One of the primary tools I used to get my sixteen year old son to pile on a bus and travel 1200 miles to visit me here in Texas, was the deer.
"Wait'll you see 'em." I kept saying when we spoke long distance on the phone.
"What's so special about 'em?"
"Well other than the fact that they're everywhere, they're big."
"Yeah, right ... whatever."
He had seen Florida deer and South Carolina deer, and despite the fact that I kept telling him that everything is bigger in Texas, he never quite believed me. I picked him up at the bus station at almost midnight and on the drive home it was ...
"Where's the deer?"
The next morning he got up at about eight a.m. and went for a walk.
"I didn't see a deer one." He said when he returned.
"You will." I promised.
Another day went by with no deer sightings.
"I don't know if I can handle all these great big deer." He said sarcastically.
"Just give it a little time." I replied.
The following night we were going out to Comanche Campground to meet some family and camp out for the night.
"Wait'll you see the fish." I said, automatically.
"Here we go again." He chuckled.
It was about seven-thirty p.m. and we were headed out 1431 when he yelled ...
"Stop the truck!!"
"What? What is it?" I glanced at him and hit my brakes and began to slow down. He had gone white as a sheet and was shaking all over. "Are you sick, son?"
"No! Please just turn around! Please?!"
"Jake, what is it?"
"Mom, either turn this truck around or your going to force me to jump out of a moving vehicle!"
So I turned around and headed back the way we had come. We crested a hill and there on the side of the road was a small herd of deer. What had turned Jake into a blithering idiot was a ten point buck standing majestically in the middle of the little group. Not only had he spotted the deer, he had counted the points on the fly. Now he pointed wordlessly, his mouth hanging open.
"I see it son. I tried to tell ya."
"That's the biggest deer I have ever seen." He gasped.
"I told you if you'd just be patient ..."
"Let me out."
"Why?"
"I just want to get closer."
About that time the herd bounced away into the woods, waving their little white flags as they went.
"I told ya." I repeated. By now he was shaking like a washing machine on the spin cycle and fine beads of sweat had gathered on his forehead. Deer fever is not a pretty thing to watch, and can be alarming unless you have witnessed it before.
Less than an hour later we were at camp and we settled into lawn chairs with my mother and father-in-law to watch my two sisters-in-law pull fish out of the water. They were averaging small to medium in size, some went onto the stringer, some went back in the water.
I could read Jake's face like a road map.
I don't know if I can handle all these great big fish.
"Jake … check that rod over there for me?" My father-in-law said, and pointed at a rod and reel that was stuck into the bank a few yards away. My father-in-law treats fishing like a spectator sport. Once he gets his rod set up, he just sits back and watches. Which in this particular instance worked out very well, as Jake started cranking on the reel and pulled out a gaspergoo every bit as long as his arm. He just stood there holding the fish up wordlessly, the fishing line cutting into his hand.
I gazed at him … vindicated.
"I know," he grinned sheepishly, "you tried to tell me."
The rest of the night he spent alternating between sitting with a reel in his hand or wandering the surrounding woods looking for deer. The light of the full moon cast a phosphorescent glow to everything it touched, sparkling off the water like a sea of diamonds cast upon a black blanket. I don't think Jake slept all night, as the full realization of where he was and the immense possibilities of what his life could be like here began to fully set in. I didn't expect to be able to keep him here forever; he had work and his dad waiting for him back in Florida, but somehow I think next time I nag him to come visit, it won't take quite so much effort.
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