I was invited to join my parents at a fish fry in Coffman, Missouri in another family’s large shed/garage/barn. Inside the barn, we listened to the men recount the day’s deer hunting adventures while we ate fried blue gill, potatoes and macaroni & cheese.
I sipped a Bud Light Wheat; a fire burned in the woodstove; and antelope, bear, deer, and a coyote hung mounted on the walls around us. This fish fry was everything that’s perfect and amazing about rural Missouri life.
My dad’s hunting stories were the center of the evening’s attention. With the help of two other men, he brought home a 10-point buck, but not before he found himself with several gashes across his nose and forehead, and blood smeared across his shirt. The stories of how dad’s nose became cut and bloody grew more boisterous as the night progressed.
As I understand it, my dad was convinced he could use his 1985 three-wheeler to retrieve the deer’s body from a steep, boulder-filled ravine. As he tried to get the three-wheeler up the ravine with the deer tied to the back, the front wheel repeatedly came off the ground. Distracted by trying to keep the front wheel on the ground, my dad was slapped across the face by a bramble bush.
So now my dad looks darned tough with his bloody slashes, and his deer is gonna look awesome on the wall. I have to admit though that the vision of my dad riding his Honda up the hill in a pop-wheelie has left me smiling all weekend long.
Dad's 10-Pointer, photo by smalltowngirl