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 I cannot remember a time when I did not hunt; I have always hunted. I grew up a "daddy's girl", following my father around working on cars, fixing household appliances, piddling with things that fathers do, but mostly, we hunted. I am very thankful for having been brought up to love hunting. I have heard of others who weren't introduced to hunting until they married and it was their husbands that taught them. I fear that would not have been successful for me. My husband does hunt, but I don't think he would have had the patience to teach me (nor I the tolerance to learn from him) the art of hunting. He did introduce me to bow hunting, but that's another story in itself!I love to hunt. Greg, my husband, lives to hunt. I don't think that he enjoys it any more than I do and I don't think that he's any better at it than I am, he just has the ability to prioritize his hunting over other things. Even when we were in college, I was content to hunt on weekends and holidays, but he would get up and go out before classes and go back after classes. I have been more limited by my own restrictions, I have rarely taken vacation time from work for extended hunts and never would miss any of our son's athletic activities so I could go on a hunting trip. I'll admit that I have envied my husband's ability to just go hunting, but not to the point that I changed my priorities. Since we met nearly 30 years ago, Greg and I have gone hunting together, yet we have almost never hunted together. We have ridden out to the woods or camped together countless times, but come daybreak (or earlier) he has gone one way and I the other. If we heard the other shoot, we'd work our way over and help clean and retrieve whatever game taken. When I've had a successful hunt and Greg has worked his way to my game and me, his reaction has always been the same regardless the game killed. He pats me on the back and shakes my hand, smiling proudly and congratulating me on my take. I initially thought this to be odd behavior. Not that I thought he should react more intimately, it just seemed strange. How many times has your husband shaken your hand in celebration? I have spent much time in tree stands thinking about most everything. One fall day, I thought about Greg and his "good ol' boy" reaction and I suddenly realized that was it! When he finds me in the woods with my game, he doesn't look at me as his wife; he reacts as he would with any other hunting buddy! What an honor! This gesture assures me that he sees us to be equal in ability and talent (if only for that moment!). Once we get home, I'm the one who answers the questions, "Honey have you seen my (whatever it is that he can't find)", "Did you wash my coveralls", "What's for dinner?", etc. but for a few moments in the deer/turkey woods, I'm his hunting buddy! |
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