The Thanksgiving Gift

Years ago I was a young single mother with very little money and I was having a particularly low funding time. We had food. But we were eating alot of macaroni and cheese and hotdogs because they were cheap. I was on the local sheriff edepartment's car-kill deer list. When a deer was hit by a car, if the driver didn't want it and it didn't look too bad (mangled) the sherrif's department would call the next person on the list and ask them if they wanted to come and get it. I'd already turned down two deer, because both were in the middle of the night and I would've had to wake my kids up and take them with me. Weeks went by and it was looking like I'd blown my opportunity to get a free deer from the sheriff's department.
In mid November, my brothers asked me if I was going to go deer hunting with them. I declined, saying I was on the car-kill list, so I'd get one that way, even though I really didn't believe it then. The truth was, I just couldn't afford the expense of going hunting just then. I also couldn't afford to take off from work.
The day before Thanksgiving I was visiting at a friend's house. I had one of my sons with me. It started to snow lightly and I thought we'd better get headed home. Almost home we came upon a freshly killed deer lying beside the road. It was super fresh because there were broken plastic pieces from a signal light cover laying beside the deer, on top of the snow! Yippee!
This was before I had a cell phone, so we hurried home to call the sheriff's department to ask them if the driver had called to ask for the deer. (The driver of the car that hits the deer gets the first opportunity to claim it.) No, they hadn't called to ask for it. They told me to bring it on over and they would tag it for me.
It was a nice doe, approximately 180 lbs. Yes, a REALLY nice doe. It had been clipped in the head, so none of the meat was damaged at all! A winters worth of meat for my small family! Yippee!! Yahoo! Yeehah! We were very excited.
My son and I tried to lift it onto the tailgate of my truck. To no avail. It was too heavy and he was too young. He didn't have his man-strength yet. We hefted and pushed and lifted and braced ourselves and grunted and tried everything we could think of to pick that doe up. It was just too heavy.
I contemplated running home to call and say please, please, PLEASE can I gut it first? to the deputy at the sheriff's department. You're NOT supposed to. It has to be tagged first. I thought they would tell me no. And I was also afraid that after all the work I'd already put into lifting, and all the plans and joy I had about the bounty, would be for naught if some guy came along and just grabbed it and threw it in his truck and took it home. So I wouldn't leave it to go ask. Even though it would have been much lighter. We kept trying. My son said he wished he were older (so that he'd be stronger).
I decided, maybe I could coax it into the passenger side front door, (yes, I AM a redneck!!) because it wasn't so high off the ground as the tailgate was. We had already expended our energy in frustration and we couldn't lift in through the door either. We stopped to take a break. I really wanted it. I considered it a gift from the Universe. And I didn't want to walk away. But we had tried everything physically possible and our muscles were hurting we'd try so hard. So I had to accept that we could NOT get it and we were going to have to give up.
I prayed silently. I said, Ok, you gave me this beautiful deer that will feed my family and make things so good for us, but we can't get it. If this is my deer and you want me to take it, please send somebody to help.
I decided to give it one last whirl. I tied an old speaker wire around its neck and I stood on the passenger seat of my truck and reefed on it for all I was worth while my son pushed from the ground. We couldn't quite get it in. It was dead weight and it was damn heavy. But while I was otherwise distracted, the first vehicle we'd seen in over an hour came and pulled in behind us!
Three big strapping healthy-looking fine young men hopped out. I got down from the seat and went around to talk to them. They stopped because they thought I was lifting a person in! I explained how I'd called the sheriff's department and they were going to tag it for me, but my son and I couldn't lift it, if they could just help me..
"You want it in the back?" one of them asked me. Yes!
Two of those fine young men swung that deer right into the back of my truck like it was a bag of feed, just as nice as pie! I was SO thankful!! I offered them money, they wouldn't take it. My son and I started heading for the county seat to get it tagged. We were victorious! We weren't even a minute down the road when my son said, "I prayed for someone to help us, and then they came." I said, "Me too."
WOW!!!!
He didn't know I'd been praying. I'd been smoking a cigarrette and silently asking for help. I didn't know he'd been praying. How amazing that we'd both just gotten around to asking for help, and then it came. It was miraculous.
I spent the next day, Thanksgiving, cutting up and packaging the wonderful deer.

One time I got lost while hunting

Actually, I got lost SEVERAL times while hunting during deer gun season. I either found my way or figured out how I went wrong. Sometimes I had to walk until I found a road and walk along the road until I figured out where I was. But once when I was 17 and a senior in high school, I got so lost and confused, I didn't even recognize where I was. None of the landmarks looked familiar. I knew I was within a few miles of my dad, my uncles and my brothers, but I just couldn't figure it out. I kinda roamed around, listening for beeping (which they did but I never heard), trying to recognize where I was was in relation to where I'd started out.
I was in no danger. I was hunting in central Wisconsin. The weather was mild, mid 30s. I had a shotgun, plenty of ammo, a good sharp knife, matches, snacks. I knew I'd walked the wrong direction, but I wasn't sure which direction was the right one. I had a compass. But walking the direction I thought I should be walking, made things look even more unfamiliar. If you get lost, you're supposed to stay put. But I didn't want to do that.
I wasn't scared of being lost. I wasn't worried about anyone being mad at me for being lost. I wasn't afraid of bears (it was years before I saw bigfoot too), I could make a fire. I could handle being in the woods alone. What I was the MOST afraid of was-- I did NOT want my name on the news -- gone missing while hunting/ lost in the woods -- or anything like that. Another boy in a neighboring town had just been lost a few days before. He was fine. But his name and photo was blazed all over the news and I didn't want THAT to be my 15 minutes of fame, if I were to ever have one!
I was still HOPING that I'd still come out to the vehicle, or that I'd hear somebody holler or beep the horn for me. After hours of this, keeping my composure, walking, stopping and listening, it was getting dark. Damn! I was going to have to just pick a spot and stop and make a fire and stay there. I'd had some anxiety, but no real stress. Now, I was getting a bit stressed. Oh no, they're going to have to report me missing. The authorities are going to have to come and look for me. My name will be on the news. Everyone at school is going to know I got LOST and couldn't find my way out. HOW EMBARRASSING!!!
It was already past dusk. I had just enough time to get my fire together. I decided to build it right in the middle of the logging road I'd been wallking on so I could be seen if someone came. I was gathering my brush and wood. I had plenty of little stuff and there was lots of wood laying around. It was then I heard someone walking down the road. YIPPEE!!! I can ask that hunter for directions and I don't have to make a fire and be on the news!!
I said, "Excuse me," and --
It was my dad!!
Zippity-Do-Dah!!
Of course, in my relief of him saying "THERE you are.." I started crying. I had not been upset the whole time (except for the potential embarrassment) and I was so disgusted with myself that relief made me cry, but I was still happy to be found. Somehow, I had crossed a road or inexplicably gone under it and no wonder things looked wrong, I was on the opposite side of the highway from where I was supposed to be. I still don't know how I crossed the highway without seeing it AT ALL. But that sure explained why everything looked so wrong to me.