Happy Hunting Season (and Thanksgiving...)

Other than remarkably similar capitol buildings, the world I grew up in is entirely different than the Madison-world where I now live. Comparing the Northwoods to the Capital city is like comparing fried venison sausage to a vegan tofu sandwich, and I love them both for their strikingly different characters.

The locality where we grow up shapes us in profound ways, and as much as we might sometimes try to shed it, the character of our hometowns becomes part of who we are as individuals.

The antique guns that hang on the wall of my home office and the lamp with deer antlers that sits at my desk provide some proof that we may leave our hometowns, but our hometowns never leave us.

Last week my counts were still a little too low to begin treatment, so we decided to wait until this upcoming Monday to give it another shot. This actually worked out brilliantly as it allowed me to come home for Thanksgiving and spend time with family and friends.

This year I certainly have more to be thankful for than ever. Most of all, I am thankful simply for being here this Thanksgiving, and to have the opportunity to spend it at home with family and friends.

Driving around the Northwoods, one cannot escape noticing how different it is culturally from Madison. Hunting season up here is celebrated as fervently as religion. If you think I am over-exaggerating, I would urge you to enter a grocery store in Rhinelander the Friday before the opening of hunting season. Not only will the store be busier than any other time of year, but also 9 out of 10 of the shoppers will be wearing at least 3 articles of blaze orange clothing.

As we drove up, I laughed as I realized that nearly all of the messages on motels, restaurants, resorts, and other highway business signs read "Good Luck Hunters," and then included "Happy Thanksgiving," almost as an afterthought.

Hunting in the Northwoods is a holiday, a tradition, and a rite of passage so intimately tied to our culture that I cannot imagine life up here without it.

As I write, I notice that we have now moved from Thanksgiving Thursday to the aptly named Black Friday -- The largest retail shopping day of the year.

Every year, Americans get injured or even killed as mad mobs rush into Wal-Marts and Best Buys across the country in a rush to find the best sales.

I don't want to be overly critical, but what does it say about our society when in other cultures people may get trampled in religious pilgrimiges and in America we trample each other to death in a mad rush to purchase reduce-priced consumer goods.

While some may argue that Christianity is the most common religion in America, I might argue that it is in fact Materialism.

I hope that's not true. But, unfortunately, it's how I often feel.

Now, as avid readers of this blog will know, late-night consumption of sugary breakfast cereals is a guilty pleasure of mine. In fact, sugary bowls of Life, Lucky Charms, Frosted Flakes, and others often fuel me as I write for this blog.

Well, this Blog Strong blog post was fueled by Cocoa Krispies, and as I poured the box I couldn't help but read a big banner that explained "Helps Build Your Child's Immunity!..."

All of this time the answer to raising my neutrophil counts was right under my nose -- Looks like Monday I'll be eating Cocoa Krispies for breakfast...

I hope you all had a delightful and fun-filled Thanksgiving.

Sam

And finally, a poem to freak out my Madison friends...

“Opening Weekend”

I.

On this foggy 40-degree morn

in Northern Wisconsin

the swift snaps of rifle-fire

continuously pierce the morning air,

sending me back years

to the old hunting camp.

Suddenly, I am once again the

twelve-year-old boy lying on

the 20-year-old couch, warmed by

a scratchy army-surplus wool blanket,

the night before my first day of hunting season.

Too excited to sleep, I lie awake until

3am, fully knowing that I must rise

at four-thirty to beat the dawn to the

tree stand constructed years before

by my father and grandfather.

I load and shoulder my

bolt-action Remington 243,

and walk through thick trees

in darkness, trying to contain

a strong feeling of fright.

There is something about the

deep woods in darkness that

closes in on even the most

seasoned outdoorsman,

especially an Imaginative

outdoorsman.

II.

After getting to the stand, I

shiver in the dark, and sleep

soundly for two hours.

When I wake up, two deer

stand at my bait pile.

As the blurriness of

sleep leaves my eyes,

I realize that it’s Erick and Amil,

two twin yearling bucks that I

recognize from bow season.

I sip coffee as these twins

crunch away on the corn and

apples of my bait pile.

I utter some comments

as if they can comprehend.

“Are you two as cold as I

am on this crisp morning?”

(I’m sure most hunters do such

strange things; it can get quite

lonely out in the woods alone.

Most, however, likely would

never admit to such

bizarre behavior.)

At 8am I unload my rifle

and scurry down the

wooden ladder of my stand.

Time for breakfast.

I laugh as I walk by

Erick and Amil crunching corn,

looking back at me

lacking any trace of concern.

“The big bad hunter has hunger,”

I explain.

“You know, you two

should really be a great

deal more careful, or

you could get shot,”

I say as I laugh

heartily by myself.

III.

The smell of sweet rolls

baking, as well as

camp eggs and turkey sausage

sizzling in cast iron pans

meets the smell of pancakes

and maple syrup, providing an

unparalleled olfactory experience

as I enter the warmth of the

steamy-windowed tar-paper shack.

Dad was the cook and always

the first back in the morning.

I was always second,

Grandpa third,

with Skubie and Josh

trading the fourth and

fifth positions.

(Coincidentally, this also seems to

rank how seriously each one of us

took deer hunting.

On second thought,

Perhaps that’s no coincidence at all.)

After the nearly endless layers of jackets

and insulation were removed,

we’d sit and wait patiently but hungrily

for the morning’s meal at the square

wooden table.

The sweet scent of kerosene from

an old lantern placed in the

center of this table would

weigh the warm air of the cabin.

When all was ready and warm,

Dad would bring pan after pan of

delicious steaming food.

The hunters would relay the morning’s sightings,

then bull-shit about where the big

bucks might be, as we gorged ourselves

on the breakfast Dad had prepared.

IV

After breakfast, my day became divided

equally between reading on the couch

in the cabin, taking naps, and hunting.

I rarely shot anything.

This might be the result

of Grandpa’s and my

affinity for naming deer.

It wasn’t only Erick and Amil.

There was “Old Thumper,”

“Merdle,” and the aptly-named

“Three-Legged Leroy.”

In years of hunting,

I only shot one doe,

and only did so then

because I had a strong

craving for Venison.

V.

Our hunting camp broke

all of the stereotypes.

After dinner, the five men

spent nights chatting,

reading, playing chess,

and building card houses

under the warm glow of

the kerosene lantern.

In my many

years of hunting,

I cannot remember

anyone ever having

so much as a single drink.

VI.

We sold the hunting land

and the cabin some time ago,

but the memories made there

will forever live in my mind’s eye.

I don’t miss hunting,

but I do deeply miss

our hunting camp.

Today the square table where we sat

for all of our camp breakfasts

sits in my apartment’s dining room.

The kerosene lantern that provided

the warm light for so many chess matches

and the construction of so many card houses

still sits atop that table.

Every time I catch the

sweet scent of Kerosene

weighing the air of our apartment,

I can’t help but find myself once again

back in the cabin during hunting season.

And this morning, as I awoke in Rhinelander

to the snapping sounds of rifle-fire,

I found myself once again a young boy

lying awake on a 20-year-old couch,

excited about his first hunting season.

One Year, How I Got Here -and- Blog Stong's First Birthday

After writing that last post, I realized that it's been exactly one year since starting treatment.

One year ago today, right about this time, I was lying in bed wondering what the day, and the next year would bring.

One year ago today, my parents drove me to the hospital as I stared out the window, wondering if I would ever walk the streets of Madison again.

One year ago today, I was spending a night in the hospital for the first time in my life, frightened, and had no idea what to anticipate.

One year ago today, if I'm honest, I thought it unlikely that I'd be around to type this blog post one year later.

One year ago today, while sitting in a hospital bed, I wrote out what became the first post on this blog.

I like working at my desk better...

In the last year, there have been some rough patches when I thought I'd never make it through. There have been many.

But each and every one of these rough patches has been met by emails, cards, comments, and simple words of encouragement that have carried me through.

In short, you have all gotten me here today, and I'll never be able to thank you enough.

The picture above was drawn and written by my Best Bud Jacques, the son of my friend and former co-worker Shane. It hangs above my desk at my home office and I look at it every day. It is only one example of the thousands of mementos and messages that I keep that have helped me cross the treacherous seas of treatment over the last year.

I had originally planned on doing a long list of shout outs including everything that has helped carry me through then realized that there have been so many that I could never list them all and that to try and miss some would be an injustice.

The truth is that each and every person reading this post deserves my great thanks.

Thank you all for getting me here today. I appreciate all of the little things that you've done (including reading this blog) more than words can express.

Sam

On Yammering On and On -and- How Blogging's My New Drinking

According to more emails and comments than I can keep track of, I seem to be making an awfully high number of women cry lately. As I said on the phone this evening, I just hope these are good tears and not bad ones.

Anyway, I thought it might be time to make people laugh a little as well, so the picture on the right is me (a few years back...) I include it as I'm currently getting "ready to dive back into chemo."

The last two weeks we’ve had a break from chemo resulting from low counts, and as a result, this last week I’m beginning to feel more myself than in more than a year and a half -- and it feels great.

For the first time in about as long as I can remember, I’m actually sleeping 6-9 hours a night, I’m energetic and can actually focus (a little – which is as much as I’ve ever been able to), I’m getting more work done than ever, and I’m actually useful around the house.

My weight is back within my normal 130-135 range for the first time since before I started chemo almost a year ago. Although I must admit that it’s a much softer 130, and that the weight has shifted from muscle to my cheeks and chin (Thank you, corticosteroids…)

I’ve been seeing all kinds of old friends and catching up, hosting movie nights, having people over for meals, and doing my best to get others inebriated.

Having this little break and getting a window to get back to my old ways feels awesome.

Even old dormant problems like tooth sensitivity and random bleeding from one spot in my mouth (no one’s ever been able to figure that one out…), that all disappeared when we started chemo, are now coming back. It’s strange to greet these problems like I would old friends – every time they pop back up I feel like saying “Oh, that’s right, I forgot about you. Where have you been hiding for the last year you sneaky little devil?”

While seeing and catching up with a lot of friends has been great, one concern about it is that I seem to have become a manic talker; I go on and on and on literally for hours with crazy-long story after story. Additionally, I’m writing absurdly long emails, updating my blog at a tornadic pace (Usually I shoot for once a week), and all of this is all on top of writing all day long for work.

And, all of this without any steroids in my system…

I was beginning to get very worried as I’ve always prided myself on being a good listener, and then I realized that, as I have explained in previous posts, I was born a story-teller and have always lived my life alternating between being around friends and telling stories and out in pursuit of adventure to ensure that I always have some new material.

Although I try my best to be a good listener, lately I often talk far too much to let my friends get many words in edgewise…

The very nature of treatment for Leukemia has prevented me from seeing many people often as I often completely lack both energy and immunity. The result is that I’ve had the craziest adventure of my life over the last year, and I have hardly seen any of my friends or family to tell them about it.

As a result, I have more material than I ever have, and I have thus become a temporary manic talker.

On top of all of this, I’m an intensely social individual who is often quarantined at home – working all day at home where I lack a whole lot of interaction doesn’t help a whole lot…

Thus, while at first concerned, I now have hope that I will have eventually caught up with everyone and I can stop yammering on and on. For the time being, I must apologize to the many, many people whose ear I’ve talked off over the last couple of weeks.

On the note of storytelling, I recently realized that blogging is my new drinking.

I used to go out late at night to bars with friends and spend hours exchanging stories. It wasn’t so much the drinking that I ever enjoyed (Okay, maybe a little), but rather it was the opportunity to sit for hours in an inviting and warm place in the company of good friends, that pulled me out into the night.

In this high-paced world, it’s difficult to slow down and focus on nothing but enjoying the company and conversation of others. A Pub or Tavern late at night with a few drinks is one of the few places I have found where this is possible.

That, or a campfire.

I recently had the realization that I tend to blog late at night and do so to share stories with my friends and family – just like drinking. I then always enjoy hearing their (your) stories in emails and comments. It’s a late-night exchange that fulfills most of the things that drinking used to – I just wish I could talk to you all face to face (and maybe have a whiskey or two…)

All right, tomorrow I’m back for counts and maybe starting the second half of round six.

Ahead we have 28 days of rough chemo once we start, then a break to let my counts recover, then a bone marrow biopsy to see if there’s any cancer left (This will be a really stressful week for me of the test followed by waiting for the results.)

As always, any good vibes you can spare would be very much appreciated.

Then, if all is clear, we’re looking at three years of “maintenance,” which is a fancy and friendly word for low-dose chemo. After a year of going to the clinic twice a week, going once a month seems absolutely unfathomable.

I’ve had a great break and this next round is going to be really, really rough, but with a finish line in sight I’m also ready for the final sprint. To use one of my old mantras:

Bring It On.

Sam

On a Legend -- A Poem about Grandpa "Dewey"

"Hamburger Gravy"

I

At the market after work

I buy a package of ground beef

And some Yukon gold potatoes.

On the Gas Stove

I brown the hamburger,

Seasoning liberally with salt and pepper

Then add boiling water from the potato pan.

“The secret is to use the potato water,”

I turn to her and say.

“I know,” She says

“You tell me every time.”

After adding boullioun for flavor

And flour to thicken,

I smile as

The smell of the potatoes boiling

Along side the simmering gravy

Conjures strong and

Inescapable memories:

II

I’d wait impatiently on the pier,

Fishing rod in hand

For the infamous whistle

Of the old blue and tan Ford pick-up

Headed down South Rifle Road

At a break-neck pace.

The pitch caused by an undiagnosed air leak

was too high for the old man to hear.

It was not, however, too high for the neighbors to hear

And soon the truck became known in the neighborhood

As “Old Whistler”

You could hear her approaching for miles

Like the sound of a pre-pubescent freight train.

As the noise grew louder

The boy on the pier grew increasingly anxious.

The day had been spent waiting for this moment,

Waiting to go fishing,

Waiting to head out on the water with him.

He’d walk down the concrete stairs

And I’d see his dark, leathered, skin

And thick head of bright silver hair

Disappear into the brown shed next to the lake

To get the Styrofoam “Minnie bucket”

From the shelf next to the large fake deer.

He’d kneel down on the pier

Pulling the frayed yellow rope

Of the mildewed yellow minnow cage,

Meticulously tossing out the dead minnows

And carefully scooping live ones into

The blue-rope-handled Styrofoam bucket.

After several scoops he would look thoughtfully into the water

And say “That ought to be enough, don’t you think?”

Then pause and add one more scoop.

Fishermen are always a hopeful lot.

We would head out to Sam’s Point for bluegill,

Radke Bay for walleye and northern pike,

Bible Camp Bay in pursuit of large musky or little bass,

Sometimes it was Tony’s bay for panfish and crappie.

It didn’t matter.

I learned from a young age,

He had taught me,

“Being out here is the mashed potatoes,

Catching fish is just some gravy on those potatoes.”

Only someone who was born before the depression,

Someone whose deep, deep past holds memory of rationing

and the second world war, would ever use such a phrase.

Sometimes I’d get skittish at the sight of

Storm clouds and thunder approaching over

The dark pine forests of the Northern Wisconsin lake.

As it would begin getting

“Darker than the inside of a black cat,”

He would reassure me that everything would be all right.

“What will be, will be,” he would say.

“The good lord will take us when the good lord wants to take us.”

After fishing for hours, we would head back home,

Where Grandma had already peeled the potatoes.

I would watch carefully as he added ground beef

To an electric fry pan, browning it evenly then adding

Boiling water from the potato pan.

“The secret is to use potato water,” he would say.

He would add two cubes of beef bouillon

And finally some flour to thicken.

Hungry from a long day's fishing,

We would binge on this delicious

“Hamburger gravy” served over potatoes.

Grandma always cooked a vegetable as well,

But these were rarely touched by either him or me.

III

Years later, I am many inches taller

But every year as fishing season begins

I still often feel the anticipation of the young

Boy standing impatiently on the pier

Waiting for Old Whistler to come

Barreling down South Rifle Road.

The house is the same, only now with a

Large garage in the driveway

And a Green Jeep has long since

Replaced Old Whistler,

Undoubtedly an exchange greatly appreciated

By his neighbors.

Now he waits anxiously

For my silver Suburu Pick-up

To come barreling down

South Rifle Road,

A trip I find the time to make

Far too infrequently.

After a brief hello to Grandma

We quickly head to the pier where

He retrieves the Minnie bucket

Scoops four or five scoops,

Looks thoughtfully in the water and says

“That ought to be enough...”

Before pausing and

Adding one final scoop

“For good measure.”

We head out to the same bays

Pursuing the offspring of the same fish

That we chased years ago.

Our hats facing backwards

The 25-horsepower Evenrude pushes

The same 16-foot aluminum boat

With all of its might.

He shares stories from the past

And we reminisce about all of the good times

On the water and in the woods.

All the big ones caught,

And the much bigger ones lost.

About the time the loon swam under the boat

Chasing my bright silver doctor spoon,

Or when the musky nailed the side of the boat

After hitting the pink “hell-raiser” bait that he

Had bought at my request with a promise that

“You’ll never catch a thing on that bait.”

After fishing for hours,

We head back home where grandma

Has already peeled the potatoes,

And we chat as he prepares the traditional

Post-fishing-trip hamburger gravy.

“The secret is to use the potato water,”

He always says.

###