canyon to Sugar Creek, Idaho, where we feed sixty head of cow and twenty calves. Then off to Franklin where we feed another twenty-five more cows and twenty calves. And then we go to the former auction site where he has three more corrals with twenty in each pen. Them I can go home and get myself ready for a half day hunt. It’s about 11:30 a.m. by now.

I arrive at my house and put the four wheeler in the bed of the truck. I have a Ford 350 truck. It is silverfish gray in color. It is very high off the ground and it’s hard to load the four wheeler in the bed. I have some eight feet ramps but it is still hard to load because how steep it is. But I drive the ATV up the steep ramps and onto the truck bed. I have the ATV loaded and I’m off to get my day pack. I’m looking around the garage for something that I have forgotten.

And through the garage door walks in my little sister Tammy. She is 6 year younger than me. She lives in Elko Nevada. So it was a pleasant sight and a shock to see her again. We hug and go in the house to talk. She has been at my sister Patty’s house. They been working on some projects that Patty would like to get done before the snow sticks to the ground. Patty is two years older than me. I have five sisters and one brother. One sister and my brother have passed away. Tammy and I talk about this and that. And before long she is on her way back to Elko Nevada. We say our goodbyes and she is off.

I start where I left off looking around for things that I can’t forget for the hunt. Oh yes I’ve got to get my rifle. It is a 25-06. I love how it shoots. It can shoot a long distance and the bullet doesn’t drop much until five hundred yards. I grab my backpack. I put two apple and two candy bars and some other candy (for energy) in the pack. The pack has knives and bags for meat. I put a coat in the pack. I will start off the hike with a long sleeve tee shirt and if I get cold I will put the coat on. I look around. I know that I’m forgetting something. I think and think. I’ve got to be off or I won’t have enough time to get to the top of the mountain to find the mule deer that I’m looking for.

I get in the truck and I’m off. I have to drive a half hour or 45 minutes to get to the place where I unload the four wheeler. As I drive down the road I see some turkeys, and I also see two deer as I’m driving. The deer are too small and they are does and I can’t shot a doe. They aren’t in season for me. Youth from 12-16 years old can shoot does but I’m too old.

Today I’m looking for a very special deer with antlers. But I haven’t given myself enough time to do it right. But this is the last day of the hunting season so I’ve got to try for him. I tried for this buck on opening day. I had my neighbor with me and it was too dry and hot. If you tried to walk it was so noisy that the deer could hear you a mile away. I tried a new but old route and it wasn’t like I thought it was a long time ago. So it was like a whole new world. But we were there so we made the most of it. We walked and looked and walked and looked for half the day. We got very tired after just a half of a day and started back to where we began.

I couldn’t think I could get tired looking for a deer like that, but I did and I was very tired. Boy how things change from twenty to sixty years.

This is the deer I’m after. The photo was taken from my trail camera.

I arrive in Sugar Creek at Dave’s Corrals. These are the corrals where I was feeding cows just a few hours earlier. I drive the truck in the corrals and start unloading the ATV. I have to be very careful I  don’t drive the ATV off  side of the side of  the ramps or come down too fast and break something on the truck or the ATV, which I’m good at sometimes. The four wheeler is off the truck and all is good. It is time to get my day pack and the rifle on the four wheeler. I put my coat on. The ride to the bottom of the mountain will be very cold so I also put my gloves on. My hands seem to get cold on the ride. I have a box on the front of my ATV that hooks to the rack that is mounted to the wheeler. I put the day pack in the box and lock it down. I have my rifle on a sling. I put the sling over my back and that puts the rifle in front of me. The rifle is too long to be on my back. It will hit the rack on the back of the four wheeler, so that is why the rifle has to be in front of me.

I’m not looking forward to this ride at all. It is so rough by the time I get to the mountain that I have to climb, or I should say walk, up. I’m worn right out. And I still have a good hour and half of hilking to the top of the mountain at the end of this trail.

I swing my leg over the seat and sit down. I put the four wheeler in reverse and back onto the main road. Now I’m off on a good half an hour ride and like I said before, there is nothing good about this ride. I have to be in hurry so that means I have to go somewhat fast at first. But the road is so rough you are bouncing back and forth so much there is no time to look around at the scenery or anything else.

I get to an opening. This place is called the sawmill. This is the place that in the old days was the main camp where they would bring the cut down trees to. The time would be in the 1930s. And I wasn’t born until 1954 so you could say that is before my time. But I can remember the time when there was a pond and some log cabins at this site. But the Forest Service has done away with this camp a long time ago and all there is now is a big open place in the mountains. I will unpack the ATV at the far east end of the sawmill and start the long hike up the mountain.

I park the machine and start to unpack. I take off my coat and put it in the backpack. It will be too hot for me. And that is hard to believe. Because right now I’m standing in a foot of new snow. It is white all around. The snow is on everything and that is not good at all because the snow that is on the trees and branches will come down on you when you come in contact with them. So now the dry, noisy leaves are all gone, but in the place of the leaves is snow. So it will be still hard to see the deer but I’ve got to try. It’s not looking good at all but I’m off up the mountain. I’m trying to stay away from the trees as much as I can but it is going to be impossible in some places.

I’m going up the ridge and there are very few trees along the ridge. As I’m hiking along the ridge I can see rocks sticking out of the snow and it look like a set of stairs going up the ridge. I’m working my way up the mountain. I try to look all around for signs of deer. It is hard walking up hill and not looking at my feet. I have to keep my eyes up to catch movements or a deer standing and looking at me, and I have to  catch a glimpse of the deer before it see me. I walk a few steps, look around and catch my breath. I have to do that all the way up the mountain. I’m half the way up before I see my first deer trail in the snow. I see tracks now and again. They’re not overwhelming me but that means there are deer around. If there wasn’t so much snow on the branches maybe I would see a deer.

I get closer to the top and run in into a lot of maple tree and aspens. They are covered in snow and are very thick. I work my way through them but I touch them and snow falls all over me. My body tightens up in shock when the snow falls on me and goes down my neck and back. The mountain is steep and the going is slow. The snow keeps on falling on me.

I get to the place where we have the tree stand over by some small springs that come out of the ground. There isn’t one deer track around the spring. The last two hundred yards it has taken a good twenty minutes to get through the trees to get here. I look around and head in a northeast direction. Things just don’t look the same in a foot of snow and the branches and brushes are weighed down with new snow. I walk a one hundred yards and start back south. Just in a few feet I start to run into deer tracks. But I’m get very tired again. My senses are very dull because I’m so tired. I’m not as alert as I’d like to be. I’m having a hard time picking my feet up and then setting them down. I work my way over to the other ridge. I’m hoping that it is in a place where I can look the hills over and also look in some  draws for deer. And I sit down and rest. I get to the ridge. But I’m not in a good place to look around. I walk around the hill and things aren’t right for spotting game. So I walk up the hill a ways into some pine, hoping that I can find a place to sit down. But there isn’t a place to sit down out of the snow. 

I stop by a tree and put my rifle against the tree trunk. The shirt that I have on is wet from all the snow that has fallen on me and also I’ve worked up a good sweat. It is very cold on this ridge and the wind is blowing. As I stand there the cuffs on the shirt are freezing and going hard. I take the backpack off my back and set it on the snow. I take the coat out. It is dry. I hang it on a branch of the pine tree and take my shirt off and put it in the backpack. I put the coat on my bare skin. It feels so warm and dry. I’m thinking maybe I should have put another shirt in the pack too. Oh well, you can’t think of everything.

As I stand there I take an apple out of the pack and eat it. It is gone in a flash. I also eat the candy bar and have a drink. While I stand there l’m looking around for a deer or movement but I’m not in a good place to see very far but I keep my eyes open hoping that I will be lucky and have a deer stumble out for me to see. But I’m not that lucky today. I stand there for some and think to myself what time of day is it. I take my phone out of my pocket and look at the time. And it dawns on me that a few years ago I would be looking at the watch on my wrist and not the phone. Boy, times have changed.

It is 5 o’clock and it will be dark in one hour. I put the pack back on and start to look around as I move through the trees. I see something that doesn’t look right. I put the rifle up and look through the scope. It is a deer and it has a good set of antlers on its head. It is a good one but it’s not the buck that I’m looking for. On the other hand he is a keeper. But I don’t have the time to get to him before darkness falls upon me. I watch the buck for a time.

Things start going through my mind: if I had more time could I get him? Maybe and maybe not. But I did find him so that is good on one hand. It shows that I can still spot a good deer if they are there. And I think to myself if I had more time I could find the buck that I was looking for. But that is it: time. And time waits for no one.

So I start off the mountain, feeling very good about myself. If you look at me, I shouldn’t be up here but I did it. And a man in his right mind wouldn’t be up here. He would have waited for the weather to change. But I think all this to myself as I stumble off this mountain with a smile on this face of mine. 

My First Deer Hunt

                                                               

I pestered them so long that my brother and his friends finally invited me on my first mule deer hunting trip. The hunt was in the afternoon in the foothills nearby, in Franklin County on the northwest side of the Oneida Narrow. It was about a 45 minute drive from the small town of Preston Idaho. That is the town that I grew up in. The majority of my hunting experiences took place just outside of that town.

Back in the 60’s, 70’s, and 80’s, hunting for us was all about the meat. However, we all talked about get ting the one huge buck to put on the wall for all to see.

I think I was 10 or11 years old.  I was very excited to be going hunting with my older brother and his friends from Pocatello, Idaho. My older brother Victor was six years older than me. I was a pain in the neck to Vic like all 10-years olds would be to a 16-year-old.

Vic grew up fast, being six-foot one and having the perfect build. He would and could run up and down the hills all day long and he loved every minute of it. My brother,is best friend with Bernie Voyles, Bernie’s older brother Bud and Terry Nichols went on the hunting trip with us. We had to get enough people to help pay for the gas. Otherwise we could not go hunting.

After the long drive, we got to the bottom of a hill. It was the biggest and tallest hill around. We thought that in order to find the largest buck with trophy antlers, we had to hunt on the most secluded mountain around.

At the bottom of the hill, we all piled into the old Powell truck I think it was made by Dodge and powered up the hill. Running next to the countless maple trees were long openings of sagebrush and tall grass. The road going up the hill did have some rough spots, but we arrived successfully at the top of the hill. Looking over the ridge, we noticed that one side was bare and open. It looked over a big ravine full of maples. Because it was October, many leaves had fallen off the trees, that left more openings so hunter like us could see well.

Victor and Bernie started down the ravine. Bernie was on one side and Vic on the other. Vic, from a distance, looked like an animal moving though the trees. He was weaving from top of the ridge to the bottom.  Vic was traveling very fast but working his side of the ridge carefully. If Bernie and Vic jump a deer someone would be able to get a clear shot. They worked the ravine well but there were on deer. I hoped to see one or two deer take off. Now Bernie and Victor were at the bottom of the hill and had to come back up the side of the hill that we couldn’t see. Bud, Terry and I had to make a new game plan.

Coming up the hill, there were a lot of maple trees and some long openings beside the maples. The next few moments are as clear in my mind today as when they happened forty years ago.

Having no gun, I was asked to brush though the trees. At my young age, I had taken on a necessary role in the hunt. At one moment, I was so happy to do it: yet in the moment I was scared to death. For instance, I could have gotten lost or a deer could have taken me If I jumped it.  However, this was my time to prove myself. If I didn’t perform well, there would be no more hunting trips for me. I had to do it.

I start off, all my thoughts and excitement pulsing in my blood and I am into this in and out of tree, hoping not to run into a deer. A deer jumps up it has horns. It’s a good buck shots ring though the air. The buck is hit and goes into a grove of trees. Somehow the three of us meet and start looking for the big boy. 

There is a lot of blood on the sagebrush and grass. I know we got him. But the older hunters know that it isn’t a sure thing in life; lots of deer have gotten away over the years. We are following the blood trail and three he is, a lifeless body. And then we realize we got him, and Bud made the killing shot. It is the biggest deer that Bud has ever shot and got so far in his life. We are all happy.

Bud starts cleaning out the deer. Bernie and Vic show up. Vic looks at the deer and says “You should’ve come my way. I would’ve loved to shot you.” I am very excited and I say a dumb thing like “ I will drag that deer to the truck,” and they all laugh at me. Because there was no way I could drag that deer two inches let alone two hundred yards.

This nice typical four pointer

That hunting trip was over. But there would be a lot more for us in the years to come.

That wasn’t the last big mule deer buck that Bud shot in his lifetime. Bud went on over the years  got a lot of deer, of which four of them made the Boone and Crockett, the four point typical class. The only hunter to do it in Idaho, Bernie went on to be one of ldaho’s best trap shooters.

My brother Victor worked and hunted for the next few years and passed away suddenly while hunting at the young age of 22 of a heart attack, doing what he loved in life.

I eventually got my trophy deer. It hangs on the wall to show my friends that I put my time in hunting, too.  

Mike and the Bear

As I drive up to a grove of pine trees on my Honda 350 four track, there are three huge trees on each side. On the left side of me is one log that is down on the ground on its side by the three trees. All the branches on the log have broken off long ago over the years. I park the Honda in the middle of the pine trees. I put the four wheeler in neutral and put the parking brake on. I swing my leg over the back of the four wheeler and get off. There is an oversized backpack on the back of the machine. It has everything I will need for today's hike. I put on the backpack, which makes me seem a foot taller.

  I start on my hike. I get about twenty yards away from the machine. Then, from the corner of my eye, I see some movement about thirty yards in the distance. I swing around. A full grown 200 pound reddish-brown bear is running right at me. You might call him a wall-hanger, because he is a very handsome animal. For a hunger, he'd be a keeper. His head is down and he's in full gallop. I could never outrun him. I’m thinking this is it for me. The bear is closing in on me very fast and yet, at the same time, everything is in slow-motion. As you can imagine I’m very scared but I stand my ground. I wonder if I can fight back. I set my feet and brace myself for the impact. 

When the bear gets about ten feet from me he stops dead in his tracks and looks at me with his  beady golden-brown eyes. He's sizing me up. He doesn't blink and neither do I. I'm ready for the first blow. I wonder if I can fight back but all I have is my hands and the ability to think. The bear looks at me and realizes I'm not going to be easy prey. It slowly turns and walks away, slowly, into the trees.

I stand there, pale and trembling, thinking to myself that even though I'm the winner, I have gone through something even more terrifying than this a thousand times before, if not a million. 

That is my life very time I’m called on to read out loud to a group of people or even one person. You see, I have never mastered reading. The humiliation I feel when asked to read makes my encounter with the bear seem like a piece of cake. I want to walk away, just like the bear did, but I can't.  I'm trapped. "I can't," I say. "I can't read it."  

So I stand there in the forest, thinking to myself, where does a person like me stand in the twenty- first century. That hard work for a laborer is not enough for a man who wants to get ahead in this life, where everything you do requires reading and writing. 

I think of what I have accomplished this year: I've repaired five miles of fencing, which requires persistence and skill. I've replaced the clutch in my truck, built a garage, repaired plumbing and electrical problems for friends, neighbors and family, helped my son finish his basement, put a new roof on my house and painted the interior, gone on hunting and fishing expeditions, taken a couple of camping trips, been the head cook at family reunions, and, as I have for the last twelve years, I've gone to my weekly lessons in reading and writing. 

"You're a good fixer, Mike," says my friend who is a range rider, which means he inspects fences and herds cattle and oversees the entire cattle range. 

I've always had to be an apprentice because I couldn't read or write. I've had to do the work and please someone else. 

While other people can go home and read a book for work or school or pleasure, I look at the pictures. 

You have to be a specialist. 

You're treading water but you're not swimming, in every situation you encounter. All I can do is listen to what people say. People can guide you to a certain point. 

I went to fourteen years of school without being able to read or write. I could have been a high school dropout for all the good it did for me. Starting with first grade, I was so far behind I could never put it all together. Now I'm playing catch-up. 

At school, I would tell my math teacher I didn't understand the procedure needed to solve a math problem. He said, "I knew you couldn't read, because once I showed you how to do it, you could do it." He would explain the steps to me. And I would understand. 

I think back and I start looking at my teachers and I think the only ones who really taught something were the math teachers because they had to show you the formula. The others said, "read this, write it down, hand it in."

I would listen in class and memorize as much as I could. I would study the spelling words all week and do pretty well on the test, but a week later they were gone. I knew history because I listened to the lessons, and I understood them, but when it came to a test, I couldn't show what I knew. 

I was so far behind I could never put it all together. 

I watch the show, Are You Smarter than a Fifth Grader? There's so much you should know by the time you're a fifth grader. I compare myself to those kids academically and I think I'm not even close. 

When you start to learn to read, they show you so much, you work so hard, and it has to become automatic. I have brothers in law who are great readers, yet they dropped out of high school. I've had to go in the back door to accomplish what I have, but I have done it. I have learned to read. I can read just about any book I choose to read, even long biographies and history books. 

I may be slower, like the turtle in the race, but I get to the finish line and I remember what I have read.  

I like to write and I have a lot of stories I want to tell, but I have a hard time spelling the words I really want to say. I'm working on this. Spellcheck is great, but you can still end up with the wrong word. So I have to depend on others to fix what I write. 

I look at what I have accomplished and I think I could have been an expert at something by now if I had learned to read and write when I was a child. I do look back with some satisfaction, even though these skills came later in life. 

I've heard that hell is like a dam in the river because you're stuck and you can't progress. You're held up and watching everybody else progress. You're seeing what everyone else is accomplishing  and you can't  do it. You're never swimming in the river. Never in the current. 

In the end, I'm pretty satisfied with who I am and what I've accomplished. 

I'd like to be in the mainstream. I'd like to be in the big river with everyone else. 

Sooner or later an athlete has to fall back on something else. They need a Plan B. They can live off the money they've earned or go into broadcasting or get a real job, doing what they went to college for. They're famous and they  have connections and most of them can find a way to earn a living after their athletic career is over. They can't depend on being an athlete all their life. If you don't have the talent to do something else you're stagnant. 

It's like a pond that wants to get to the river but it can't get into the main stream. It becomes a puddle and the grass and the flowers grow and then you look up and you think there's a beautiful flower. If you hadn't been that pond, the beauty of the meadow wouldn't be there. I have to think of myself as the pond that didn't get to go where it wanted to go, but found itself in a good place after all. 

Thinking That One Day I Will Read Great

      As a young boy, maybe four or five, I can remember looking at a pop machine and thinking, “Someday I’m going to read.” I started first grade when my family was going through some very hard times. I went to three or four different schools, all in the first grade. So I was always behind. Come to think about it, I didn’t have any idea what was going on in school.

    I came from a family of eight kids. I am number six. I went to school for 14 years. I have a high school diploma but the sad thing is that l would still have a hard time reading a second grade book I got out of school and was called on a mission for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. I couldn’t read so the mission was a hard two years. So I ended up helping to build churches on my mission.

     I came home from my mission and like everyone else, I started my life looking for a job that I could do. I was very physical, not a big man about 5’8 165 pound, so I could do labor jobs. But one thing to think of when you can’t read or write: it is very hard to move up in a job know matter how hard you work or how long you at a job.

  I have raised a family, have a nice house, I drive good vehicles, and got along okay. I was working hard one day and made a bad step. I fell 16 feet and broke my back in four places. I got up tried to work, but the harder I tried, the worse it got. After I healed, I tried to go back to labor work three times, but by day’s and week’s end I couldn’t move. My laboring days were over.

     So I came to Bridgerland Literacy to work on my reading I had seen an ad in the paper. I knew it was lost cause. I’d been so long trying to do things without reading; for 40 years and still was at the second grade level in reading. I have been so long trying to do things without reading; it was like a bad habit. It was so hard to sit down with a book and fight with the words to make sense out of them.

    

    We started working on the alphabet sounds and letter blends. I had to work on then over and over again. There was a lot of repetition go on for me. Phonics has helped me a lot to be able to sound out words, and the there are word that are just sight words. But over time, I’m winning. I’m not a good reader but I can pick up a book and read it. But it is like anything else in life:  you have to stick with it.

   The old words you love and the new words are like new pictures you would like to sit and look at, but there is a better one a line or two away. A lot of words just don’t stay with me so it’ a repetition, it has taken years, so it’s not a day or month thing for me. It’s an everyday thing. I wished it could be a quick fix, but for me it is a daily maintenance. Reading is something I have to do it every day and I have to go over some words time and time again.

   Over the last few years I’ve written a few short stories for Bridgerland Literacy’s newsletter. One was about turkey hunt and another was a fishing trip. I wrote a short story call “Oh If I Could Read a Good Book” for a contest celebrating the 15^th anniversary of Bridgerland Literacy. It was published in the Logan Herald journal. It took first place and my teacher and I were very happy with that accomplishment.

   My teachers put a lot of work and time into tutoring me, and a lot has come out it for me. I am a very special guy. A lot has been locked in me because of my illiteracy. In the last year and a half I have read a lot. I have read three book from Russell freeman (Brother, Lincoln and Cowboys). I have read Where the Hear Is. Then I read a book called Centennial by James Michener. It had over 1060 pages in it and a lot of hard words but I stayed with it because I like it. I wanted to find out what would happen next. I have read the work and the glory Volumes 1 throw 11 each volume takes me about a mouth to read throw them. Being able to read helps me to find the facts for myself. I’ve always wanted to do that.

I’m a big outdoorsman. In 1998 I shot a large buck with very unusual antlers and it was what the outdoorsman would say it a keeper. A picture of the buck is in 2005 a wild life calendar. Recently, the editor of a wildlife magazine saw the picture and contacted me to write the story of how I harvested the enormous deer. It was about 600 words long. I was surprised that it was printed and very pleased with how it looked. I bought a copy of the magazine for each of my kids and one for myself. The name of the magazine is Hunting Illustrated and it was in February/March of 2005

   I have come a long ways in the last few years. I still have a long ways to go. A special thanks to all the people and tutors at Bridgerland Literacy thanks again. 

RUFF DAY ON THE FENCE LINE

                   

 Ruff day on the fencing line

    It’s been a hard week of fencing this spring. It has rained off and on the whole week. The snow is melting; the rivers are all at least three feet over their banks. It is so high the water is going over the tops of a lot of the bridges. The fences that are by the roadside are broken about every ten yards, there are four wires that are hooked to the fence and in most places all four wires are broken. The snow has been so deep this winter so that puts a lot of weight on the wire. You wouldn’t think that snow would break the wire. But it puts a lot of weight on the wires and breaks them. Most all of the fence has wood poles. Then you nail staples to the wood poles that hold the wire. They put around 200 new treated poles in a year.

The going is very slow and now that I’m getting up in age and have a bad back it’s that much slower for me to get it done. I’m helping the range rider fix fences. There are around sixty miles of fences to work on before the cows come. It is a little bit of fun and it gets me out in the outdoors and helps work off some of the winter fat that always seems to come my way now days. And if I help out I can hunt on the land this fall.

One day this week I got up at 5 o’clock in the morning. I fix breakfast for me; I always cook ham and eggs and hash browns. I have orange juice and milk too.

Then I take off fencing.

 This morning I’m going to the other side of the range. I will go across the river three times. It is running very high like I said at the first. Some other workers come back and said that they couldn’t get across the river but I knew that I could.
  

So I take off. I would like to say I jump on my four wheeler and take off. But no, I slowly climb to the seat and take off. My four wheeler is a Honda. It is called a 300 four track and it is in four wheel drive all the time. It not a fast machine but it gets me to where I would like to go. As I slowly go down the trail it bumps me all over the place. And at the end of the day I can hardy move. I feel like I’ve been run over by a truck and been beaten on. 
But I must like it because the next day I’m on the ATV and going again.    

I arrive at the river and start crossing. The front wheel drops into the water. It is a little muddy so the wheel drops more. As I go forward the water gets higher and higher and colder and colder. It is so high my boots are on the top of the seat. If it gets too much higher the ATV will start to float. That would be the end of getting across the river because I would be floating down the river. By the time I get to the other side I’m standing on my seat. I made it. I knew I could do it and I did it I showed them.

Off to the next river crossing. I have to stop and open two gates. They are made out of bob wire and three or four wood poles from one end to the other. You staple the wire to the poles about every three feet and tie the wire to one end of the fence line and at the other end you make a loop at the top and a loop at the bottom and hook the pole in the loops.

    
I drive down the fence line looking around at the fence to see if the wires are broken. I also have to look in front of me to make sure that I don’t run into a hole or something else. You have to be on your toes at all times. If the front wheels hit a bump or a hole it could send you into the fence line. The barb wire will catch you and cut you up all over. The barb wire has two sharp barbs about ever eight inch along the wire.

Or you could go the other way and flip the ATV on you and either way it’s not good for your body. There is scenery that always to look at too. You start out looking at grass that’s running south and north. It runs about 14 miles from one end of the ranch to the other end. The grass on west and east run about four miles across. There is a river that runs in the middle of the ranch, with pockets of willows that grow along the river sides. Also there are plenty of creeks that run into the river along the way. Coming out of middle of the grass is rolling knolls. Scattered in the knolls is sagebrush and grass. Coming up out of hill sides is maple trees and aspen. Higher up the mountain you run in to pines.

the starting place if my trip down the creek

  
The roaring of the motor drowns out every other sound. And in the back of your mind you’re always thinking “I’d like to see a deer or elk or maybe a moose.”

this is the creek a year later in the fall at its lowest

I come to other river crossing and I drop the front tires into the water just like before and start across. I drop the ATV into first gear and go. Just like before, by the time I get to the other side I have my feet on the top of the seat.

Two more gates to go through and one creek to cross and then I’ve made it. Then I can start to work on the fence line.

I approach the creek. It’s not very wide but it is moving very fast and swift. The bank on the other side of the creek is a little steep. But I think I can make it ok with not too much trouble.

 If I could only have seen what was to come, this next mishap wouldn’t have happened to me. And it is bad.

 I start across in first gear. The water is very swift and I hit the bank on the other side with my front tires. Then I start to go up the steep bank but it is too steep and I start to spin out. I’ll just back up and try again. I put the ATV into reverse and I start backing up in the water. It is too swift. It catches the front of the four wheeler and swings it around. I’m in big trouble now. The ATV is a boat now and down the creek I go. You have heard “down the creek without a paddle “or up the creek without a paddle.” Well that is me right now. I start to look for a place to get out of the creek real fast. But over time the creek has made the side too steep and the creek is a lot deeper than it looks from the bank.

My mind starts saying “keep the motor running.” So I try to keep the four wheeler running and that is going good until the creek gets narrower and the ATV gets stuck on both sides of the creek banks. The ATV is like a dam now. And I’m in dam big trouble. And the water pouring up over the machine and around it on both sides of the bank.

The motor quits. Knowing I’m going to get wet. I take off my backpack my coat gloves and though those on the bank so they will stay dry.  I jump off the machine in the back, thinking maybe I can push it. The water is very cold. It is like ice. But all I can think of is that I’ve got to get the four wheeler out of this creek. So the cold water is the last thing on my mind.

Getting behind the machine − that is a big mistake. The creek is lot deeper than I think it is. The current tries to take me under the ATV, so I get out from the back of the machine in a hurry. That could have been the end of me. I was just lucky the creek wasn’t a bit swifter.

I start working on the front of the ATV. Where it is stuck on the sides, in the grass that is growing along the sides of the bank. But I’m in luck. The creek has washed the dirt away under the bank. So I find a good strong stick and start breaking the grass off the side. It works but the sad thing is that I have to do it all long the creek. To get unstuck I goes 20 to 30 yards and get stuck again on the sides. I work at this for a good hundred yards. Just as I get to the fences line there is a place I can get the ATV out of the swift water. It is still in the water and I got to get it on top of the bank. Over time the water and cow have wide the bank sides away. And it has small rocks in the bottom of the creek so the wheels won’t sink. To get it to the top the four wheels has to run. It is too steep to push it up on the bank. When the ATV first starts down the creek I knew that I had to keep the motor running to keep the water out of the motor. The motor stopped a long time ago. So it is full of water. 

There is a tool bag in the back of the four wheeler. I have to get the water out of the air cleaner first. It is under the seat. I start to work. The box the air cleaner is in is full of water. I drain it out. I take the air cleaner off. It is a foam rubber air filter.  The foam has a light coating of oil on it. I shake most of the water off the foam and sit it on the bank to dry. The cylinder is full of water to. I take the sparkplug out and start to pump the water out of the cylinder. The starter still work so I true the motor over and over pumping the water out. It working. It takes a long time to get all the water out. But I did it. I start to put it all back to gather. The motor starts. And I ride it to the top of the bank.

I’m soaking and wet. But to get dry clothes I will have to drive all the way back. And I not go to do that. It took to mush time and effort for me to get here. I’m out in the middle of onward. So I start to take my close off. I took off my coat and glove at the first of my wild ride. I go back and pick them up. I put them on. The boots I have on are rubber. I take my sock off and hung them on the fence with the rest of my closes. So now I have my sock pants shirt hanging on the fence. I’m in my underwear and coat boots and groves. And take off fencing. I’m got to be quite the sight. It is noon. So I take the rest of the day to work on the fences line. And the clothes work on drying.  

      

The Vroman Buck

 

It was the last day of the season in 1986. That October morning started off with my wife fixing my favorite breakfast: ham, eggs and hash browns. She even got up at 4.00 a.m. to cook it for me. 

It had snowed the night before, about a foot of good, soft snow. I drove my car up Highway 36 in Franklin County, Idaho, about seventeen miles from Preston. Despite the snow, the road was good. I only had a car, so did a lot of hunting off the main highway. 

There was a saying at work that “I tried to go where no man would go.” I’m not what you would call a great hunter, but I did put a lot into it and always got my deer. I would hike five or seven miles in a hunt, and I had dragged a lot of deer five miles or more to get them out for the meat. So you can get an idea of how much I love to hunt. 

When I got out of my car it was still dark. I headed off up the hill, where it was thick with brush and steep with rocks. I had made up my mind to check out a lot of draws, because the snow would tell me if the deer were in them. I was hunting very hard that day, and thinking that after all the hard hunting and hard miles I had put in over the years, I would love to get a huge buck, it  was a fantastic day for hunting; new snow overcast sky, but no fog. Visibility was good and my eyes were open for any movement or anything else out of place. I saw a lot of does and fawns and some two-points; but that day, for me, it had to be a huge buck or no deer at all. If I didn’t get my deer I still had the late archery hunt. 

I saw a lot of deer. I had just come out of the thick brush to an area with steep rocks and cedars. I saw a deer’s legs going through the cedars so I thought I would try and catch it coming up one of the draws. My timing was just right. I got to a draw and stopped and looked around.  I saw just one side of the deer’s antlers. They looked unusual. I thought, “l’d like a deer like that.” So l got my 25.06 up and looked thought the 3x9 Burris scope. I lined up the dot on the animal’s front shoulders and fired. 

 I saw how wide he was, and I thought it was going to be another huge buck that got away. The buck whirled and took off down the hill.. But then it ran just a few yards and it was down. I couldn’t believe it. I waded through the snow to the buck. The buck’s antlers were an amazing 45 ¼ -inches wide. One side of the antlers had eleven points and the other side had nine. It had a cheater on each side, seven inches or more in length. 

That day, a snowy day, the last day of the season, I got my huge wall-hanger buck. I was a very happy guy, but the work had just started. I was pretty far from my car and it was a difficult hike. The best solution was to pack it out. All I had was a day pack, so I took out one hind quarter and the loins and of course, the enormous antlers and the cape. It took me two days to finally lug out all the meat. 

After all those years, I felt like I deserved it.. That was the biggest buck I have ever shot. 

Eventually, a picture of the antlers appeared in King's Outdoor calendar. Then I was invited to write a story in        magazine. 

A Hike

June 18 2009

It is a sunny morning about eight o’clock and not a cloud in the sky. As I stand at the bottom of this mountain, I have a good hour of hiking before me. I know that there will be lot of stops for rest before I get to the top of this mountain. As I look up there is a large boulder that sticks out of the mountain. Half of it is bulging out. The other half is covered in dirt. It has grass and little green bush growing around it. And the rock is the size of a Volkswagen bug automobile.

 Then ten feet above that stands a cedar tree. It has no branch the first six to seven feet off the ground. Over the years the bull elk and maybe some mule deer have raked all the branches off the cedar tree to rub the velvet off their antlers or to show how strong and fit they area to the opposite sex or to the other bull elk in the arena. This will be my first stop to catch my breath.

 As I start up the hill I have a lot of energy. I always go too fast at first. The mountain has a 60 percent grade or more so by the time I get to the first stop I need a break bad. I’m taking in air very fast into my lungs as I stand by the cedar tree I’m out of breath.  As I’m catching my breath, it’s time to start looking for my next stop. Will it be a pine tree, maybe small aspen, or another unusual rock up in front of me? I’m looking around as I’m breathing very heavily I try to spot the next destination.

 Oh there are three small pine trees. They are about three or four feet tall. That looks like a good hike to get up the hill to them. My mind automatically says go man go” but I’ve got too catch my breath and my hart should slow down a bit before I take off too fasts. I have already taken off my hat. How that I’m getting older it doesn’t take too much for the sweat to flow off my head and down into my eyes. I have a sweatband I took out of my backpack so when the sweat starts to run it will slow it down.

 To have a successful hike you should have a few things with you. So it’s a good idea to have a day backpack with you. You should have something to drink and a lot of it. Pack food like a sandwich or two. You always got too have a lot of good goodies the ones that you like a lot so you’ll stop and have a break and have something to keep up your energy. Also in your pack a small first aid kit. It is always a good idea to have something to start a fire. You should have a lot of thing like knives light weight emergency survival sleeping bag and on and on. Try to be prepared. My mind goes back in time. When I first started to hunt and hike I didn’t have a daypack I just put thing in my pants pockets or my coat pockets. It how we just did it in though days.

 As the hike goes on I stop and go this way all the way to the top. When I get to the top there is a clearing that run’s one hundred yards long. The grass is about three feet high.

It bends over as I walk through it. As I’m walking in the grass there are round circle. Some are big and small that animals have made by lying down in the grass and it has flattened it. I’m going south. Then I’ll run into a pine tree with its top gone. The pine is a large one more than four feet around. It looks like lightning took the top of it off, many years ago. As I keep walking I run into a camp. It’s an old camp. It has been there for a hundred years. There are old ashes of campfires, old buckets that are smashed, and small campfire stoves that are rusted out into little pieces and a lot of old things like glass that are scattered around on the ground.

People could think that is junk and it shouldn’t be there. But for me and me alone it is history. It makes me think a lot. About times that someone was a sheepherder or hunter here so long ago. And they’re not on this earth today. Or maybe just a hiker like me.

 When I get to this camping spot, It makes me feel I’m safe and at ease. It’s like a home base. If I run into this camp spot or the pine tree with no top accidentally I know where I am. I know which way I should go. As a young boy I never owned a compass. It wasn’t something we couldn’t afford or had to have. I have to look for landmarks like the tree with no top or a big rock that looks funny.

Something that odd will catch my eye when I see it again hiking or hunting. So I would know it if I see it again. So as I sit here in this camping spot my mind goes over the things that I saw on my way to this place.

 Something makes me smile inside. I think of the hard work it took to get here. My mind goes over and over it. As I rest at this spot, I have a good hour of hiking before me. I’m going to a tree stand. It’s been there for a good forty years. As some hunters would say it’s a “honey hole”. That means if you sit in that stand there is a very good chance that you will get your elk or deer or maybe bear or cat that hunting season.

I get up and start to my destination. It’s not like the first half. I will be walking on the rim of the mountain. It runs south for a good two miles. It will go through pockets of pines and open meadows. Some will be covered in grass and others will be dotted with sagebrush. Sometimes I will be on one side of the mountain and then on the other. That is just the way the trail runs. I will see rocks, trees, and areas that will tell me that I’m going the right way. Just before I get to the stand I will have to drop off the rim and go down a steep gully of about a hundred yards. And then I will run into some water. The water comes out of the mountain in one place. It pools about twenty feet like a stream and then goes right back into the ground. There are a lot of trees around the water.

 And that is where the tree stand is. The stand is thirty feet off the ground on one side and on the other side of the tree it looks like fifty feet off the ground because the mountain is so steep. We have built a platform on the branches. We built steps to go up to the platform. First I screw two bolts into the tree for each step. For each step I cut slots for the two bolts. So the step will slide on to the bolts. That way I can take the step off the tree each time I   come and go. I have make seven steps that I can take off the tree. The first fifteen feet the steps will come off and there are eight steps that stay in the tree permanently.

 Weeks before we go hunting we take our sleeping bags, pads and tarps. I have stayed three days in the tree before. And my friend has stayed for six days straight before. And that is a long time to be in a tree stand.

 But today I’m just going to put a camera up so I can take pictures of any animals that come by the water. I will leave the camera there for a month and come back to look at the pictures it takes. The camera will take the picture automatically when something walks or runs by it. I tie the camera on the tree with bungee cords and get it all set up to take pictures a month before the hunt.

So I can now take a break. I will eat some of the food that I brought, sitting at the bottom of the tree stand. It’s hard not to think of the animals, I have seen and taken pictures of over the years. Most of the animals, didn’t know I was even around.

It’s time to go. I can go down the gully straight or start around the mountain going north and catch the ridge and follow it straight down. It takes nearly as long going down as up, no matter which route I take. The ridge is longer but easier. Today I choose the ridge, it’s not as steep and I don’t have to crawl around a lot of logs that will catch my backpack. If I would have taken the gully there are a lot of logs that have fallen into the gully. If you go that way you would have to climb up over the log or go around it and sometimes you can crawl under the logs. It could be fun and also a lot of work for you.

But today I’m taking the ridge just because. I start back go north. There are a lot of bushes. They are small but thick, my boot catches in the little branches and slows me down a little and the hill side is steep so that also makes the going slow. But I have just a little ways to go to the ridge. That catches the mountain and goes down to the bottom.

I still have to take breaks and catch my breath, I’m getting tired from all the hiking I have done today. I will work my way down the ridges and as I am walking I look at both sides of me. There is a gully on either side and they are very steep so I’m glad that I am on the ridge today. I keep working my way down, taking my time but I will soon be there. I get to the bottom. I will head north to get to my starting point. As I look north I have a two mile walk to the 4-wheeler. At the bottom of the mountain it has small rounded hills and more little gullies to go through. There are some long stretches and round knolls. There are a lot of old pines trees. The grass is very short because cattle have mowed it down to the ground. The trail shows up real good since the vegetation has also been eaten down. 

I have to return to where I stared because that’s where my 4-wheeler is parked. I’ve done two things at once: I’ve been in the outdoors and I’ve prepared for the hunt.

I get to the 4-wheeler and I’m tired and exhausted from all the walking I have done today but it has been fun in its own way. I have walked a good ten miles today and that’s not too bad for a guy my age.  I stop and have a candy bar and a good long drink. The ride back to the truck and camper is a good eight miles. And that is a fun day in the outdoors for me. It’s funny how the work of hiking is all done, that you can forget it so fast.

                                                      

A Fish Story: The One that Didn't Get Away

                                                          Fishing Steelhead

I start this story off by saying I know I’m not up to par as a fisherman. So you have to take it as someone starting out. I have fished for steelhead three times in my life before. Last year I caught seven or eight steelhead and that could be a fish story.

My friend called me up and said that the steelhead are on the move, and that last year was a good gear and this year was going to be three times better. Now, steelhead is a rainbow trout that goes to the ocean. Adults are generally 20-40 inches in length. They go to the ocean for 1-2 years and cone back to spawn. Most cone from Fish Hatcheries along the Salmon River but they are getting a lot more wild fish. A wild fish is one that spawns on its own in the rivers or creeks.

I got a new rod and reel for steelhead fishing. I got flies, sinkers, hooks and plugs. And you know how it is when you start to buy equipment --- you can just fall into it and never hit the ground.

So the big day comes. There are three of us going fishing. Now Bernie is the leader of this trip. He’s gone all over to fish in little places like Alaska and Africa. Now you are getting a picture of a real fisherman. And if there are fish to catch, Bernie will lead.

Now there is Bud. He is a very good hunter and is just getting out of the house for a few days. He likes to talk a lot and he has been three and done it. So he can go on and on about things. And there is Michael. That's me. I like to show up and put my tine in. I go on the idea that if you put the time in, you will get something out of it. Maybe not great results, but you will get something out of it and go home happy.

Now steelhead fishing is an all-day thing for some of us. It starts before the sun is up and takes til it goes down. Now the first day I do OK in my eyes - - catch two or three. Bernie catches five and that is all you can catches in a day. And he lets some go. Now the second day is a good day, I catch four and start releasing them. We end up catching seven wild fish on our trip.

Bud is not into it yet, so time is slowly for him. One day we are fishing by some other fishermen. Now Bud finds out that they are from his home town. And that the one man was just a year behind him in school. We fish by the him for two days. We are doing all right. They are struggling. Now the second day we are fishing  and we are doing OK. And the people we are fishing by are being very serious about the fishing.

Now Bernie is doing OK. And it is getting to him how uptight the people are by us. So Bernie talks to me about the next fish he hooks---I should net it for him. Now we are talking about how I should net it for him. And then we are talking about how I should net the next fish the wrong way- and that is just between me and him.

So he hooks one. I ask if I can use their net to net Bernie’s new catch. They say that it is OK to use their  net.He gets the fish close and I get the net to my waist. But Bernie says “no," to get the net over my head. (Just to me.) He gets the fish closer and I slam the net down like an ax by the fish. It’s off like a shot in the water a little ways from the bank. Now Bernie is yelling at me to net the fish. And now the other fishermen are all in shock because of the way I’m trying to net the fish. Bud is there too, and is in shock too,and thinking that Bernie is going to blow up about how I’m trying to net this fish. Now the fish is back to shore and Bernie is yelling at me to net it. I get the net over my head again and slam it down again by the fish. Now the fish jumps out of the water and jumps right into the net. Now Bernie and I are in shock because the fish that we weren’t trying to net is in the net.

So all we can do is laugh and laugh. And the other fishermen that are in shock start to laugh too, to see such a sight. Now we are all laughing and there are no more serious fishermen at this hole. And so goes the fishing trip.

By Michael H. Vroman

  

  

  

Idaho Fish And Game

F&G TAKING ADVANTAGE OF HUNTERS

April 7, 2007, 11:48 am

ifennell in General

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By Michael Vroman

There was a time in old Idaho when hunter, if he or she wanted a deer or let’s say two they could do it. And that went on for years.

Now in this new days, when the Idaho department of fish and game is use post be so good at managing, game. You be lucky to get a deer in two or three years in a general hunt.

Let’s look at today’s average figures published by Idaho Gish and Game vs, my experience from the old days. I know from 1966 1986, you could get your deer and it wasn’t anything unusual to shoot a four if you wanted one. I moved away from Idaho for about 11 years, and cane back eight years ago.

It has been a very disturbing and hard eight years in terms of hunting to see how far ldaho FIsh and Game has lit the deer herds go downhill.  Fish and game wells deer tags like nothing is wrong.

When I first came back I was looking for just a nice four –point in the places where I had always seen or killed one years before. But for two or three years after I came back, no deer for me.  At first I thought I was being too picky. Then I was reading an article in December 2004’s outdoor life called “Bears facts,” A man responded to outdoor life’s  October’s snap shot feature, where he had read that they were going to have a bear hunt in New Jersey.

 New Jerseys. Department of fish and game approved a hunting season for bear which sounded ok to me but to make a long story short , he wrote  that they were selling 10,000 permits when the state had somewhere around 3000 bear in the whole state. So they justified selling 10,000 permits because the harvest was expected to be 3 to 5 percent out of the entire herd of 3,000 bears.

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This made me thing that’s what Idaho fish and game is doing. They know that for a genera  hunting season,  17 to 25 percent are all who are going to bring home a deer out of units 74, 75, 76, 77, and 78 and it could be the whole state of Idaho, for the general hunt as far as that goes.

That sounds like New Jersey’s.  So with that reasoning Idaho fish and game says, “let’s sell 10,000 permits  or tags even though so few hunters will get their deer.”

That is just wrong. Look at all the hunters fish and game is taking advantage of just because they love to hunt.  And that is what Idaho fish and game is doing to its hunters year after year, knowing that it has small herds of deer and that only 17 to 25 percent of the deer in the small herds will be harvested.

F&G’s mindset is. “let’s sill tags like we have big herds of deer and look, look at all the money we will get and we’ll have all those hopeful  hunters in the field.”

Fish and game also knows the percent of hunters that will screw up and make mistakes or unknowingly, break the rules, and they will write up tickets fish and game makes even more money.

Look at unit 77 for the last six years. Around 168 deer are taken a year. Somewhere around 13 are four points or better.  In a good year fish and game will sell around 930 tags, so that means that in a good year they send 765 hunters home without a deer. And that is just one unit.

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It makes me and other hunters sick looking at the harvest reports for the last six years. It’s time for fish and game to quit selling tags for deer they don’t have and start managing the deer herds right. All it’s going to take is one bad year for the fawn herd to be wiped out, and none of us will be hunting for three to six years. Some older hunters don’t have that much time left when that happens.

So Idaho Fish and Game, start managing the small herds and make them into big herds or manage. Or manage the small herds the right way. You have the schooling and knowledge to do it the right way.

And quit selling deer tags for deer that we don’t have.

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Today, to getting a good four-points buck not a Boone and Crockett (the ultimate trophy) is like playing the lotto. It is too much of a long shot. Come to think of it, we should take all that money that we spend for licenses, tags, permits lodging, food, bullets and gas and play the lotto instead. And if you are lucky and win the lotto take the money and go to another state, to a private ranch where they know how to manage deer herds.

Micheal Vroman of Preston Idaho is a hunter who lives to hunt large herds of deer that are actually there.

A Day In My Life

 As I drive up to a grove of pine trees on my Honda 350 four track, there are three huge trees on each side. On the left side of me is one log that is down on the ground on its side by the three trees. All the branches on the log have broken off long ago over the years. I park the Honda in the middle of the pine trees. I put the four wheeler in neutral and put the parking brake on. I swing my leg over the back of the four wheeler and get off. There is an oversized backpack on the back of the machine. It has everything I will need for today's hike. I put on the backpack, which makes me seem a foot taller.

I start on my hike. I get about twenty yards away from the machine. Then, from the corner of my eye, I see some movement about thirty yards in the distance. I swing around. A full grown 200 pound reddish-brown bear is running right at me. You might call him a wall-hanger, because he is a very handsome animal. For a hunger, he'd be a keeper. His head is down and he's in full gallop. I could never outrun him. I’m thinking this is it for me. The bear is closing in on me very fast and yet, at the same time, everything is in slow-motion. As you can imagine I’m very scared but I stand my ground. I wonder if I can fight back. I set my feet and brace myself for the impact. 


When the bear gets about ten feet from me he stops dead in his tracks and looks at me with his  beady golden-brown eyes. He's sizing me up. He doesn't blink and neither do I. I'm ready for the first blow. I wonder if I can fight back but all I have is my hands and the ability to think. The bear looks at me and realizes I'm not going to be easy prey. It slowly turns and walks away, slowly, into the trees.

I stand there, pale and trembling, thinking to myself that even though I'm the winner, I have gone through something even more terrifying than this a thousand times before, if not a million. 


That is my life very time I’m called on to read out loud to a group of people or even one person. You see, I have never mastered reading. The humiliation I feel when asked to read makes my encounter with the bear seem like a piece of cake. I want to walk away, just like the bear did, but I can't.  I'm trapped. "I can't," I say. "I can't read it."  


So I stand there in the forest, thinking to myself, where does a person like me stand in the twenty- first century. That hard work for a laborer is not enough for a man who wants to get ahead in this life, where everything you do requires reading and writing. 


I think of what I have accomplished this year: I've repaired five miles of fencing, which requires persistence and skill. I've replaced the clutch in my truck, built a garage, repaired plumbing and electrical problems for friends, neighbors and family, helped my son finish his basement, put a new roof on my house and painted the interior, gone on hunting and fishing expeditions, taken a couple of camping trips, been the head cook at family reunions, and, as I have for the last twelve years, I've gone to my weekly lessons in reading and writing. 


"You're a good fixer, Mike," says my friend who is a range rider, which means he inspects fences and herds cattle and oversees the entire cattle range. 


I've always had to be an apprentice because I couldn't read or write. I've had to do the work and please someone else. 


While other people can go home and read a book for work or school or pleasure, I look at the pictures. 

You have to be a specialist. 


You're treading water but you're not swimming, in every situation you encounter. All I can to by is what people say. People can guide you to a certain point. 




I went to fourteen years of school without being able to read or write. I could have been a high school dropout for all the good it did for me. Starting with first grade, I was so far behind I could never put it all together. Now I'm playing catch-up. 


At school, I would tell my math teacher I didn't understand the procedure needed to solve a math problem. He said, "I knew you couldn't read, because once I showed you how to do it, you could do it." He would explain the steps to me. And I would understand. 


I think back and I start looking at my teachers and I think the only ones who really taught something were the math teachers because they had to show you the formula. The others said, "read this, write it down, hand it in."


I would listen in class and memorize as much as I could. I would study the spelling words all week and do pretty well on the test, but a week later they were gone. I knew history because I listened to the lessons, and I understood them, but when it came to a test, I couldn't show what I knew. 


I was so far behind I could never put it all together. 


I watch the show, Are You Smarter than a Fifth Grader? There's so much you should know by the time you're a fifth grader. I compare myself to those kids academically and I think I'm not even close. 


When you start to learn to read, they show you so much, you work so hard, and it has to become automatic. I have brothers in law who are great readers, yet they dropped out of high school. I've had to go in the back door to accomplish what I have, but I have done it. I have learned to read. I can read just about any book I choose to read, even long biographies and history books. I may be slower, like the turtle in the race, but I get to the finish line and I remember what I have read.  


I like to write and I have a lot of stories I want to tell, but I have a hard time spelling the words I really want to say. I'm working on this. Spellcheck is great, but you can still end up with the wrong word. So I have to depend on others to fix what I write. 


I look at what I have accomplished and I think I could have been an expert at something by now if I had learned to read and write when I was a child. I do look back with some satisfaction, even though these skills came later in life. 


I've heard that hell is like a dam in the river because you're stuck and you can't progress. You're held up and watching everybody else progress. You're seeing what everyone else is accomplishing  and you can't  do it. You're never swimming in the river. Never in the current. 


It's like a pond that wants to get to the river but it can't get into the main stream. It becomes a puddle and the grass and the flowers grow and then you look up and you think there's a beautiful flower. If you hadn't been that pond, the beauty of the meadow wouldn't be there. I have to think of myself as the pond that didn't get to go where it wanted to go, but found itself in a good place after all. 


I'd like to be in the mainstream. I'd like to be in the big river with everyone else. 


Sooner or later an athlete has to fall back on something else. They need a Plan B. They can live off the money they've earned or go into broadcasting or get a real job, doing what they went to college for. They're famous and they  have connections and most of them can find a way to earn a living after their athletic career is over. They can't depend on being an athlete all their life. If you don't have the talent to do something else you're stagnant. 


In the end, I'm pretty satisfied with who I am and what I've accomplished.