Nov 30, 2018 4 min read

Under normal conditions, I consider myself a pretty intelligent human being, but it is deer season. At this time of year some grown men and women act like little children, and getting any sensible work out of them is a study in futility. Take me for example. I am careful with my rifle and other hunting paraphernalia, but after the first day of buck season I seem to be missing a few items.

In the first day of bad weather we had to endure, I lost my lens caps to my scope. If a reader should find such an item along a back road in Greene County I would like them back. I have had them for quite some time and have a sentimental attachment to them.

Next, I forgot to pack one of my medications in my ditty bag. Go home? Nah, and for the first time in a long time I found I couldn’t stay stable in the face of adversity. So, to the man who stopped to talk to me that day and found me a bit unfriendly, I do apologize. That is just not me. I agree with his views on politics and think that both John Wayne and Bob Hope would have made fine presidents and their heads should have been on Mt. Rushmore. Another thing, I didn’t just miss seeing that buck, I also didn’t see the 10 doe he was chasing.

I understand that losing my lens caps, patience and forgetting my meds are typical first day kind of things. I accept that as part of getting older, but of all the things I lost and miss how did I lose my teeth? Somewhere along that same road that gobbled up my lens caps lies a fine set of lower dentures. Now, I can lose a lot of things but this one tops them all. How does one lose his dentures while hunting? I’m telling you the shortened version of it: It was easy.

I had a sore place on my lower gums that morning so I took them out and put them in my coat pocket. From that point, your guess is as good as mine. That would be quite something to find in the woods or on the road. I know a good dentist named Chuck, who hunts, and he is from the Monongahela area. If you should bump into him out there hunting, then tell him to save me a place at his office. I will be in soon.

It is natural that a writer should meet, over the years, many people from various walks of life. So it was that I met many football players. Mike Webster was one of the all-time great centers and was also a great angler. Tunch Ilkin shot clay birds and Mark Malone used a 25-06. But I believe the greatest outdoorsman of that group was the smallish guard Gerry “Moon” Mullins. Since it is football season, let me tell you a story straight from the mouth of this very good football player and outstanding clay bird shooter. If there was a better clay shooter than Moon, then I haven’t met him and the same could be said about chasing our state bird the Grouse.

I was sitting in the Union Grill with Moon, Denny Fredericks and Dave Minella. We were spreading the manure as only hunters can do when I asked Moon what I thought was a good question. I simply asked this man, who started every game while he played with the 1970s Pittsburgh Steelers and had four Super Bowl rings, who was the greatest player he had played with or against? A serious look came over his face and he pondered my question. One must remember he had blocked for O.J. Simpson in college, and while O.J. might not have been a fine fellow he was not a second-rate running back in the pros. Finally, Moon looked at me and said one word “Soup.” My face must have showed my perplexity. Who was “Soup” or whatever? He looked at me and said “Superman – Mel Blount.” That was not the answer I expected. After all, there were many hall of famers on those Steelers teams. But here we are, years later, and many broken clay birds later, and I believe he had answered truthfully. I also would bet on Moon in a clay-bird match.

All things have a bright side and that goes for losing things, my teeth included. After all, now I have an excuse for ignoring all those after-hunting-season chores that are piling up. I can’t possibly do them until after I find my teeth. If I happen to find Mr. Ten-Point Buck while I’m hunting for them, well, you know.