The Armchair Outfitter

The World’s Largest Ball of Twine, and not much else, is in Cawker City, Kansas. This fact, while certainly interesting and impressive by itself, is not the only reason for visiting that part of the world. No sir or madam, this sleepy little town is a veritable hotbed of activity come pheasant season. For two years running, I have hunted the first week of pheasant season in Kansas with three of my friends. We drive out from Alabama with all of our equipment and our dogs, stay in the cheapest hotels we can find, and hunt walk-in access land. The birds are wild and wary, the days and miles are long, and we all enjoy every minute of it every year. I am just about to leave for my third such trip, and I thought I would post some of my notes from last year’s trip to whet everyone’s appetite for this year’s story.

Back at the beginning of this year, I had an idea. It seemed like a simple idea at the time. I would keep up with the number of days I spent fishing and hunting during the year. I didn’t want to keep a journal. Who has time for that? All I wanted was some way to see how many days I actually spent doing what I love. I had the Sporting Wife, who is handy with crafts, make two calendar pages I could stick on the refrigerator door and write in just a little information about each outing. Being ambitious, I thought I should shoot for thirty days on each page. After all, spending two whole months outdoors is a wonderful goal, and how hard could it be? Little did I know. Needless to say, neither page is full, and we are knocking on the door of November as I write this. I hope to add to each page before the year is out, but maybe thirty days combined would have been a better goal with which to start. Never let it be said that I don’t dream big!

The gun I’m keeping is a Franchi AL-48 20-gauge shotgun. I’ve had it longer than I’ve had a mortgage, a wife, or a driver’s license. My Papaw gave it to me when I was eight years old along with a lesson in adult responsibility. I had previously carried a pellet gun on our hunting trips, and from time to time, he would take it away from me to check the safety. If he ever found the safety off, we went home, no questions asked. Shooting that shotgun for the first time was better than my high school graduation. I’ve shot it for literally as long as I’ve been shooting shotguns, and I hit targets or birds with it before I realize I’ve touched the trigger. That Franchi belonged to my Papaw’s daughter Mary Lloyd, who left this life before I ever knew her. Cancer took her at age fourteen, four years before I was born. Now I have a niece and nephew with shooting and life lessons to learn, and I know that Mary Lloyd’s shotgun has more to teach.