How's things in Germany?

 

Editor’s Note: I was assigned to the US Army Headquarters for all of Europe located in Heidelberg, Germany in August 1985. A few months after arriving I was promoted to major. Having never been to Europe it was an exciting adventure for all of us. This article was a response to a letter I sent Conrad soon after my promotion.

Dear Vernon:

Got your letter yesterday, and it sure was good to hear from you. Congratulations on the promotion. Making Major in today’s army is no mean feat. Sorry to hear the raise in pay falls considerably short of matching the newly acquired status. Major Vollertsen: it has a ring to it. Nancy’s bound to be proud. I know Dad is.

I feel certain that it was no coincidence your letter arrived at the height of the hunting season as it did. It must be nice living in Germany, and touring all of Europe in your free time, but did I read a note of whimsy between the lines?

What could be better than a covey rise off the side of a plum thicketed hillside where the dogs stand staunch chest deep in yellow brome? Or the military charge of a flock of mallards sailing straight into the decoys, green heads and purple speculums catching the rays of a newly risen sun? Or the magical appearance of a buck along a deer trail in a hardwood forest turned to brown crystal by a frosty morning so cold it numbs your toes?

No, that’s all pretty good stuff, and the kind you used to get plenty of when you lived back in the good old U.S. of A. Did I understand you right about all the hunting rules and regulations over there in Germany?

That you have to take a six-month long hunter education course before you can even make application (make application, mind you!) for a hunting license? And all that paperwork in order to buy a gun?

And then you only hunt inside fenced preserves where a burgermeister (game keeper) follows along and tells you exactly which deer, rabbit, or pheasant you can shoot? Exactly which one? Boy, they sure are civilized over there. Hunting, there, sounds like lots of fun. All of that is hard to believe. You can bet none of it will ever happen here.

Pam, Sarah, Rode, and I spent the four-day Thanksgiving weekend camped out down at Demon Mountain trying to put a deer in the freezer. The camping was great.

The big 12 x 14 wall tent held all of us; the little sheepherder stove kept us warm and baked biscuits and cookies brown. At night the owls and coyotes sounded like they were right there in the tent with us. You forget sometimes how thin a piece of canvas is, until you hear something moving around on the other side of it. It was fun.

But, we didn’t get a deer. Some of the locals had burned off the countryside the week before the season opened so as to concentrate the deer in pockets of cover only they could hunt. Then, too, spotlighters kept us up a good portion of the night.

The sound of a single, distant gun shot at two in the morning down in that country tells a pretty concise story, and one that everyone understands.

You wouldn’t believe the numbers of trespassers, road hunters, and beer drinkers cruising the countryside. And the stories they make up! Some of them need to get in the writing game.

It’s autumn here in Oklahoma and whereas you didn’t say anything about it in the letter, I’ve got to believe that fall here is pretty much like fall there.

The globe shows Germany to be in the little bit more northerly latitude, but not that much. I bet people burn leaves over there. I bet you can smell them burning. I bet the sun strikes the smoke into thin blue columns that are nice to look at from a distance.

I’m going to burn some leaves here shortly. Then I’m going to do something I bet they don’t do over there. I’m going to take the shotgun down off the rack, scrounge up a pocketful of sixes, rustle up Sarah, Rode, and Bear, and head off down into the bottom to see if we can’t scare us up a rabbit before dark.

It’ll be fun. It’ll be free, and if we’re going to do it, I’m going to have to hurry and finish this and get after the leaves.

Tell Nancy, Mark and Jennifer that we love them and will be thinking about all of you at Christmas. Say, you haven’t forgotten what roast duck tastes like, have you? Can you still swing a shotgun?

                                                                                             Your Big Brother,

                                                                                              Conrad

© 1985 Conrad Vollertsen

 

 



Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Girl I Got

Image
    Author's Note:     I married above my station in life, but not blindly. Of course the girl was nice looking, but her dad had to be a fisherman, and he was. Her mother had to be a good cook, a good housekeeper, and in every other way have her life in order, and she did, and then some. Such had been the men and women in my life, and I was just barely smart enough to see the advantages of that lifestyle. On the other hand, the girl had plenty of options of her own. There were two Division 1 football players in her life; two or three young men Hollywood handsome, and a future millionaire or two. She picked me. The Lord works in mysterious ways.         Fiftieth wedding anniversaries, you know, the "Golden" ones, grew on her family tree like ripe figs on a biblical tree. There were summers that seemed as if all we did was go to the big celebrations; hours spent eating white cake with sickening pure sugar icing, small plates of cashews and ...
Read more

Loneliness of This Wilderness Reaches Deep

Image
  I don’t know how many walleye there are in Kenoji Lake and its tributaries way up north in Ontario. What, millions? Hundreds? Certainly hundreds of thousands, wouldn’t you think? So little fishing pressure does it get in any one short season.  These fish swarm in water where the “catching season” is cancelled out by nearly eight months of winter, and two hours flying time between points “A” and “B”. Civilization? There is none, unless you count the single cabin you are in for your stay. There is a radio phone. Hello. You can use that in case of an emergency, or try a smoke signal.  Isolation: It’s one of the main reasons we go there. Well, that and the cool weather, and the fishing. Go there and you are going to catch some fish, and some more fish, and some more fish, and ..... well, you might eat a few of those golden walleye fillets, too. Maybe. You didn’t pack along any frozen pizzas, did you?  No, we did not, although we could have. Mike and Renae Henry’s Pipes...
Read more

Moon Up Deer Camp

Image
  I love deer meat as much as the next man or woman, but as I’ve aged (yes, I have) camp itself has become even more important to me. If the wind doesn’t blow right, for my stand, or if rain is drumming the tent roof when I hear the alarm go off at five, I’ll sleep in. Just not as mad at ‘em as I used to be. Getting up to a fresh cup of hot coffee in driving rain, or swirling snow, is never unpleasant, but it’s even better when you know you don’t have to go; when you smell bacon frying, and the toughest decision of the day is whether the eggs need to be over easy, or scrambled. Will there be one cup of coffee, or two? So and so got a bigger buck than anybody has seen around here in years? Well, good for him. Pass that apple butter, would you please? Hey, these biscuits are still hot. Pass the butter. The last free place in this country, never mind the world, is deer camp. Turn your cell phone off, you fool. Brian Loveland got to ours up on the Big Bend of the Arkansas before me thi...
Read more