wabigoon;
Top of the morning to you sir, I trust this finds you and yours well and rested - or with tired arms from reeling in too many pickerel.
My late father and I were very much alike in many, many ways. So much so that when we'd work together on projects we'd often do so without too much talking as we somehow knew what the other was thinking. Perhaps better said our thought processes on how the project should be built were often startlingly similar.
That said and perhaps because we were so much alike there were times we'd get on each other's nerves for sure, though we never exchanged harsh words as that's not the way we're wired somehow.
From him I got my love of hunting and many of my woodworking and construction skills.
That said, he wasn't a big animal lover or much of a mechanic either, so I've gone on a few divergent paths from his for sure.
He loved farming too and I always knew in my heart that my time behind a tractor wheel was a stopover.
For maybe a decade I was able to book a week off of work and go hunting with him here in BC, until his health deteriorated to the point where even riding in the pickup for that long wasn't possible.
He didn't shoot this whitetail - I did, but I was lucky enough to have a camera along that morning when we'd decided to go get a load of firewood and of course tossed in a rifle, but almost as an afterthought because we'd got such a late start on the day.
Somehow though the Good Lord offered up this buck who wandered out across the skid road at mid day and was sufficiently dense enough to stand still for that one second too long after I'd called it to a stop. To the best of my recollection it was the last hunt we were on together.
Anyway wabigoon, in many ways I still aspire to be the spiritual giant my late father became. One thing that really stuck and I do my best to emulate is that I knew he loved me every time we met or talked - there was no doubt in my mind or heart where I stood with him and I do my level best to do that with my good wife and our girls now.
Thanks for the memories and the exercise wabigoon, I do appreciate it very much.
Well I must go now as a couple loads of wood are calling to me and in fact I'll be heading up to where the photo was taken all those years ago.
Happy Father's Day to you wabigoon.
Dwayne