2008 Deer Opener

Deer opener is a sacred tradition in many Minnesota families. This is definitely the case with our hunting crew. This opener we had 11 guys staying at the shack. Bob, Phil, Dale, Todd, Ron, Chad, Matt, Sherm, Jerome, Gerry, and me. Missing this year was David due to illness. Because of this the mood of the shack was sudated.

Most everyone arrived by about 8pm on Friday night, got settled in and had a sauna. For dinner we had cheeseburgers. A little cards were played and everyone got to bed pretty early since we needed to get up at 5.

We all got out to our stands around 6:45 or so the next morning. We stayed out until about 11:30. After opening morning we had 1 deer, Chad shot a 4 corn. We had a cheese potatoe soup and sandwich lunch provided by Bob.

A few people went over and visited David. The rest went out to their stands for the afternoon. At about 4pm a bunch of shots rang out. After the dust had settled and we got back to the shack we found that Todd had a doe; Bob had two bucks, an 8 pointer and a spike; and I had a doe. We went and got atvs and headed back into the woods to field dress and pick up our deer. After taking care of the deer and getting them on the pole we settled in for the night and had a sauna.

We had Uncle Donald's spaghetti for dinner, played some cards, and went to bed.

The next morning we weren't as enthused about going out since it had been really cold the previous day. But for the most part we all headed out. By lunch time no more deer had been shot and no one was much interested in hunting for the afternoon. We had sloppy joes for lunch, I used Carol's recipe to make them.

Todd, Dale, and I headed in to town as David's health was failing fast and he was moved to a hospice house in Duluth. We saw David and visited with family and then headed back to the cities.

On Tuesday the next week I brought Heather to the airport for a work trip to New Jersey. I went to work and received a call from Dale telling me that David had passed away that morning. At this point Heather was still in the air but I called and left her a message to call me when she landed. I talked to her later that day and told her the bad news. She did what she needed to do in New Jersey and came back a day early.

We headed for Duluth on Thursday afternoon so that we could be with family. The visitation was Friday night and the funeral was on Saturday. The turnout was great as David had touched so many lives. He will be sorely missed.

We will be headed back to the hunting shack this weekend not so much for the hunting but more for the friendship and the fact that David would expect us to be no where but there. It's just the right place to be. Now the healing can begin.