I have always loved it when October rolls around. When I was a teacher and a hunter, I could hardly wait for the MEA Convention in October as that usually coincided with the first day of hunting season and maybe three other teachers and I would head from Glasgow, where we were teaching to Zortman or to Clear Creek where we would cook up all sorts of comfort food, drink a little whiskey or brandy and just enjoy two or three days of roughing it.
If I recall there was never much hunting that went on. It was more just getting out of the groove and enjoying life in places that normally we would only dream about.
When we camped for a few days at Zortman, we often had the add benefit of eating huge steaks and having a Saturday night dance. Think that I have always had a love of fiddle music, some so happy and other so sad from those old time fiddlers who would play for Saturday night dances at the Zortman Bar and Restaurant.
And, in Zortman we always stayed at the Buckhorn Cabins where we stayed in real old log cabins on beds that were surprisingly comfortable. It must have been the brandy.
When we stayed at Clear Creek it was much less comfortable as there was only a one room cabin and we had to cook whatever food we were going to eat. But eat we did and it was always good. Still, though, never a thought about hunting.
You might ask what did the school administration think of four or so of their teachers never showing up for MEA convention. Frankly I always thought they were probably very happy we did not show up, rowdy as we could get at times.
I remember one Sunday morning a teacher had to go to mass. He just simply could not miss it. So we took him to the Mission at Hays for mass. He actually made us get out of his car when he was going to mass and locked the car doors as if there was something to steal in that car.
There was nothing to steal but we teachers just stood around and watched one of his tires go flat. Had he had a modicum of trust in his soul, we would have had that tire changed by the time he got out of mass.
I never did find out if he learned anything by that episode.
I hope so. I always thought that as good as his mass probably was, God was out with us trying to change that tire!
