Door County Essay: Opening Day

Opening day, snowing. Northeast wind, what my grandfather called a Sioux wind, he meant Sault St. Marie.

I am about to have breakfast, never mind it is late for breakfast, almost nine o’clock. My nephew called at 6:22 saying he got his deer, could I come help, he meant gut it out. He meant could I do it for him. He is after all my nephew, my sister’s boy, the giant one who I’ve written of before. As said a gigantic lad, baby of the family. I did my best through his young life to be “an uncle” to him, specifically a farm uncle. He came up from Chicago during those summers beginning when he was eight. It was to Grandma’s house then, she of course doted on him as isn’t right, but grandmothers are like that. He did learn a few farm chores but not enough duration to alter his genetic strand. That was my objective, to alter him into something not so citified, not so clean, something useful.

I am not the only farmer to feel this way. What the average kid between the age of 8 and 18 needs is a solid dose of farm life. Dirt, sweat, cool water, starry nights, three squares a day, then more sweat. It is my observation once a kid gets into the comic book syndrome, once television gets under their skin, it is hard to attach the vitality of dirt, sweat and starry nights. I did, for the sake of Hiawatha, give it the old college try. I take this attempt to convert quite seriously, the same as others believe it is important to give kids a good Christian example I want to impart a good farm example. And as long as we’re at it, a good dose of Hiawatha: dirt, sweat, campfires, pup tents, Oreo cookies, starry nights, haying, hundred pound sacks of potatoes, cows, manure, fried potato breakfast that was earned in the first place, then as is equally obvious, work that breakfast off. Thereafter follow a long and wholly strategic list; tractors, grease zerks, plasma cutters, irrigation pits, skinny dipping, guns. The problem is to get to the kid before they are saturated with television or cartoons. It’s not easy tilting a kid in the direction of Hiawatha once the television has hold of their tonsils.

He is middle-aged now, my nephew. Home is a house in a north suburb bigger in square feet than the cow barn of my youth. Why this bothers me I can’t put my finger on. He is well-heeled, my nephew. Tons of toys, he vacations in Barbados, Paris, Germany. Come along he says. I don’t think so. My money better spent on a nice 90 horsepower tractor, never mind my wife says I have enough…tractors. Much as I like Paris, truth is I’d rather go to the back forty and cut firewood. National Geographic served my grandfather well enough and I am content likewise to know of the Basques and the Ruhr valley. A subscription to National Geographic costs less than a plane ticket.

6:22 this morning he calls from the base of the ash tree where is his tree stand. Six pointer he exclaims rather noisily, can you come help? I think he needs to work out more, a bit too breathless. The way I figure it this is going to be one of those uncle-moments. Wendell Nelson once called in a similar excitement after killing a deer on a town road one Easter morning. In Wendell’s case he wanted proof that farmboys know all and can do all, such as gutting out a deer at a moment’s notice. I hurriedly read the instructions detailed in Foxfire before he arrived. Yes, I made it look incredibly easy.

My nephew would expect a similar performance. I set out the butcher knives on the kitchen counter. Said a prayer to the household god to make this look so easy.

It was a very nice shot, a clean shot, no guts splattered, no problem with dry heaves while dressing it out as detracts from the professional farm boy bedside manner. I did encouraged him do his share, to get bloody. Had him feel inside where the heart is, how it is still warm, still trying. It was a good moment between he and I, not since pup tents were we that close. A sincere moment. What would take an accomplished deer killer five minutes took me half an hour. Because I butcher cows, chickens and rabbits doesn’t mean I know my way around a six pointer. For a moment I thought my nephew might puke but he kept his hands in it. At this juncture it’s not about hunting or venison, it’s about poetry. Gutting out this hero deer on a cold November morning, hardly into opening day, snowing as gently as Robert Frost could describe it. He is sweating profusely, a good sign that he is involved. I take his picture, shake his hand, barely 20 minutes into opening day. This is beautiful, he says.

There is hope for that kid yet.