“Coldest Goose hunt ever, with Mark and Tony”

Tony and Mark Harpole and I drew a goose pit at Ballard County Wildlife Management area and were up by three and on our way.   We stopped at Luke`s to eat breakfast and headed to Oscar.

I had on all the warmest clothing I had as the temperature was the coldest I had ever seen.  I had loaded my white gas heater to help keep us warm in the concrete pits.

We drew what had to be the worst pit in the worst area up there.  Our pit was facing a twenty mph wind right off the Arctic.  We were so cold we were past shivering.  We were jerking.  I lit the heater and we rotated holding our feet or hands to it.  It kept going out, so I thought and I would relight it.  It did not help at all.

Finally after not getting any shooting the truck made the round to pick everyone up.  Believe me we were ready.  When we got in the truck for some reason I placed the cold heater in the cab with us.  By the time we got to Barlow the heat was cooking us and had to put the heater, that was lit all the time, in the bed of the truck.

When Tony pulled up to my back door on our return home my wife Frieda met us in the drive.  “Johnny Walker called and they are fighting a bad fire on one hundred block of West Clay St.”  Still cold and tired from sitting since four thirty am in severe cold, we headed to the fire.

When Johnny saw us he told us how glad he was to see replacements for the firefighters had been there for two hours and were cold.  Well la.  We waded in and fought fire.  Sadly this was one of the worst we ever had.  In thirty years a firefighter I remember five lives lost with three babies in one.  This was one of the other two.  Firefighters, police and EMTs have to face losing someone but it never leaves you and I think seeing a life lost to fire is the worst they all face.  This is the part of the job the general public seldom sees and it tries on them.  Emergency Services personnel always deserve our respect.  The cop who just ticked you for crossing the line, or running a stop, may have just helped retrieve someone from a head on that did not make it.

Anyway back to hunting with Mark and Tony.  We hunted out of my blind several times and it seemed that the only time Tony could go was when the weather was bad but never like the day we got home only to go back out in the frigid weather.