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CELEBRATE THE SEASON:
Talking Turkey
by Mary Lou Healy
Eleventh-Month Secrets
by Haydn S. Pearson
Pico Mountain
Killington's Seventh Heaven
First Tracks at Stratton Mountain
IN THE FARMHOUSE KITCHEN:
Savory Side Dishes
For Your Thanksgiving Feast
VERMONT VERSES
Remains
by Wayne Kelley
EVERYTHING WOOD HEAT:
What's Wrong with My Woodstove?
by Daryle Thomas
VERMONT BY HAND:
Painting With Wood
by Kirt Zimmer
DO IT YOURSELF CRAFTS:
Make A Gift Basket
Just in Time for the Holidays
INTO THE OUTDOORS:
 Hunting: The Last Opening Day
by Mike Williams
Hunting Records and Information
Including Deer and Moose Hunting Season
Roadside Visions
by Heather Behrens
A Prickly Subject
by Heather Behrens
VERMONT WEATHERVANE BOOK NEWS:
Spanning Time: Vermont's Covered Bridges
Perfumes, Splashes & Colognes
Guide to making fragrances at home
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The Last Opening Day
by Mike Williams
The alarm going off caused the old man to sit up in bed with a start. Disoriented, he had forgotten why he had set the alarm. Having been retired for almost six years he used the alarm clock only during deer season. Then he remembered! Today was the opening day of deer season.
He had always hunted deer, even as a young boy, and had taken many of them over the years, but he hadn't even had a shot in the last seven seasons.
His health is not good and the cold weather that accompanies deer season, along with his advanced years, seems to take away his strength but not his desire to be out in the deer woods.
The pension he receives each month leaves little for extras; some venison in the freezer would sure help over the long winter.
"One more buck," he tells himself as he gets his gear together. He knows in his own mind that this will probably be his last opening day.
The old man heads out in the pre-dawn darkness. His truck merges in with other traffic heading for deer country.
After an hour's drive he turns off on a dead-end dirt road and sees a light on in the cabin on top of the hill. A family lives here year round and he knows they are hunters as he has seen deer hanging on the game pole in years past.
He parks his truck at the end of the dirt road, along with the other vehicles already there. Heading off to his predetermined stand he has a strong feeling that today will be his day. He just knows that he will see a buck and possibly get a shot.
Legal shooting time comes and goes with no sighting of deer, yet shots ring out all around him. The cold wind is chilling him to the bone and he knows he will not be able to stay on watch much longer.
Twenty minutes later a slight movement catches his eye. A deer is moving through the brush towards him. Minutes drag, as the buck works his way through the brush and finally steps into the open about sixty yards from the waiting hunter.
The old man sees the deer's rack and, after taking careful aim at the buck's shoulder, slowly squeezes the trigger. At the shot, the deer whirls and runs off as if it has not been touched.
The old man feels bad. The range was short, the sight picture looked good, yet all he finds is a little hair with no trail to follow.
He searches the surrounding woods all afternoon but finds nothing. As darkness settles in he makes his way back to the truck feeling about as low as a man could feel. Not a good way to end a man's last opening day!
Being the last one back to the parking area at the end of the road he has a cup of coffee from his thermos bottle before starting out for home. As he drives by the cabin at the top of the hill he notices the owner out by the road with a flashlight. This stranger, as they have never met, waves him down and asks him if he had shot at a deer that day.
"Yes," the old man tells him, "a big buck, but he ran off with no trail to follow."
And so the story unfolds: The fellow who lived in the cabin had to work until noon that opening day and after arriving home had spent the afternoon hunting behind the cabin. He jumped a buck on the side of a ravine and shot instinctively, dropping the deer in its tracks.
Upon approaching the deer he realized that it had been wounded. The old man's shot had been too far back from the shoulder, but the deer would not have survived.
After field dressing the buck he returned to the cabin. He started flagging hunters coming down off of the hill, questioning them about any shots taken. The last vehicle down the hill was the old man's, and now he had found the deer's owner.
With the help of the man's son and friends staying at the cabin, the deer was loaded in the old man's truck. Everyone went into the cabin for a cup of coffee. The old man met the rest of the family, and after thanking everyone, he left for home. He was happy; he had his buck and felt thankful for this, his last opening day.
While picking up the coffee cups from the table, the woman of the house found a twenty dollar bill tucked under the old man's cup. I believe we bought a week's worth of groceries with that twenty dollar bill, as this all happened quite a few years ago.Mike Williams writes from Poultney, Vt.
Note: What was done here is not legal in the eyes of the law, but in my eyes, it was the right thing to do.
Mike Williams writes from Poultney, Vt.
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