The annual pilgrimage to deer camp occurred for the first weekend of deer season.
This is a gathering that has taken place with more or less the same group of people for more than 20 years. Some of us see each other only during deer camp, but it goes without saying, we will show up.
Something unusual or amazing usually happens each time we get together. This year seemed strangely normal and calm. Nobody set their socks on fire trying to dry them on the stove. (That would have been my socks a couple years ago. It makes it hard to eat lunch with the thick smoke of overly done socks hanging in the air.)
Nobody had a broken bone and had to be propped up with a pair of crutches under a tree. (That would have been Dick last year, and Rob the year before that.) Nobody filled most of the tags for the whole party on the first drive of the first hunt. (That was Jose several years ago. That may have been my fault. He asked what he should shoot and I said I did not care, so he shot them all.)
Nobody did a power slide down the creek bank through the rose bushes, at least not that they told me about. Several years ago, Jason ran to the edge of a ditch to get a shot at a fleeting buck. He got the shot just before he slipped and fell over the edge and slid face first to the creek. He received the "most injured in pursuit of a trophy" trophy.
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At least one day during each season, there has to be a covering of snow or ice causing generally slippery conditions. Someone always seems to slide into or almost into the pond. Last year, that would have been me with the red truck. The year before, it was again me with Mike's truck. The year before that, it was also me, with the black truck. Perhaps it is not someone sliding into the pond, it is only me, but who is counting?
This year, though it was as slippery as usual, I did not put a truck into the pond. I waited until I hit the black-top on the way home Saturday evening. The snow was blowing over the road and caused a large patch of black ice to form on a hill. When I accelerated to go up the hill, Dick and I suddenly found ourselves going backwards, into a ditch, and rolled completely over. It took a minute or two to determine we were not dead and then we continued home. We stayed out of the pond, but the truck could not have been more damaged if we had ramped it off the pond damn and it had become totally submerged. By morning, Dick and I were both stiff and sore.
Using my wife's truck, we were late making it to deer camp, which is not all bad. Being an hour or so late gives the cabin time to warm up and the coffee time to brew. We had a successful day of hunting with no accidents or incidents.
For the first time in years, deer camp came off without a hitch. The minor detail about rolling my truck and almost killing myself and my best friend does not technically count as a deer camp occurrence, since it did not happen during hunting hours or on the farm property. We are fortunate to be able to get together each year to enjoy the camaraderie and the great outdoors, even if we happen to have a rather uneventful season.
Walter Scott is an outdoors enthusiast and freelance writer from Bloomfield, Iowa.
