"When it came time for college I discovered that Boston, America’s best-known college town, was a great place to get a degree, but it’s not much fun for a die-hard hunter. And it was a long way from my beloved Pennsylvania woods. One rainy May night in my third year, I was lucky enough to get home from Boston for a spring gobbler hunt.  I arrived after midnight and woke Dad up. He asked me if I wanted to go out if it was still raining in the morning. I said, “That's why I came home.” So, despite my long drive, after a few hours of sleep we were in the woods. 

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"A gobbler sounded off down over the hill, responding to an old Penn’s Woods single reed diaphragm. We dropped down to set up on a bench on the hillside, hiding by tucking ourselves against the root ball of an overturned cherry tree. Before long, he made his way to us, but circled to my extreme right. I was using Dad's old Ithaca double barrel and had to shift the shotgun slowly to my left shoulder while still sighting with my right eye. With the 20-plus pound bird at 40 yards, I finally pulled the trigger, and the gobbler was mine.