Squirrels in the Trees

The pink, pre-dawn light was just starting to become visible in the east when the silhouette of the squirrel emerged on the limb of an oak tree. I had been waiting, impatiently, sitting in the pitch black with my back against a tree, my rifle in my lap. The gun was an old Stevens .22 semi-auto, or was supposed to be but it never reloaded itself so I had to manually pull the bolt back after each shot. I suppose a gunsmith could have fixed it but I was sixteen in 1956 and didn't have the money for that sort of thing. At 30 yards it shot high and to the right so to compensate I had to aim low and left. 

I raised the rifle and pointed it at the outline of the sitting squirrel - it was still too dark to see either the squirrel or the rifle sights clearly and pulled the trigger. The squirrel tumbled straight down. I heard the plop as it landed in the leaves and then there was silence. What a hunter is supposed to do in that situation is to remain stationary; to let things settle down so that other squirrels in the area would resume their activity. I ran like a madman, heart racing, face and arms being whipped by brush that it was still too dark to see, to the spot where I thought the squirrel had fallen. My cap had been knocked off but I didn't stop to pick it up, being certain I could find it after the sun had risen.

When I reached the squirrel I picked it up and looked at it closely, experiencing feelings of awe and exhilaration. It was my first game, the first thing I had ever shot. As time went by I moved on to rabbits, pheasants, partridge, deer and bear hunting but it's the memory of that first squirrel that stands out when I think of my hunting years. I don't know what happened to that old Stevens rifle and have forgotten what I did with the many guns I've owned since. My plan was to pass the guns to my son and he to his son but that turned out not to be.  

Fifty years later in the early 2000s I did a lot of squirrel watching. Not hunting...those days were past. I was living in a modest house nearly surrounded by forest in northern Wisconsin. I had been living in Appleton, Wisconsin but having gone through an expensive divorce, losing a ton of money when the tech stocks crashed, languishing in a relationship that was on its last legs and being recently retired I felt the need for a change of scenery. I had hunted and fished the Crivitz, Wisconsin area for over 45 years so was familiar with the territory and when I came across a house for sale that seemed to suit me perfectly I jumped at it.

I spent a lot of time during the first year making changes to the house and garage and when I wasn't working on the house I fished, rode one of three bicycles I had, picked berries, cut firewood, and walked in the woods. In the early evening I would sit in the yard at the fire pit grilling hamburgers, drinking a beer and watching the chipmunks, squirrels and sometimes foxes and deer move through the trees. 

It was a good couple of years but after awhile I began questioning where I was in life. I was 65, had no regular job, no friends to speak of and no future plans or goals. Don't get me wrong...it was a good life and I enjoyed it, but I started thinking about choices. I could continue as I was or, being completely unencumbered I could start a whole new life. I didn't have much of a chance to pursue that thinking because fate stepped in and made the choice for me. Through a friend in Miami I met Maribel, and that changed my life dramatically and forever.

Today, at this very minute I am looking out the window from a room we call 'The Bistro' in our Georgia home at squirrels running and playing in the branches of a huge water oak. I can see Maribel in the distance planting in her garden whatever seeds she bought this morning. The question raised 15 years ago in Crivitz - do I stay the course or start a new life is no longer relevant. I am in exactly the right place, at the right time, with the right person and doing the things we both enjoy. Life sometimes works that way.