Bouzier Creek Whitetail

Chapter I

In the fall of 1969, my dad and I are standing in the drive working on our 62’ Chevy truck, when we head someone driving up to the house. Now people didn't just drive up to the house, you had to be coming to our house to get there. You see, we lived on a ranch. The closest paved road was three miles, and town with 338 residents, was two more after that. Our closest neighbor was a mile away across the pasture and four miles by road. To say I was curious about who was coming to our house was an understatement. When I saw the truck and did not recognize it, I asked dad, “Who’s that?” He just said, “Your mother’s uncle.”

My mother’s uncle? I thought. At eleven years of age I didn't even know she had an uncle. Now my curiosity was at an all time high and a ton of questions were going through my mind.

The man that got out of the truck could only be described as having a contagious smile, and I was soon to learn that if you we not having fun around Weldon, you were either asleep or dead. He and Dad shook hands, and it was very evident that the two were good friends. I would later learn that Weldon was dad’s best man when he married my mother.

He shook my hand and said that I had grown since he had last seen me, which was when I was born in 1958, I soon learned. As he and dad talked and caught up on the family news, the conversation turned to hunting, but not just hunting, deer hunting. I didn't know any one hunted deer, but I was all ears and anxious to hear more.

Weldon was asking questions like the best place to see deer and how many dad thought we had and when he had last seen one. All these questions led me to believe he didn't think we had many, but dad and I saw deer all the time, like every day if we were out driving around feeding the cattle. In fact our wheat fields looked like we ran sheep, the tracks were so thick. Weldon even asked, “Do ya’ll have sheep in these fields?” He couldn't believe all the tracks were deer. Well, we drove around looking at several places. He and dad finally decided on a wheat field to hunt. I had no idea what Weldon had in mind, but I would later learn that he would park his truck and camper on the edge of the field and hunt out of the back window; ingenious at the time, a portable deer blind. Who woulda thunk it?