Deer Hunting with my dad

It was a winter tradition. Well OK, it was actually about a month before winter officially started. But in Wisconsin, the middle of November felt like winter back then.
There was often snow on the ground and freezing temperatures the weekend before Thanksgiving, as well as Thanksgiving weekend, the bookends of the Wisconsin white-tail deer season for firearms.
Every year since I could remember, I would watch my Dad pack his suitcase full of thermal underwear, wool socks and flannel shirts. He’d get out the waders and the blaze orange, quilted hunting coat with the deer tags affixed to the middle of the back.
He’d put a box of Tiparillos in the breast pocket of his shirt, even though I never saw him smoke until after I went on a deer hunting trip with him.
Dad would take the 12-guage out of the basement and make sure it was unloaded and the safety was on, telling my brothers and I never to point a gun at anyone ever, even if you knew it was unloaded and the safety was on.
Then, he’d load up whatever vehicle we happened to have at the time. My favorites were the forest green VW hatchback cause that’s the car we took when I went to go see my first Green Bay Packer game at Lambeau Field and the Mercury station wagon with fake wood cause it had FM.
After he left for someplace in central Wisconsin that was even colder than the Milwaukee suburb I grew up in, we’d spend the weekend with Mom waiting for Dad to call on Saturday and Sunday evening to tell us how his hunting party fared that day, how he just missed this big buck coming across the creek or how Joe, the group’s human bloodhound, had tracked a deer across a field (uphill both ways), under barbed wire, up a really tall fir tree and through the bog of eternal stench.
Well, after hearing the story, that’s what I imagined anyway.
Dad was good at providing all the images my little pea brain could handle.
I could almost sense the sights, sounds, smells of the hunt. Not to mention the sensation of having a frozen itchy trigger finger poised to pull when the sights lined up on a tasty hunk of venison.
Speaking of venison, when Dad came home after the season ended, we would have loads of venison to pack. We’d go to the basement and grind some up into burger, and placed it, stew meat and steak in freezer bags. The bags were then marked “some very juicy and tasty steak” or “a pound of fine deer burger” or whatever we could think of as we imagined the fine dishes our parents would concoct with the lean meat.
Then, they went into the basement freezer for safe keeping.
When I got old enough, I went along – the first time just to walk around. No firearm.
The next year, I went full force, complete with borrowed hip boots, borrowed 12-guage, borrowed blaze orange quilted coat and borrowed itchy trigger finger gloves with a flap to stick your finger out of. I had my own underwear, thank you very much.
I must admit that the whole hunting experience didn’t grip me nearly as much as it did my father or my younger brother. But, there are some very vivid memories that evoke pleasant memories of those trips I made lo so many years ago:
▪ Waking up at 4 a.m. after having played cards with my cousins until midnight. It’s amazing how little sleep you can operate on when you’re freezing half to death in a tree stand.
▪ Trying to gnaw on candy bars containing caramel in sub-freezing temperatures.
▪ Trying to get my shotgun around a small tree after waking a big buck up from his resting spot in the swamp of eternal peril while trying not to trip over fallen tree limbs and my own feet.
▪ Breaking through a layer of snow and ice while traversing the creek, hoping the water wouldn’t ride over the top of my hip boots.
▪ Watching a deer being dressed (remember, I was like a 12- or 13-year-old city kid at the time and had not been exposed to that part of it yet).
▪ Stopping in at Earl and Fern’s for a tasty bean soup lunch.
By the way, there are no restrooms in the wild.

You Still Have Me

-- One kid done eating breakfast and ready for school. One hasn't even finished getting dressed. It is the parental dichotomy. I've showered, shaved and taken care of other sundry necessities. So why not post something on Queenie's Revenge while I wait? OK, I still need to pack some lunch for myself, but that is a breeze. Anyway, this here little ditty has already been written. It is a letter from Jesus to me, although you could use it as inspiration in a close, committed relationship; something to aspire to, if you will.

You Still Have Me

When your friends turn their backs
Just when you need them most
And nobody seems to hear
The day is dark as it is long
And there’s no light for you to see
Remember this: All hope’s not lost
Because you still have me

When your mountain seems too tall
For you to overcome
And too dangerous to climb
The fight you might have to wage
Just makes you want to flee
Remember this: All hope’s not lost
Because you still have me

You still have me
Yes, you still have me
You still have me
And with you I’ll always be

I am your rock to stand upon
I hold you when you cry
I lift you up when you are down
You have hope with me
You must believe
Take my hand; you’ll see

When they can’t tell right from wrong
You don’t know how to be strong
Or just looking for the way
You’re sure you can’t do my work
Ax, hammer, nail fail to set you free
Remember this: All hope’s not lost
Because you still have me

You still have me
Yes, you still have me
You still have me
And with you I’ll always be

How I love ya -- an original song of love and stuff

I needed a break from felling trees in a manly fashion in the yard of backness. Oh, how the muscles get sore at this advanced age of mine. And oh how thrilling it is to hear the crack of a dead tree trunk and see a 25-foot formerly living wood creation come tumbling to the ground and not hit my house. Yes, this truly is Nirvania (I spelled this in this fashion as I do not mean to say Nirvana. I really do mean Nirvania. You get there by going to Pittsburgh and hanging a left).
Anyway, as I feast upon my lunch of tangy original Sunny D and a fine little casserole I made of venison stew meat, brown rice, cream of mushroom and celery soups and mushrooms, I was a thinking I needed to post another post to this here Queenie's Revenge. After all, I must recharge my physical self to do more manliness upon my backyard. So I thought what better way to create peace and harmony and brotherhood but to spill my guts in this here blog.
And what better way to give us all a feeling of oneness and gushy mushy love, but to post lyrics to an original love song titled "How I Love Ya." I have a tune for this, but you'll have to keep an eye on YouTube for when and if I feel like spreading the love in that fashion.
Anyway, here it is (I got help from someone in writing this):

How I Love Ya

You are …
An infected monkey butt hair with sour applesauce
From the first day that I found you I wish that you’d got lost

You are…
Rancid raccoon road kill splattered on my lawn
When you’re in my nightmares I am praying for the dawn

How I love ya (x3)

You are …
A quart of curdled milk stinking up my fridge
When I get a whiff of you I jump off of the bridge

I wish …
You had a porcupine deep inside your pants
It would really hurt when you do your dance

How I love ya (x3)

You are …
A wacked out piece of poo and a dippy doodle head
If I were a bad man, I’d wish that you were dead

You’ve got …
Tapeworms in your gut and chiggers on your scalp
When you hang around, I think that I may Ralph

How I love ya (x3)

You are …
Stinky slimy sewage in a port-o-pot
You make me want to hurl a phlegm ball full of snot

You are …
A sniveling little dillweed who clearly is insane
Every time you speak you show you’ve got no brain

I don’t wish you any real harm
Only so you know you lack all of the charm
I hope you become a man instead of staying such a boy
And to call you all these names brings me real joy

How I love ya (x6)
Not much
-------------------------------------------------------------

Now, if I see anyone making money with this without having asked permission, signing a contract to provide me and the co-writer with multitudes of coin upon this hitting No. 1, I have proof that this was posted on this here date. Of course, I also have proof this was written a few weeks ago as my computer hard drive can not lie.
So feel free to share this in the interest of worldwide brotherhood.
And remember, it's not nice to call people names.

Rules of Queenie's Revenge

As some guy said to me once, "There ain't no f***-ing rules." This man wasn't exactly someone you'd want to base your life's philosophy upon. However, when I met him, he must have been thinking of Queenie's Revenge.
There are no rules here. The four of us will post whatever we want, whenever we want for whatever reason we want.
We have the freedom to say anything. And we most likely will. And we will not always agree with one another. What I may think, feel, say or post may be in direct opposition to what one of these other bloggers thinks, feels, says or posts. That's fine. Difference of opinion is good. It brings about conversation and change.
Please do not feel that any particular opinion or idea expressed here is an indication of what any of the other bloggers sees as truth. In fact, once the idea is expressed here, the individual who posted it may have a change of heart or a change of mind after that and may not express it. So, pretty much, it's what that blogger had to say at that moment in what your science Earthlings call the space-time continuum (I am so glad we have spell check on this thing).
Rules? We don't need no stinking rules.
Enjoy ... or don't.
That choice is yours.

Let there be Queenie's Revenge

I want to welcome all you poor soles (spelled wrong on purpose) who have walked into this blog called "Queenie's Revenge."
The goal of this blog is to do something ... something with words.
Four people of unlike mind and unlike body have come together to produce this here blog.
I kind of forgot what rules we set up in starting this blog. So I don't know what I can tell you about us, except that I am battling one wicked case of poison ivy right now. Ouch!
I do know that you are not supposed to put bleach on poison ivy reaction as it eats away your skin. I didn't know this before I did it.
The thing about Queenie is two-fold: there was a German lady on the corner who had a dog named Queenie and there was this mental movie called "Mother's Day" in which the wacked-out psycho thing that lived in the swamp was named "Queenie."
But now I must eat dinner.
Good day to you and eat all the onions you can.
BigCheez