Angus was out for KY Yute Season yesterday. We did not bag anything, but we had a good time. The trip brought up a whole lot of issues, that I feel need airing.

First off, as you know, Angus is a bagpiper. He’s not just a good bagpiper. He’s a phenomenal bagpiper. They threw him out of Junior competition a couple of years ago, because he was walking off with all the medals, and it was decided it would be more fair for him to compete as an adult. He’s 14 now. He is playing with North Coast up in Cleveland. They will go to the world competition in Glasgow next August. Angus had a big mandatory meeting a couple of weeks ago that he had to attend, but it got rescheduled for today. Big problem. We solved it by hunting until sundown last night, then hauling ourselves all back to Cincinnati so he could be up at 0500 for the 4 hour drive to Cleveland.

Setting Priorities

Angus, as well as the rest of us, has to figure out priorities. In the past, Angus has given top priority to deer hunting and turkey hunting. Making the choice was hard. Splitting the difference was logistically the hardest choice, and it would have been really hard if he’d bagged a buck last night. However, no deer were harmed in the course of the weekend. We saw plenty of deer, but nothing he cared to shoot. He went off today, and we’ll probably all meet back up tonight after sundown. Truth be known, this morning was probably a bum time to be out. There is severe weather coming, and the wind kicked up big time around 0900 and is really starting to blow hard. We would not have been able to hunt out of the tree stands this morning, and would have been left to ground blinds. However, I’m sure both Angus and I would have been out this morning, had it not been for the must-do meeting in Cleveland.

I just want to take Angus’ tribulation to remind all of you that, unlike a lot of endeavors, deer hunting takes specific commitments. It is so hard to stay focused when folks around you know so little of what we do. Folks want us to come to October weddings and football games and haunted corn mazes and they just do not understand: NO! I can’t just go hunting next weekend. I need to go now.

So much of deer hunting is nothing more than putting time in on the stand or in the blind or walking the woods. There are only so many days a year that it can happen. They are gone and they cannot be recovered later. You cannot give up hunting this weekend and then somehow hunt twice as hard next weekend. Besides, for whatever we promise to those and to others, Nature has the last say. This weekend? Angus would have been grousing right now about the stupid wind. Last year? We had hot weather and relentless wind. It made Yute Season and Early Muzzleloader Season a disaster. In fact, all of last year’s Rifle Season in KY was mucked up by the weather. So for all we think we can get away with– playing hooky from the stand, we really are just cheating ourselves. The time to hunt is now.

Angus and AMY

No, Angus does not have a new girlfriend. Well, he does, kinda-sorta. The idea came up that KYHillChick wanted to buy me a Kindle or Nook so that I did not have to lug a big book out to the stand with me. It is true. I admit it. I like to read when I am out deer hunting and turkey hunting. A lot of folks see this as odd. Here is a big-time hunter going out in the woods and . . .and reading??? Well, yes. I find reading helps pass the time. I stay out longer, and it keeps me quiet as well. When I am not reading, I tend to move around more. Reading a good book, I move my head less, and I look up at the bottom of every page or so. Lately I have been reading a lot of military histories and the size of the books have become a bit unwieldy. Yes a little e-reader might do just the trick.

Well, two things happened to move the project along. First off, Angus came home from high school and said that he was being required, more and more, to access the internet at school, but the school was not providing the resources. They are now sort-of expecting everyone to show up with something like and I-pad, but they are not specifically demanding it and they are not providing the resource themselves. That sucks. You would think that for all the money I pay in taxes for the schools, they could come up with. . . oh, nevermind.

Secondly, I started looking for an e-reader and I found out that it would not be all that more expensive to go from an e-reader ($80 minimum) to a low-end tablet ($250). You can get both Nook and Kindle services on an Android Tablet for free. I tried a bunch of devices and finally decided to give a Samsung Galaxy Tab 2 a try with the idea that either I would keep it or give it to Angus.

You have to remember that I am probably the first person to ever marry a laptop to a treestand. Back in 1985 I figure out a way to secure a Radio Shack TRS-200 clamshell to an Amacker climbing tree stand and went aloft. A couple years later, I added a bag phone and found that I could call into hunting bulletin boards, and give live reports. I am no stranger to technology and hunting.

BUT WHY? WHY? SHAMAN?

Look, back in the mid-80’s having a laptop in a treestand was a bit of a stunt. At one point I even took the battery-operated thermal printer up with me. I wanted to say it had been done, and that I have done it. Now here it is 2012. I’m not saying hanging out in your deer blind or turkey blind playing Angry Birds or sending Twitter messages or updating Facebook is good or bad. I do not see it as complete apostasy. What I will say is that all things should be done in moderation including moderation. Yesterday I was reading a wonderful free ebook off of Gutenburg.org, the biography of Leander Stillwell of the 61st Illinois Infantry whose military career started at Shiloh.

More on that later. After a bit, I handed the device over to Angus to mess with. He found an app for Androids that compares favorable with the Siri app on the I-pad. Now, he’s totally hooked on talking to “Amy.” He’s taken the tablet with him on the trip to Cleveland. I guess I am going to have to order another one for myself. Normally, I can’t keep him in the blind past 0930. He gets bored and wants to go in. He’s young. He’s learning. Yesterday? He stayed out until 11 AM, and got to see a herd of deer that did not hit the field until 1020. I’d say the Samsung Galaxy Tab 2 is now an invaluable part of the hunting kit.

Back to Leander

I was reading this book by a guy named Stillwell who had been a private in the Union Army at Shiloh. I had a great-great grandfather at Shiloh. We found him a few years ago, working on the family history. We had always figured he had been in the 72nd Ohio Infantry. However there was also a possibility that he had been in the artillery, based on the family anecdotes. While I was reading Stillwell’s book, I got to thinking about Great-Great Gramps, and I decided to dig him up online. Funny, but the 72nd Ohio Infantry did have a Lewis Davidson Williams in its rolls, but he had died in Feb ’62 of disease while still in camp. Mine? He had gone on to serve throughout the war and had come home in 65 to see my Great Grandfather, Elmer Ellsworth Williams, who had been born shortly after Lewis had left to join up. My Grandfather was named Ellsworth. My middle name is Ellsworth. We are all named for Colonel Elmer Ellsworth, an early Union martyr.

Here’s the whole story:

Lewis lived into the 20th Century. As best we can tell, Lewis’s fervor caused him to run out on his pregnant wife and join up, declaring that (should it be a boy child) the baby should be named Elmer Ellsworth.

Now we did manage to see deer yesterday. All told, Angus and I saw about a dozen. There were two small bucks in the mix. They were not what Angus was interested in shooting. We felt we had been successful, even though there was nothing on the meat pole at the end of the day. In the meantime, not only had I been reading a nice book about the Civil War, not only had I solved a mystery about my Great Great Grandfather but before the last bunch of doe came out into the pasture, I happened across this gem from Leander Stillwell’s description of the first day at Shiloh:

There was a battery of light artillery on this line, about a quarter of a mile to our right, on a slight elevation of the ground. It was right flush up with the infantry line of battle, and oh, how those artillery men handled their guns! It seemed to me that there was the roar of a cannon from that battery about every other second. When ramming cartridge, I sometimes glanced in that direction. The men were big fellows, stripped to the waist, their white skins flashing in the sunlight, and they were working like I have seen men doing when fighting a big fire in the woods. I fairly gloated over the fire of that battery. “Give it to them, my sons of thunder!” I would say to myself; “Knock the ever-lastin’ stuffin’ out of ’em!” And, as I ascertained after the battle, they did do frightful execution.

Now it just so happens that the Williams are about as pasty a group of people as you will ever see– pasty and big. My grandfather, Ellsworth, acquired the nickname “Whitey.” He played Basketball for Ohio State. I’m similarly afflicted, although by the end of summer, I do acquire somewhat of a tan as the freckles grow a bit closer together. One thing is for sure: a fellow with that sort of complexion would have been noticeably white that early in the season of 1862. I am hoping I will be able to find what battery of artillery that might have been. Perhaps I will find Great-Great Grandpa at last.

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