The most frequently asked, and most boring, question to returned deer hunters is, ‘Did you shoot Bambi??
It’s the put-down of fish and fowl savers and other do-gooders who find their only joy in life is picketing and playing with their Palm Pilot.
For 10 years no one has shot ‘Bambi? in our camp. This year some stupid, suicidal seven-point buck lost its way, and while looking for the North Star for guidance, stepped in front of son-in-law Bob Offer’s blind.
At this time nearsighted Bob decided it was a good time to excite fellow hunters by being first to shoot his gun opening morning. The dumb deer was in the bullet’s path.
From then on our deer hunting camp’s atmosphere changed completely. Instead of guys bantering, exchanging cerebral thoughts, it became a one-sided avalanche of how this overweight individual pulled on his long-sleeve dressing gloves, searched for and saved the heart and liver, dragged the carcass several miles to the road, and recounted the horns over and over. ‘Did I tell you it was a huge seven-pointer??
It was the first time I’d gone to bed before eight in all my 50-plus years of deer hunting. Boast and brag, on and on.
He got on the phone (my bill, of course) and called his brother, mother, priest, every seventh name in the Engadine phone book and former Secretary of State Madeline Albright. Bob’s been married to our daughter Luan for 23 years and this is the first I learned of his Jewish background.
Not that there’s anything wrong with that.
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The babysitter of my 5-year-old grandchildren took them to a grocery store recently. In the cereal aisle Trevor told her, ‘This is my kind of place!?
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Son Jim and I stopped in Mackinaw City to have lunch enroute to our UP hunting camp. As I do in all such places I pick up free reading material. In this case it was the Northern Express, a weekly paper out of Traverse City that brings ‘arts, entertainment, news and views of Northern Michigan.?
George Foster and Robert Downes are publishers and editors.
In this edition there are 18 ads for women seeking men, 33 for men seeking women and 10 for men seeking men. There are none for women seeking women.
I read some of the women seeking men to Jim as he drove. If the woman was 61, 5?1? and 118 pounds, Jim said she was lying about both her weight and age.
If the woman’s ad gave no weight Jim said she wore tent-size clothes. The ‘Woman in Traverse seeking a man between 55 and 72? was ugly, and the ‘Outdoors Lady? wanting a drug/alcohol-free man was a controlling nag, he said.
In other words he wants me to stay single and keep him in my will.
As for the guys seeking guys, it kinda tells you things can be boring in Northern Michigan.
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Here’s my grandchildren closer. When son-in-law Bob Offer got his seven-point buck, our other son-in-law Tim Speed called home to tell their twins.
To Trevor he said, ‘Uncle Bob got a deer.?
‘That’s nice,? replied Trevor.
To Haley he said, ‘Uncle Bob got a deer.?
Haley said, ‘Trevor got a nosebleed!?