Old friends and memories

Between my temporary mobility issues and getting older (I’ll be 73 in October), I’m finding myself spending more time reflecting on memories and events which happened earlier in my life. Most of these memories are of friends I’ve known over time. I didn’t realize quite how much time I was spending doing this reflecting until I received an email from an old college and hunting partner recently.

I met Paul when I showed up at the University of Alaska, Fairbanks, to begin my fourth year of college. I had transferred from being a biology/chemistry major at a small college in Illinois to work on a degree in wildlife management. He was the Student Advisor on my floor in Moore Hall. Paul was a Navy veteran who had served in the Viet Nam conflict and was four or five years older than me. He was a hunter who grew up in the New England area.

We hit it off right away and the more we chatted, the more things we found we had in common. For instance, we both enjoyed shooting and spent time hunting small game with 22-caliber handguns. Paul used a Smith and Wesson revolver while I used a Ruger semi-auto pistol.

I wrote about one of our small game hunting trips in an earlier column: “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 my hunting partner, Paul, call in a laughing voice from along the snow-covered, spruce and willow-choked stream bank: ‘Did you hit ‘em yet?’”

“As I recall, we only got a few hares that day, well short of the numbers needed to fill the fresh rabbit orders we normally took from friends before heading out on a weekend hunt. The snow had been deep and fluffy, the temperatures brisk, and the snowshoeing a workout that day. We figured better luck next time.”

“Paul and I were students at the University of Alaska in Fairbanks (UAF) back in the early 1970’s. We had met through the random assignment of dormitory rooms by the university and found we both enjoyed shooting, hunting, and most any outdoor related activity.”

Paul and I also planned a sheep hunt prior to our last fall semester at UAF. We were novice Alaskan hunters and because of our ignorance, ended up spending a night out on the side of a mountain, waiting for enough daylight to hike back to our basecamp. I wrote this hunt up also and called it the Station Wagon Rock Sheep Hunt.

The article started out, “The car-shaped rock was larger than my father’s old ’49 Plymouth station wagon. It was part of a steep rockslide area thirty to forty feet wide that my hunting partner, Paul, and I needed to cross to get in position for a better view of a band of Dall sheep about a mile away in a hanging bowl several ridges over. We had spotted the sheep earlier that foggy morning.”

“I was leading and had started to cross the rockslide by gingerly scooting over the large rock. I made it over to the other side of the slide and turned to watch Paul follow. Instead, he found a different route further up the slope to cross.”

“When we met, Paul explained that he had watched the “station wagon” rock slide several feet down the slope as I was crossing it. He thought about yelling but decided rather than stop me and run the risk of the rock taking me with it down the slope, to remain silent and hope I made it across. I hadn’t noticed the movement because the whole section apparently slid as I crossed it.”

That was just one of the adventures we had on that hunt, but it was the most exciting one! We learned that, sometimes, just having basic, well-used equipment along wasn’t necessarily the best plan of attack. I learned why mountain boots are always well padded around the foot and ankle areas. In the week we spent chasing sheep, we both toughened up and were in better shape coming out than going in. Oh, and no, we didn’t get a sheep, but we did see several including a couple of legal rams we couldn’t get close to.

Old friends are truly a blessing!