2nd Prize

Orion II D'Italia Over/Under Shotguns (3 awarded)

Randy, Wisconsin

“While growing up as a kid my dad and I never really saw eye to eye. I was thirteen and I'm sure you can remember that at age 13 you knew everything! At least so we thought. I grew up in the country hunting and fishing all my life hanging out with the older neighbor kids. Well as the neighbor kids got older they started experimenting with tobacco, alcohol and marijuana. I, like unfortunately too many kids, decided it must be the cool thing to do. Drugs affect everybody differently and now, I realize they made me, mad.

My parents always wanted what was best for me. I was just to stupid to figure it out at the time. One day I came home from the neighbors and had a pack of cigarettes. My dad saw them laying on the workbench in the garage and crumpled them up. I remember shouting at him to “Give me a dollar thirty-five so I can get another pack.” He said “No, I don’t want you smoking!” I reached for his wallet so I could take some money from him to replace the cigarettes. My dad put his elbow out to keep me from reaching his wallet and I started to hit and kick him. After hitting him numorous times, he got me on the ground and held me there to try and calm me down, I screamed “You’re hurting me!” and he let me go. I went right back at him, kicking him in the legs and punching him anywhere I could hit him. I was out of control. My dad went in to the house and called the police. I took the family car for a ride, I was only 13. Later that evening I brought the car back home and went to one of the neighbors house’s and asked him to bring me to town so I could turn myself in. I went to jail that night and had court the next morning. My dad walked in on crutches. I didn’t even have to ask, I knew that I did it. I spent a lot of time in jail and youth homes for a couple months.

Well, it’s mid-November, just a couple month’s after sending my dad to the emergency room for him just trying to bring up his kid right. It’s deer season and Dad and I are going hunting! He said I could use his Marlin 30-30. (This after trying to hurt him real bad a couple months before.) My dad has always been soft spoken. Opening morning of Wisconsin’s 1988 gun deer season, Dad and I were walking out to our stands and he said something I will never forget. Dad said to me, “If it took all of what we went through in the last couple month’s for you to realize how much I love you, I guess it’s ok.” I will never forget that, and he’s never said it again but, I know he does.

I am now a correctional officer for the State of Wisconsin, imagine that!! I am happily married with the best two kids anyone could ask for and my parents, second to none. I always wanted to take Dad out west on an elk or mule deer hunt. I just can’t afford to do it. My dad is now 70 and well, you just never know. (He is, however, probably in better shape than me!) The hunt wouldn’t really matter as long as we could just laugh and have a great time together. I guess until just this moment, I never told my dad that I love him and appreciate him for everything he’s done. I need to do that, and I can’t think of a better way than being on a hunt together. Regardless of the outcome of this contest, thanks, thanks for opening eyes to something I should have done a long time ago.”

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