NOV-B-4

THE THANKSGIVING DAY AND END-OF-NOVEMBER SEASON:

A FAVORITE OF THE YEAR, WITH THE TURKEY CHASE

FOR STARTERS, THE TRAPPE MD TURKEY DINNER CELEBRATION, AND THE DEER HUNTING OF MD’S OPENING

DAY AND SEASON:

IN A COLD AND WINDY OPENING DAY,

A SINGLE DEER, A SINGLE SHOT, AND A BIG BUCK

FALLS TO DAVID SCHAEFER AND ME

November 30, 2003

The run was wonderful! It seemed too cold when I go out early to load up the Audi, for its Inaugural Ride to Joe’s hose and to the Eastern Shore to follow. It was last year I was early enough to stuff the oven with the big bird Joe and I won at the Solomon’s Island Recreation Center for the US Navy personnel in their Turkey Trot. This year the store-bought turkey went in to the oven to be baking as Betty and the kids all lined up along the curbside in the cold but bright morning to give Joe high-fives as we rounded the bend about a mile into the race.

We had a funny episode at the start. Joe had appreciated the heated leather seats in the Audi and we were going to go for packet pick up of my number 262—a low number in a field of up to six thousand runners—enough to attract the TV cameras and even an overhead news station helicopter. We went through packet pickup about the first to do so, and I got a tee shirt for my registration and also one for Betty. I then went back to the Audi parked in the special handicapped parking with Joe’s tag on the rear view mirror. I had been listening to the “Dual Biography” on Lee and Grant about the Civil War. I had not know how much this would be of interest to Joe, since he had planned to go up to Harper’s Ferry and to "see" the civil war events that had occurred there, along with “John Brown’s Fort”---the fire station where he had been captured. He was keen on listening to the Civil Wart stories as we sat in our toasty warm seats awaiting the warm-up stretch with the Sergeant’s Program pre-race. I maneuvered Joe and me toward the front of the large pack of runners, and we lined up to start. Just as I set my watch and Joe had shifted hands for the sting to go to my left side, the gun went off and the crowd surged forward. I turned to grab an armload of air!

I was pushed along for about a hundred yards as I called out for Joe. I could not see him, and I knew he would not just run forward so I tried to run back against the onward rush of bodies. I worked my way to the outside and then saw Joe behind the starting line at the curbside margin, and grabbed his arm and pulled him into the center of the stream of moving runners. This is the first time this little stagger-start has ever happened, and we were separated at the very start of the race! But, we got quickly into pace and all it cost us was about two minutes and our front line starting position.

But, we are about a step and a half ahead of the pace, and that means we would have to be putting on the brakes throughout our run, since we would crawl up the backsides of the thick crowd of runners, especially when we arrived on Wisconsin Avenue, where the three land southbound road had cones blocking off only one lane for runners and two lanes for vehicles. Joe and I could not safely pull out of the “coned-in lane” so we had to settle back to a pace not usual for a sprinter. We just decided to enjoy the race—especially the high number of good-looking women around us—“Hey now!” being the code word! We enjoyed the race.

The sun rose high and bright, and it almost got warm toward the end of the run, making it a good idea that we had used shades during the run. WE crossed the finish line among all our friends of the MCRRC who run the RMS (Race management Services) for this run. We had seen Joe’s family and got cheers at the one mile point and now we could get a banana and bagel and go back to the Audi to listen to more Civil War stories. I had an invitation to join the Aukward family for both their Thanksgiving celebration and also the Harper’s Ferry excursion the next day, but I told them of my longstanding tradition on the Eastern Shore, and that I would be out deer hunting. I showed Betty and the kids the pictures of the house since they were the last and hope to be the first visitors of the old and new Derwood household. I also showed them pictures of the twins from the San Antonio visit—only two weeks older than Michelle, as Joseph junior is similarly the same age as Andrew William.

A LUXURY RIDE BY AUDI TO THE EASTERN SHORE

FOR THE THANSIGIVNG TRADITION OF OUR

DEER SEASON OPENER AFTER THE HOLIDAY

The Bronco seemed lonely as I pulled out a few things to pack over to Craig’s in Trappe. It is the ideal deer hunting and running gear vehicle and Joe is asking for a final sentimental journey by Bronco. We called Virginia before the race to leave a message that we appreciated her heated leather car seats, but I did not embarrass her by adding that I might drape a big dead buck across the Audi hood rather than having it fit well on the Bronco.

I drove out to the Eastern Shore and crossed the Bay Bridge, which on prior holidays had taken a couple of hours. I had allowed more time this year and actually crossed in about forty five minutes. I arrived in good time at the Schaefer’s’ with their company and the family expected later for dessert. They would have a hard time knowing who it was arriving, since this may be the first time in the last 15 years that the Bronco stuffed with hunting gear, running attire and other items has not been my signature, and now a sporty Audi A-4 is in its place. The times they are a changin’.

We had the big overstuffed dinner and even more desserts, as all the family came over except Cindy and her husband Keith since she is having a baby shower hosted by her friend in Salisbury after Craig and Carol had first suggested it and set it up. Craig and I could sort out some stuff for the hunt, which would not be as it had been planned for the Friday after the holiday, since Carol would be going off for her usual Black Friday “Combat Shopping” and assembling her very large Christmas list. I had given them their Christmas presents in July since I had said then that I would not be able to find anything at all later when things were packed away—and I was certainly right! So, with the wind whipping up and howling, Craig got out my early Christmas present—a new Gore-Tex Camo pants and jacket which I would certainly need this week for the hunt. We went to Newark and visited with Chester and Carol and stopped for lunch. We saw their chicken coops being converted to a garage and an indoor rifle range. I got my gear ready for the early Saturday morning start of MD's opening day of deer season. Bill Webster had assured us that we would see scores or more of deer at the Vo Tech—more at the evening than the morning—but all bets were off, when the high winds were howling for over twenty four hours and no deer would want to move during that time when they lose hearing and scent direction.

OPEINING MORNING:

A COLD WIDNY LONELY VIGIL IN THE SAME TREE I HAVE USED,

AND, THEN, AT 7:30 AM, I SPOT A SINGLE DISTANT BUCK

I was in the tree early, and watched a slow dawn as I rocked back and forth in high wind. At 7:00 AM I heard the cackle of turkeys and they walked behind my stand in the woods. I had seen nothing else from the stand except turkey buzzards bucking the wind, and even a bald eagle which was getting blown around. I recalled that for many years I have sat in that tree hearing lots of shots around me but not seeing anything until last year when a doe ran out and a buck followed, both of which found their way to the meat packing plant after I swung on them with my .270. This time I would probably be more likely like all prior years when I had seen nothing from this tree however promising its position. At 7:30 I looked up and saw a big bodied buck enter the field and cross directly into the rising sun, so that I had a dazzling light scatter in the scope. I pulled off my glove and dropped it from the stand, aiming at the side of the tree where the running buck should come out on the far side, out of the direct and strong rays of sunrise. As the buck ran out to 260 yards, he turned and I saw it was a large six point buck. I hesitated only a moment more, and aimed high on its neck, and squeezed.

At the sound of the shot, I could see a shower of hair and the buck staggered back, and then ran behind the tree that interrupted my view. I heard Craig shoot three times and then heard a shot from David, then a second one, and finally a third shot from David’s stand. I waited, then used the walkie talkie radio to call Craig. “Is he down? I thought I had hit him well!” I got no answer.

Later, I heard a call from Craig, who said he had somehow turned the radio to the wrong channel, and he had just now got it to working. I asked again., and he said he thought I had missed it and that David had hit it three times and he had missed it three times, shooting behind the fast moving buck who seemed in remarkably good form as he cleared the ditch and ran the length of the field before falling over at the last part of the field before getting to the opposite woods only fifty yards in front of David. Well, I responded, I do not know how I missed him, but I am glad we got the buck and happy that David had scored.

When I arrived, David shook my hand and said “Nice shot!” The buck had been hit solidly in the neck and chest by my shot, he said, and had been knocked back and staggered, then ran in front of him and he hit it again, but it did not go down. On the third shot it fell and he simply put it out with a lying down final shot. We looked at the four holes from ballistic tip rounds, each of which was lethal. The animal was a very large body buck and incredibly tough to make as many yards as it had with that number of solid well-placed hits.

My name was already wrapped on a slip of paper tied to its antlers and we packed it over to the deer check in station and registered it as my MD opening day buck, since it could have gone to either one of us, but David had forgot his license. I talked with the DNR official there, then we went to Mom’s Diner and we had brunch in Princess Anne, Somerset County. We then went to see Bill’s house and hang the buck on the gimble out behind his new garage and dress it and hang it in the cool air.

We returned to the Vo Tech School and set up, Bill insisting that Craig and I sit side by side on the platform on the far end of the field six hundred yards from where I usually sit in my tree. I watched intently, covered now by my new Gore-Tex camo outfit from fierce begin winds. No deer moved in this wind. So the herds of deer Bill had expected never did come out, but across the field at twilight, under the tree that I had always used we saw a buck come out and gather acorns under my tree, A doe crossed over from the other side also about seven hundred yards away, in wind that would have made the “windage “ on the shot impossible. As I studied the buck of the far side of the field in the fading light, I could see it is the twelve point buck Bill had told us he had seen—right under the tree I usually sit in! If I had been there, the buck and doe aligned themselves for a “twofer” shot!

A HAPPY DAY BEGINS WITH A RUN, THEN A SCHAEFER SPECIAL REUNION WITH FAMILY AND A POSSIBLE NEW MEMBER,

AND ENDS WITH A TREE TRIMMING TO CHIRTMAS CAROLS

On Sunday morning I ran all around the large acreage of the Trappe MD farms along the Choptank River. I was past due, with the only run I had made since the two fall marathons and the Wurst Run with Michael being the Turkey Chase on Thanksgiving morning with Joe. So, I stretched out the distance to make it a good run, especially since I have alternated eating and sitting for the holiday weekend, including the time spent sitting in trees. I am not hunting, nor traveling to Pennsylvania to hunt, since Don King is in the Masonic Home as a hospice patient, normally our host in PA, and also there was supposed to be a change in MD hunting laws so that hunting on Sunday was now permitted, except in all the counties in which I have hunted. I am happy to have hade the day for the purposes it resolved to—the meeting of a new potential significant other—Kristin’s’ boyfriend David, and the chance to visit with Cindy, now eight months pregnant and holding out for January 19, and her husband Keith, and their newly adopted greyhound Niles. Ashley also stopped in early to say goodbye since she is joining her boyfriend JayJay who lives in London and who called us here on Thanksgiving Day.

After multiple false starts on a new artificial giant tree, Carol was frustrated. The first model did not work. The second shorted out the light string. Craig and I went to Radio Shack where he got a pair of new picture phones, and I learned about the different services that might reduce long distance phone charges. We came home with abundant fuses and then set to work trimming a new Christmas tree with all the decorations that Carol has been collecting for some time and a lot of festive decoration in a big way. After the last ornaments had been hung, the last of the fuses shorted out and the tree failed for the last time.

Craig and I are going to get out at four in the morning and go to Bill Webster’s farm and he will leave about eight thirty as Bill will as well to go back to work. I will see if the cell phone will make it possible for me to hunt one more day before return to night. Stay tuned--there is one buck hanging now and we will see how many more may join it!

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