WEEK ONE

I've got my head 3/4's of the way inside my mother's fireplace, trying to open the flue so i can blow some eye medicine without stinking up the house. Mom's in her bedroom, catching a little NCSI before calling it a night. Her TV's up loud. She's a little hard of hearing. I light one up and the smoke drifts lazily up the chimney.

So far the season has been a bust. The weather was so lousy (a Noreaster) I didn't even go out Saturday morning. It was Shewho's birthday and I did ask her to shop for and cook her own birthday dinner and I invited guests (Bird and Ginger), so I could hunt the afternoon. Come on....I did pay. Needless to say I took shit from everyone (esp. my mother) for that move. Shewho took it in stride and made a nice chicken. Then on Sunday I slept in again and took Shewho for a glider ride in Wurstboro. Redemption. (Even though she had finally redeemed the flight I had given Teehoo on her 14th birthday.) Teehoo didn't want to be in a small place with a stranger. The chance of plummeting to her death didn't seem to cross her mind.

Monday I hunted down by the river and saw deer, but just does and a spike. Plus they were a mile away on Gilkey's. So on Tuesday I called my mother and told her I was coming over to her house to cook her dinner and spend the night. I needed to get art work out of her attic that had been there for 25 years. So i took the truck and bought a nice salmon steak with all the fixings and drove over to CT.

As I'm swatting the clouds of smoke into the fireplace I reflect on just how far my mom and I have come. Her and I spent the first 14 months of my life together- just the two of us. Then the old man came home from Korea and well, you know the rest. I figure this is the first time my mom and i have spent an afternoon, evening and night together (just the two of us) since 1953. It's nice. In the morning I take her shopping and drive home. The weather's turned mild and the wind has died down so I go back down to the stand by the river and it's the same as the last time. The deer don't even show until the sun goes behind the tree line and still they are way over by the Deniston marker. Nothing shows in GNJohn's field. The moon comes up and it's almost full. Tomorrow I'm going to try to get up early and hunt Majestic. My mother said that would be a good idea.