Memories of a departed friend

Paul and I were students at the University of Alaska in Fairbanks many years ago. We had met through the random assignment of dormitory rooms by the university and found we both enjoyed shooting, hunting, and any outdoor related activity. Paul was the Student Advisor on the floor where my assigned room was located. He was a couple of years older than me, but we shared many interests – we both were “gun nuts,” reloaded our own ammunition, enjoyed handgun shooting, and especially enjoyed small game hunting.

Our personalities were very compatible. We even had a similar sense of humor – a trait we discovered on several of our hunts together, for both big and small game. Physically, I was a little bigger, but we had a similar walking pace, so hiking was not too much of a “hurry up and wait” because we walked at about the same speed. We respected our differences and built off our commonness. Besides my father, Paul was the closest I had come to finding the perfect hunting partner.

We shared several small game hunts on weekends, chasing the wily snowshoe hare with 22-caliber handguns, and usually did fairly well in harvesting some “fresh meat” for dorm room snacking. One particular hunt comes to mind.

We were hunting in a brushy creek bottom with about three feet of snow on the ground. I spotted a hare’s black eyeball against the snowy backdrop of the cutbank and took careful aim at the hare’s head. I watched my shot from the 22-caliber pistol hit the snowbank behind the snowshoe hare. The bullet completed a five-shot circle around the head of the sitting bunny. I reloaded the pistol and, on the seventh shot, finally saw the hare go down. Now that the steady rhythm of “BANG…BANG…BANG…” had quieted, I heard Paul, calling in a laughing voice from along the snow-covered, spruce and willow-choked stream bank: “Did you hit ‘em yet?”

Because winters in Fairbanks usually were a bit extreme, we spent more time talking and dreaming of the “Alaska hunting experience” than participating in it, but a sheep hunt and several snowshoe hare hunts were accomplished during the three semesters we attended UAF together. Many of our discussions occurred across a cribbage board, a game Paul taught me how to play, and I even beat him occasionally.

Paul was finishing his degree after spending a hitch in the Navy during the Viet Nam war. I had transferred from a college in Illinois to UAF to pursue a Wildlife Management degree. When we both had some free time, we often would talk about reloading and the merits or faults of this rifle caliber or that model firearm.

By chance, we both ended up at the University of Maine in Orono pursuing masters’ degrees. I was attending full time and Paul, after a spring semester’s attendance, was working through his program in the summer session. Paul had married his hometown sweetheart from Massachusetts and was working full time as a school counselor in New Hampshire. I had field research commitments during the summer and research assistantship obligations plus a full course load of studies during the school year. We hunted woodchucks a couple of times and did some shooting together when Paul and Mary were in Maine for the university’s summer session.

We last saw each other in 1974. Paul graduated shortly after and continued his career working for the school systems of New Hampshire. I ultimately returned to Alaska and finally finished my graduate degree through correspondence. I was hired by the Alaska Department of Fish and Game.

Through all the years, we managed to stay in touch with an occasional letter or even a “once in a blue moon” phone call, if we happened to have the other guy’s number. Christmas cards were the big event because we took turns including a letter to bring the other one up to speed on the past year’s events.

In New Hampshire, Paul enjoyed running cottontail rabbits with his beagles. He belonged to a hunting club to do just that. As he got older and couldn’t keep up the pace of the hunt because of health conditions, he “retired” from the sport and concentrated on spending more time with his wife and two children.

Even though I hadn’t seen Paul in almost fifty years, I still thought about him often, remembering our good times together. I received word this past week that Paul had passed in early March of this year. I imagine he’s chasing heavenly rabbits with his favorite beagles now.