01/30/2024
Every year about this time I let my mind drift back over the years to when I was hunting whitetail deer in Pennsylvania with family, friends, or by myself.
I was raised on wild game, because money was sparse in the early sixties and my father worked long hours for short wages back then. I myself began my working career in 1969 after graduating from high school, working in one of the best places in the Tri-County area, and I only made $2.12 per hour.
You can imagine what my father made nine years prior to that as a route manager for a dairy.
Anyway...back then if you made fifty dollars a week, you needed to supplement somewhere to pay the bills and put food on the table, so hunting was a way of putting meat on the table. Everyone in my family were hunters, which allowed both my mother and Father to harvest a whitetail deer for the freezer...and they were looking forward to me turning twelve years old and joining the hunting group.
The night before the deer season opener, several of my uncles would come to our house either the night before, or early in the morning of opening season to go hunting with my folks.
My mother, Dad, My mother’s Mom and Dad both hunted with us too. They lived right beside us in Scotia, Centre County, Pa...right on the edge of a huge state game lands and a huge private tract of land owned by Harbison Walker Clay & Brick Co.
That gave us over ten thousand acres of private and public land to hunt on called the Barrens. (Google “the barrens, central Pennsylvania)
I was overjoyed when I turned twelve in 1963 and was able to join my Mom and Dad, and my Mom’s mother and my Dad’s brothers on the hunt. My Mom’s father had to quit hunting the previous year due to illness, and died on September 6, 1963 so I never got to hunt with him. He gave me my Native American name (he was ½ Cayuga Shawnee on his mother’s side) He called me Keiounawahe’go:wah one day as we were driving home from the grocery store and I spotted four deer out in the woods as we were traveling along at 45 miles per hour. My grandfather stopped and looked for them, and upon finally seeing them, said that he could not believe how I could see those animals in the woods while moving in the car. He said, “From today, you will be known as Keiounawahe’go:wah.” When I asked him what it meant, he replied “eyes of eagle”, as he also cautioned me to never tell anyone but family about it, for the white man will discriminate against you for being native. They will suppress you, steal from you and call you names. So, long story short about my grandfather, most of what I know about our family came from him.
I wanted so badly to hunt with him...to learn from him the ways of a native American...to follow his lead in hunting and life, but it was not to be. I had several good years of learning from him as we talked and sat on their front porch. As all youth grow up, we play with friends and never pay any attention to the adults around us, and then one day, we become interested in what our elders can tell us, show us or give us, and we listen intently, and then one day they are gone...too soon...but that is the way of life.
So, I was given the gift of a few years and I learned well by listening intently to my grandfather.
After he passed, I found there was much to learn from my father and mother. Dad was a hunter from his teens, and my mother of course, was taught by my grandfather and grandmother, so I went along with my mother as my grandmother watched my four year old brother.
My mother dressed in pants, a shirt, sweatshirt, and a coat with rubber boots and cotton gloves. Clothing of the day was not as it is now, and it was very hard to remain standing in freezing weather all day long waiting to see a deer. I would shiver and begin prancing around to my Mom’s displeasure. She kept telling me to stand still so the deer didn’t see me. Finally she opened her coat and had me stand on the tops of her feet to keep my feet off the freezing cold ground, and she closed her coat, encompassing me in her warmth. She stood there like that for hours on end, but ultimately shot a deer every year. I was ten or eleven, so was a big help in dragging the deer home with her. I learned a lot about deer and their way of moving, where they chose to move and how, and why. I learned both from my mother and father, but considering my father worked daily, I learned mostly from my mother.
I spent the entire day Saturdays with my father in the woods as we hunted from before daylight until after dark.
I learned well and could harvest a deer on any given day without effort or difficulty. Many people go out and never see a deer. I go out and knowing them intimately, can spot a deer and find a buck anytime I desire. They are never very far from us in our everyday life and where we travel. All I do is simply move slow, look for anything out of place, and I can walk up to a sleeping deer or see them lying next to a log on the leeward side of a sunny slope, usually under an evergreen of some sort. I have harvested as many antlered deer as they lay looking around as I have standing or running. It takes me a long time to go 100 yards though, because I take a step, stop and glass the woods in front and to both sides of me, looking as far as I can see. After a few minutes, I take another step and repeat the glassing. So you can see how long it would take me to go 100 yards, but I usually spot a deer within that distance once in the deep woods and starting to stalk.
Looking back, the time spent with Mom and Dad was more important than shooting the deer, but the meat provided for the table allowed more potatoes, vegetables, bread, butter, milk and fruits to be enjoyed than if we had to purchase meat for every meal.
One license allowed us to harvest deer, turkey, bear, ring necked pheasants, grouse, rabbit’s and squirrels. Back then there were no tags except for a deer tag, and a special antler-less deer tag bought separately, so with that one license, you could possess squirrel, grouse, pheasants, and rabbits daily.
Now, I have lost my Mom and Dad...and along with that, the desire to hunt. Unlike back then, I have no reason to hunt and kill an animal to live. I buy my meat at the grocery store, and while I lost the desire or need to hunt, I do not hold it against anyone who enjoys the sport and the meals provided by hunting. I would just rather shoot an animal with my camera...that’s all. It’s also very pleasing to sit inside, sip coffee and watch the birds and snowflakes from the warmth of our heated plant room.
