The Power of a Smile

The drive home from Deer Hunting is always a feeling of mixed emotions. Regardless of filling your tag or not, something happens to me inside as I pass the Pioneer gas station. It could be that I have to wait another 363 days until the next deer season. No more beer drinking, farting, talking dirty, peeing on trees, or outhouse. Or it could be that I know I'll be another year older the next time I sit in the cold, in a tree, wearing blaze orange, at 5:45am. For those of you that have never communed with nature the way hunters do every year, it's hard to understand what drives hunters to do this ritual every year. I'll give you my best effort by giving this example of what happened a few short days ago. The over night temperature on Friday night dropped just below freezing but low enough to cause frost on the trees and fallen leaves. As the sun began to rise on Saturday morning and the shadow, which you thought was a deer standing 20 feet in front of you all morning, began to actually look like a shadow and then disappears. As the sun's rays began to weave themselves through the trees, the temperature began to rise and that frost starts to melt. What happens next I know actually happened and it's not something I dreamed because everyone else confirmed it with me. It sounded like it was raining. Now if you were anywhere else but in the middle of the woods you wouldn't know this was happening. Sure store owners go through the morning routine of "opening the store" every morning, but this was nature's way of waking up for the day. Amazing.



So why is the title of this Blog called "The Power of a Smile"?



Every year as we pack up the car and get ready to leave the cabin, someone always starts the waterfall of "it goes by so fast" comments, and the "I can't wait until next year" comment. So every year as we head south and drive passed the Pioneer Gas station those mixed emotions set in. Well this is the first year that I am OK with waiting those 363 days. Why? Walking into Dad and Kathy's house and seeing the smile on Jillian's face once she recognized me made me forget about those 363 days.

Thanks Jillian.
Jason