I am, deep down in my core, a duck hunter. I love the wildness of ducks, I love big muddy swamps, and rivers, and creeks. I love retrievers, and I love big duck guns. I love to hear an old drake mallard circling the dekes because he's lonesome, and answering the hen calls we make with his "purring". But I realized about twenty years ago, one morning in a blind with the wind in my face and the ducks coming in from behind me, that it was the sound of their wings cutting the air that reached deeper into me than all the rest of it. I have made a request, to a few people who understand me, if I ever lose my eyesight but still have good health otherwise, that my son or my grandsons, or even a close friend will help me to the blind, without a gun ......................and let me listen. To the sound of the wind in their wings.
It haunts me the rest of the year.
SRH
