~ A Sec0nd L00k ~

Infidel 762

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Staff member
I was thinking back to this one night in college… everything in the room had a soft glow as my Kiowa friend said; “If you believe in these things, they will work for you”… Back then, I wanted to believe in something… in a time when I did not believe in anything… it was just nothingness… only infinite…

Thoughts likely triggered by the owl I saw walking back to the truck; one night driving down a county road we saw an owl… my friend brought up the belief that owls are a symbol of death… A short time later, Tommy died in his sleep… Valium and whiskey, bad medicine…

I have since come to believe… found stable footing to stand… reason to take a second look… wisdom to know that faith is not found in owls… that it exists beyond the edge of the sun… it surrounds every electrified molecule of dust and gas between the stars… it is absolute… it is within and it is without… as the sun comes full circle; one day we live… we live our lives … one day… one day at a time…



There goes the sun… Ever get your beginnings and ends mixed up? Hours ago there was still light… frames of burnt out Humvees, owls and instruments of faith remained forgotten… distracted by things like this;



Take a minute... take a second look;



I continued down the path in my bumbling way... I am haunted by the ones that get away... I hit this one low... I trailed him almost a quarter mile across the red mud of the Cheyenne Valley...



With yesterday's hunt still in the confines of my mind ,I set out once again... Tonight's hunt took me past machines of the age of steam...



Once again, I continued down the path in my bumbling way… the path to the one I love… the path to the one I destroy;



On my way out, I took another minute... for a second look;



This one is for Tommy... RIP
 
Interesting, the things we recollect when alone with our thoughts. Thanks for sharing, Jeremy.

Regards,
hm
 
Thanks for taking the time to share your hunts and thoughts Jeremy. Had a question it looks like you changed from your FE rock river what is the gun you've been using lately in your last few posts? I'd like a few details if you don't mind. You could even PM me.
Best,
G-Boe
 
Originally Posted By: hm1996Interesting, the things we recollect when alone with our thoughts. Thanks for sharing, Jeremy.

Regards,
hm

Yep... Just the older I get, the less I recollect
w00t.gif
 
Originally Posted By: g BoThanks for taking the time to share your hunts and thoughts Jeremy. Had a question it looks like you changed from your FE rock river what is the gun you've been using lately in your last few posts? I'd like a few details if you don't mind. You could even PM me.
Best,
G-Boe

It is a Savage 12fv... I switched out factory stock to an XLR chassis... So far I am really liking it... I have more confidence in it than the AR, especially longer shots..
 
Originally Posted By: Infidel 762Originally Posted By: hm1996Interesting, the things we recollect when alone with our thoughts. Thanks for sharing, Jeremy.

Regards,
hm

Yep... Just the older I get, the less I recollect
w00t.gif


Just give it a few more years........it gets better!

Regards,
hm
 
Such an unusual story on this forum. I read it over a couple of times then shared it with my wife too. So many things we take for granted in our fast pace everyday life. Thanks for sharing, we really enjoyed your moments in time !

Enjoy life every day it is truly a gift !
 
Thanks for all the kind comments
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Originally Posted By: Pa. Mickwe really enjoyed your moments in time !

Enjoy life every day it is truly a gift !

According to the land owner those gears on the wooden machine are what is left of one of the 1st motorized combines... He said his great great grandpa bought it in 1912... It moved at 2 mph... He has the original engine still in working order and shows it at AG shows... You pull up in his yard and it looks like a place you would see on American Pickers... Old phone both, vintage gas pumps and even a train depot...

He has a lot of guineas... He called me the previous day and told me he had a coyote in his yard killing his poultry under the yard light... I showed him this coyote and how it was sucked dry from pups suckling... A group of YOYs that won't be causing problems come mid-August... He liked that...
 
Excellent story Jeremy. I really like the way you tie your thoughts and photo essays together. I like photography myself but just don't take the time to set up pictures the way I want. It just seems I am always in too much of a hurry. I think the thoughts, but they stay in my mind I suppose. When I get out to go call, I am trying to pack as much calling as I can into the time I have. I notice many things, much the way you do. My father taught me that. He was an old school range biologist, and knew many things that were not in conventional wisdom. I miss him greatly.

Kind of strange I guess. I have a good wife, friends, children. We all love each other very much. But since my father has passed, many times I feel as if I am walking the world alone. Not that there are not people that care about me, or I about them, or even have the same interests. But it is in a different way. I don't know anyone else that really knew that country I call like he did. He was intimate with the land. He knew it, he respected it. And I understand that. Too many people now-a-days do not. I try and teach my daughter. She is very observant and interested in nature. Perhaps she will carry that same gene that my father and I do.
 
super write up. I find the further I go my Long Term Memories remain, but my short term memory has gone to the dogs..............
 
Originally Posted By: JTPinTXExcellent story Jeremy. I really like the way you tie your thoughts and photo essays together. I like photography myself but just don't take the time to set up pictures the way I want. It just seems I am always in too much of a hurry. I think the thoughts, but they stay in my mind I suppose. When I get out to go call, I am trying to pack as much calling as I can into the time I have. I notice many things, much the way you do. My father taught me that. He was an old school range biologist, and knew many things that were not in conventional wisdom. I miss him greatly.

Kind of strange I guess. I have a good wife, friends, children. We all love each other very much. But since my father has passed, many times I feel as if I am walking the world alone. Not that there are not people that care about me, or I about them, or even have the same interests. But it is in a different way. I don't know anyone else that really knew that country I call like he did. He was intimate with the land. He knew it, he respected it. And I understand that. Too many people now-a-days do not. I try and teach my daughter. She is very observant and interested in nature. Perhaps she will carry that same gene that my father and I do.

I have felt that way many times… thinking back to my college days (early 90s); to a time life started getting out of hand… I was living in a town called Okmulgee, 25 miles South of Tulsa, Ok… first place I ever drank fire water and did other things…. my girlfriend at the time was Kiowa as well… they would drink and then many times want to fight…

Nichole and I had an apartment downtown… I am pretty sure that night we were drinking vodka… Tommy started getting mouthy; it was not the first time… I don’t remember the exact words that were said, but it was along the lines of Nichole telling Tommy to “get out” with a lot of cuss words… Tommy basically told her “F off” with other cuss words as well… I was trying to keep the peace and calm them both down, my efforts were not working… Nichole picked up a hammer and things went south fast… Tommy was big, almost twice my size… he told her to go ahead and hit him, almost in a daring way… she swung and hit him… he reach across the coffee table and grabbed her… in the process the hammer tore a gash in Nichole’s arm and went flying across the room… mind you this was happening in my home and involved my girlfriend… Nichole was on the floor screaming and Tommy was bent over her… I came flying across the room swinging the hammer… I hit him in the back of the head but the handle absorbed a lot of the blow (thank God)… Tommy dropped and I lost control of the hammer… I picked up Nichole and got her outside… I looked back inside and Tommy was crawling towards the hammer… he stood up staggering with the hammer and started knocking holes in my wall saying he is going to kill me…

The cops showed up and diffused the situation… no one wanted to press charges and no one was arrested… Tommy refused medical help and staggered off… I took Nichole to the hospital for her arm… Tommy showed up with his shirt wrapped around his head covered in blood… he walked right by me and did not even notice me… a couple students picked him up on the street…

I had class with him a few days later… I thought he would be there and want to kill me… we talked soberly after class and “he understood why and he would have done the same thing…” it was just another crazy night…

We never had any disagreements after that… a few months later we were partying late… I showed up for class hung over… Tommy was not there, I figured he was just too hung over to make it to class… his roommate found him later that day…

Those days I was distracted from even hunting… I looked for purpose in all the wrong places… I can without a doubt look back and see someone was watching over me that whole time… not just that night but all the times I have walked around with that lost feeling… faith is not about a feeling but more of a comfort in times of tribulation… times I saw only one set of foot prints in the sand… well that is when he was carrying me…

Thanks again for the kind words…
 
My father was a very strong man of God. Not in that outwardly showy way, but in that quiet way of getting things done that speaks much more strongly than words. It was a thing that many people, myself included, took too much for granted.

Heart disease has always been very strong in our family. He had his first heart attack in '91 while I was in the Navy, stationed in Pearl Harbor. And another episode with a stint in the mid-2000's. Despite his genetics, he kept himself in good shape, was very active, very healthy. If you liked to do a lot of walking to kill your coyotes, then he was your man. And for the most part he really beat the odds of family history.

In the spring of '13 we were out in the country, and he had another episode. He thought he was having a heart attack and took a nitro pill to drop his blood pressure. Turns out it wasn't really a heart attack, but that his BP had gone low, and when he took the nitro pill it dropped through the floor. I had my old pickup running as hard as it would go back to town, but we both were pretty sure he wasn't going to make it. It is a heck of a thing thinking you are watching your father die as you hold his hand, and there is nothing you can do about it. Turns out we did make it in, and he was fine. The problem wasn't what we thought it was.

But that did help me come to terms with things when 4 months later he really did die of a heart attack while him and my mother were playing golf. He had just turned 70, and they had their 50th wedding anniversary 3 weeks before. My father was a very well read man, and at his funeral he requested "The Crossing of the Bar" by Alfred Tennyson. In the poem, "the moaning of the bar" refers to the sound waves make when crossing the sand bar at low tide. At high tide when there is plenty of water under the keel of a ship, there is no sound, and passage is safe.

There is absolutely no doubt in my mind he met his pilot face to face as he crossed the bar.





Sunset and evening star,
And one clear call for me!
And may there be no moaning of the bar,
When I put out to sea,

But such a tide as moving seems asleep,
Too full for sound and foam,
When that which drew from out the boundless deep
Turns again home.

Twilight and evening bell,
And after that the dark!
And may there be no sadness of farewell,
When I embark;

For though from out our bourne of Time and Place
The flood may bear me far,
I hope to see my Pilot face to face
When I have crost the bar.
 
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Originally Posted By: JTPinTXBTW, my father's name was Tommy as well. Actually Thomas, but everyone knew him as Tommy.

My dad also died of a heart attack while driving in 2013.
And that's why I'm now back in OK and enjoying the great outdoors I grew up loving instead of drinking and urinating in my pool in FL 10 months out of the year.
 
Originally Posted By: JTPinTX If you liked to do a lot of walking to kill your coyotes, then he was your man.

There is absolutely no doubt in my mind he met his pilot face to face as he crossed the bar.


Sunset and evening star,
And one clear call for me!
And may there be no moaning of the bar,
When I put out to sea,

But such a tide as moving seems asleep,
Too full for sound and foam,
When that which drew from out the boundless deep
Turns again home.

Twilight and evening bell,
And after that the dark!
And may there be no sadness of farewell,
When I embark;

For though from out our bourne of Time and Place
The flood may bear me far,
I hope to see my Pilot face to face
When I have crost the bar.

I get what that poem is saying first read... A man of substance would choose such a thing...

I would have loved to hunt with your dad... Especially when I was a kid... I am sure he could have cut years off my learning curve... You are blessed to have had him share his knowledge with you... Probably how you are able to consistently kill them in the warmer months...

My dad showed me how to hunt deer, turkey, ducks and other small game... I knew no one that hunted predators... Back then a bobcat was the holy grail of any critter I could harvest in my area... I still consider every bobcat I get as a trophy...

Originally Posted By: jf1073Originally Posted By: JTPinTXBTW, my father's name was Tommy as well. Actually Thomas, but everyone knew him as Tommy.

My dad also died of a heart attack while driving in 2013.
And that's why I'm now back in OK and enjoying the great outdoors I grew up loving instead of drinking and urinating in my pool in FL 10 months out of the year.

My dad grew up a mile away from where you grew up... Went to school with your dad... People elsewhere could look at our part of the state and wonder why anyone would want to live out here in the middle of nowhere... The coyotes seem to like this area... If it is good enough for them, then it is good enough for me;)

I never had a pool to urinate in... But I have woken up in a pool of my own urine
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I got out of the Army in 2006... From what I saw of what the world had to offer I was ready to come home...
 
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