"There are a lot of things you do not know..
... about your father."
I recall one day chatting with my Mom before she passed. I recalled a story of how he more or less gave a small buck in the White Mountains of NH to a poor mountain family so they would have winter meat. Dad always had a soft spot for children.
I remembered this because on my coyote hunt I was in the area where my father and grandfather hunted for deer as well as cottontail rabbit and snowshoe hare.
Dad and Gramps had two or three Harriers. These dogs look like the typical beagle but are larger and have longer legs. More of a coon hound type of dog but just the right thing to have when hunting the deep snows of New Hampshire and Maine for snowshoe hare.
I could see Mount Monadnock in the background and thought of nearby Mount Gap.
I recall in my youth tagging along with my Dad and Grandfather on this old farm at the base of Mount Gap. Dad hunted both deer and members of the lepus family at that little mountain.
The reason I thought about it was because of what my Mother told me.
When I was a very young child, my family hunted rabbits and hare in three states. Massachusetts, New Hampshire and Maine. They followed the old addage," Work hard-Play Hard." Dad had tremendous energy. In my youth he worked full time as a welder/sheet metal man and built houses in his spare time. Also I do recall him waking me up at 6:00 AM for Sunday Mass at our local parish. I have to laugh at this.
Sometimes I pretended to be asleep but that did not fool Dad. He said," You are awake. You are not fooling me. " So off to Church and then breakfast after for myself, Mom and Dad.
I do have very fond memories.
Getting back to Mount Gap.
Mom told me that when he hunted those woods he discovered a young man who was very poor and somewhat destitute. He wore a tattered coat and had two children. He was in the woods trying to snare rabbits. Of course that was illegal but the man had to feed his two children.
Mom told me that often when he hunted Mount Gap for rabbits and hares he would meet that young man and give him all of the rabbits and hares so he and his two children could eat.
Sorry but that brought tears to my eyes.
I miss both Mom and Dad and quite often I think of them and what an impact they have had.
But I look and often I do pray to God and say that I have been blessed with great parents in my life.