Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:11):
Welcome back to another episode of Cutting the Distance podcast.
I'm Dirk Durham, and I hope all of you moms
that are listening out there had a great Mother's Day weekend.
Both of my folks have long since passed away, but
watching my wife and our daughter and her daughter in
law on Mother's Day set my mind spinning about my mom,
(00:32):
so today I thought i'd share a little tribute to her.
My mom was born Pauline Haper. Her relatives homesteaded in
rural New Mexico. After her folks are married, she was
raised in southern Colorado. Her dad was a sheep herder
and her mom was a housewife raising four kids. She
(00:53):
told stories and growing up in poor in Colorado, living
off what wild game my grandfather could secure and whatever
other food they could scare up. As a sheep herder
didn't pay well. Grandpa was a crack shot, she said.
With money being tight when he bought ammunition for his
hunting rifle, he could only afford two or three rounds
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at a time, and with such limited supply of ammunition,
Grandpa needed to make every shot count so he would
get super close to his prey and not miss. In fact,
he would never miss and made every shot count, putting
down wild game on the table. Whenever needed, Her and
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her brothers would have to walk a couple miles from
their house to the bus stop. It kind of seemed
like one of those old stories parents always tell about
walking up hills both ways and ten feet of snow
something like that. But many times they would see fresh
cougar tracks in their own tracks as they walked home
from school, so they lived in a pretty wild place.
(02:02):
When she was about eight years old, she found something
that looked like a spent rifle cartridge that was filled
with something. So she found a horseshoe nail and went
to work digging out the contents so she could make
a little whistle out of it. Then tragedy struck it exploded.
It wasn't a rifle cartridge at all, but a dynamite
(02:25):
blasting cap. It had blown off all of her fingers
except for her pinky and her thumb and part of
her palm. Now, for some reason, the surgeon who worked
on her decided it would be best to take off
what remained of her hand and just leave her with
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a stub right at the wrist. She was haunted for
years by the ghost limb and was finally able to
find relief after a long time. It took her quite
a while, but she adapted and there wasn't much of
anything that she couldn't do other than use a traditional
(03:08):
pencil sharpener. She could cook, she could clean, she could
do just about any task. Now. As a teen, they
moved to Idaho, where she met my dad and they
got married and began to raise our family. Now, not
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only was I influenced by stories of elk hunting from
my dad and my uncle Edgel, my mom's stories had
always captivated my imagination. Fast forward to me growing up
in a tiny north central Idaho town. I was the
youngest of two brothers and sisters, and all I could
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think about was hunting. For as long as I could remember,
I would walk from our house out into the woods
at probably ten years of age and go exploring during
summer break, sometimes alone, sometimes i'd be accompanied by some
of the neighborhood kids, and I couldn't wait to pack
a deer hunting rifle. Now, right now, you're probably thinking
(04:13):
there's no way we would let our ten year olds
wander around the woods by themselves. But times were different,
and my mom would encourage me to get out of
the house and explore the outdoors. I would leave the
house without telling her my plans. I would grab a
hatchet or a double bitted axe, and I would go
whatever way my feet would take me, looking for adventure. Finally,
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at twelve years old, I got old enough to hunt
and found myself hunting with my dad after school and
on weekends, which consisted of driving the old backroads in
his pickup road hunting. It seemed like he'd spent plenty
of time hunting on foot, or beating the brush as
he would call it, and was pretty much over that
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kind of hunting. He'd had the pleasure of hunting Idaho's
backcountry right after World War II when he moved to
the country. They would pack in with horses into places
the elk were thick and the people were few. Over
the years, more people found those places, and they'd set
up outfitter camps and big hunting camps, and I guess
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he just wasn't able to find the same solace in
those places that he did in the beginning. He and
I saw lots of deer on her little trips, but
he never would let me shoot because of various reasons.
Looking back, I'm pretty sure he didn't want me to
get one. He just enjoyed driving around the old logging
roads and soaking it all in. When I turned thirteen, though,
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I made up my mind that I wanted more. I
wanted to feel the dirt under my feet and carry
that rifle through the woods and hunt for deer on foot.
I wanted to see all the hidden secrets in the
dense Idaho timber. So my dad bought me a Savage
one ten seven millimeter Remington Magnum. I felt like it
was quite possibly the most powerful long gun in the world.
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It didn't and it felt like it. It didn't have
a recoil pad, and it kicked like a mule. Now,
with my dad having to work and not be able
to get home in time, this is where my mom
came in. I couldn't drive, so I would have her
take me hunting in the morning before school and after
school as well, and most times I would just go alone.
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Sometimes she would drop me off and meet me at
the predetermined pickup spot, or sometimes she would even accompany
me on the hunt. Imagine dropping your off your thirteen
year old to wander around the woods by themselves, no
cell phones, no GPS, no on X maps, sometimes not
even a flashlight, armed only with a seven mm magnum
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and a pocket knife. Every time she would pick me up,
I would recount every detail of the adventure. She hung
on my every word and asked lots of questions. I
think she got the hunting bug herself and would sometimes
go along with me. I absolutely loved hunting by myself,
feeling small and insignificant when alone in the woods, but
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when my mom would go, it was a completely different vibe.
I felt like a tour guide showing her all the
secret places I had found. She wouldn't carry a gun
during those early years, just followed me around and enjoying
the hunt. After a while, I became successful at killing
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deer by myself, and also I took some deer when
she was with me. I actually killed some pretty nice
bucks with my mom in toe one big white tail
buck in sub zero tempts before school one morning, and
another a big mulei on a rainy Saturday afternoon, where
she acted as my hunting dog, pushing a large nasty
(08:08):
brush patch in a deep canyon. She was also there
waiting in the truck when I called in and killed
my first archery bull, Elk at fifteen years old. She
heard the whole thing play out as the bull and
I exchanged bugles after the shot. I stayed at the
scene while she went home to get my dad to
help me retrieve my bull. After lots of prodding for me,
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I got her to buy a deer tag and carry
a rifle. My mom was a natural with being in
the right place at the right time for animals. One
time she was with my best friend and now my
brother in law, Randy, which I've had on the podcast before.
We were rattling and a giant white tail buck came
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running in and almost ran her over. He was too
close at about five yards for her to shoot. As
she her rifle, he spooked off and ran away. Another time,
while I was still hunting the big timber, I put
her in my favorite spot to sit and wait for
a big whitetail buck to cross. At last light, a
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huge old buck walked out, nose to the ground. She
raised my dad's old three hundred savage, sent her the
crosshairs on his vitals and squeezed the trigger, but it
wouldn't go off. The safety was on. She slid the
safety off, but this time she put her finger in
between the trigger guard and the trigger. No matter how
hard she pulled, it wouldn't go off. Looking down, she
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discovers her mistake, with the buck now only fifty yards
broadside and still walking slowly. At this point she was rattled.
She jerked the trigger, the gun goes off, and the
buck didn't miss abeat, she racks another round in it
and misses again. At her dismay, the buck continues his pace,
just walking out of sight and out of her life forever.
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She hadn't touched to hair. Needless to say, I was
crushed when she told my dad and I the story.
I can't imagine how disappointed she must felt, though she
acted like it was no big deal. Then there was
the Mountain lion incident. Through the summertime, my mom would
take long walks in the woods and would blow on
(10:21):
an elk call, which sounded nothing like an elk when
she blew it, And as she'd walk along, she'd blow
the call, hoping to see some wildlife. And she'd seen
some deer and elk come out to investigate her calls,
so figuring the call might draw at a big buck
She started blowing the call one day as she sat
on a log pile waiting for a deer to come out.
(10:45):
After about thirty minutes of intermittent calling, she called and
caught movement out of the corner of her eye. She
slowly raised the rifle and readied herself for the shot
at the deer colored creature. Then she noticed the tail.
This deer I had the longest tails she'd ever seen.
It was a mountain lion. It walked up to about
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fifteen yards and curiously looked her up and down, and
then just wandered off. When she recounted the story to us,
I cried out, Mom, why didn't you shoot it? Her
reply was quiet, yet stern, because I don't have a
cougar tag. I grew up, moved away and start a
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family of my own. We'd go visiting on the weekends
and go hunting, and we'd always arrive really late at
night because it was a long drive, and she would
sleepily greet us at the front door and ask, do
you want me to cook you some elk steak? Laughing.
I'd turn her down most of the times, but every
now and then we would accept her offer, which made
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it really happy. She could cook elk and deer steak
like nobody else I know, coupled with her mashed potatoes
and gravy. Her meals were simple yet delicious, and I'm
just going to tell you can't buy food like that anywhere.
One year, I had a week of vacation to hunt
elk in Idaho's back country, and she wanted to go along.
(12:09):
So she bought some new hunting boots and clothes and
was excited to go. We hunted an area that her
dad and brothers had hunted back when they very first
moved Idaho back in their day. She said, how my
grandfather yearned to be able to call an elk in
He tried all sorts of homemade bugles, experimenting with cutting
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down twelve to fifteen inches of pipe, then notching at
about two inches from the end, and plugging it with
a piece of wood that had just had enough relief
to blow some air into it and make a whistle.
You guys have probably seen these before. It would make
a loud elk like whistle, but it never really was
a very good call. Man. I wish she was here
today to see the kind of elk calls we got
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he would probably be amazed. Well. Her and I had
a ball just hiking into all those old hell holes together.
It wasn't easy hiking either, especially for her because she
was well into her sixties at the time. We had
a couple close encounters that year, but I wasn't able
to bring home a big poll. The whole time, I
was imagining my mom packing out a front shoulder out
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of that steep drainage at least one time, and I'm
pretty sure she'd could have done it, and I think
she would just approve that she could. She kind of
had a never give up type of attitude. My mom
had always been my biggest cheerleader in life. No matter
what I set out to do, she was always there
to encourage me and applaud my accomplishments, no matter how
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small they were. She was also my personal photographer. She
always had a camera, which didn't always make my dad happy.
He's one of those people that when a camera come out,
he would make himself scarce and he didn't even want
to look at the camera. We have a photo album
filled of pictures of my dad looking away from the
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camera because he didn't want to be in the picture.
But nevertheless, She always had her camera with her, which
was nice because she could take pictures of me on
my successful hunts. So I've got quite a few nice
pictures of me and bucks and elk that I've harvested
over the years. And I wasn't for my mom, you know,
I just wouldn't have any pictures. I really miss my mom,
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and I wish my dad and her were still here
to watch my family grow and enjoy their grandchildren and
great grandchildren. And I really appreciate what she gave to
our family and feel lucky to have had that opportunity.
Enjoy your mothers as much as you can while you
have them. Make sure you show them the saving love
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they gave to you, because someday they won't be here
to receive it. Now, the Turkey season's kind of whining down,
I thought i'd talk a little bit about that. I
was lucky enough to draw a tag in Kansas and
hunt with our good friend Randy Milligan at his farm.
I'd like to tell you the story was full of
ups and down and a lot of hard work. But
(15:04):
this year, well, typically that's our Kansas hunt. It's not
usually a slam dunk. I see, especially for me, it
seems like I always have to struggle right to the end,
but this year I tagged out on the first twenty
minutes a season. Now, I'm not sure how many of
you have tagged out on opening day before, but it's
kind of a paradox. On one hand, I'm super jack
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that I tagged out, but on the other I wish
I was still on the hunt for the big one,
whether that's a Turkey year elk or deer. But this
time I was pretty lucky because I was able to
continue on the hunt because I was running a camera
video camera. Jason Phelps had to film me and he
got about twenty minutes of being a cameraman under his
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belt this year, and then it was on to me.
So that was really fun. What's up next for the
rest of the spring. Well, I'm headed out soon for
Alaska to go coastal black hunting with Caleb Stillons. This
will be my very first time in Alaska, and I
look forward to the adventure. I'm not sure. I'm not
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sure what to expect, but I have a suspicion that
my rain gear is going to get a major workout
of me. Well, thanks for listening, everybody, give your mom
a hug and a kiss, tell her how much you
appreciate her, and we'll catch you on the flip flop