At the age of fifteen, my dad took me on my first whitetail hunt in Oklahoma. I remember quite vividly waking up early one November morning, hopping in dad's pickup, the vinyl seats of his '82 S-10 quite frigid on my weary body, and heading off for the forty minute drive to the "deer stand", but not before making a pit stop at Cox's, the local mini-mart, for coffee, pop, and high calorie Hostess donuts...the ol' fashion kind. Just as the sun started to break the horizon, dad patted me on the shoulder, wished me luck, and climbed down from the makeshift treestand, resembling more of a clubhouse to me. It wasn't minutes later when the "thumpity thump" of my heart picked up and I was introduced to my first case of the fever, BUCK fever. Out of nowhere to my right appeared a dandy 3x3 moving along at a moderate pace. I raised dad's prized 35 Whelen, lined those iron sights up right behind that buck's shoulder, and slowly squeezed the trigger, squeezed the trigger, SQUEEZED THE TRIGGER...oops "safety was on". My buck was gone, as quickly as he came, he disappeared into the thickets even quicker. From that day on I was hooked, no doubt about it.
Years went by and I continued to get out at least once or twice a year, with dad and other folks, and then eventually by myself. After joining the Air Force in '94, I found myself leaving the house more and more and doing what hunters do, plenty of hunting and no killing.
In December 1997 while temporarily on assignment in Germany, I learned my long time dream of going to Alaska was finally coming true. I had military orders and would be committed to serving four years in the "Last Frontier". My life would forever be changed.
I invite you to continue on; look, read, relate, envy, pity and most of all, enjoy yourself as I share with you some of my experiences there and afar.
