Your post brought up some vivid memories of my first deer hunt. Dad didn't hunt himself but he cooperated by driving me to the "deer woods" up in some nearby mountains. That meant so much to me, more than anyone ever knew. It was my first time out with a high powered weapon and I was actually deer hunting, but later came to realize it was more because I had transitioned from BB guns and slingshots and that my Dad trusted this 12 year old solo hunter. We had freezing rain the day before and the trees and branches along the woods road were covered with ice. It was like a crystal wonderland. Afterwards Dad let me shoot the old single barrel loaded with a punkin ball at an upturned rocking chair bottom, and I hit it dead center (lucky shot). I still have two of those Winchester Repeater punkin balls from the box that sat in a dresser in my parent's bedroom, the two yellow colored ones on the left.
A strange coincidence? It was a bitter cold day in January, 49 years later when we buried Dad in a cemetery not too far from those deer woods. I looked over at the mountain where he parked those many years before and it was covered in fog. After the ceremony my wife and I drove over to the place and the trees on the sides of the old woods road were all covered in ice. Think what you will but I knew then that Dad was okay. Silvers
