Sven has a Thanksgiving story he would like to share. It's a story that I have heard many, many, times, like over a hundred.
The other night I carefully listened once again to his tale and I took three pages of notes, in order to accurately retell his story to you.
But when I pulled my notes out, I couldn't believe my eyes. It looked like a doctor on acid scribbled the whole thing down.
Regardless, I've decided to go ahead and recount Sven's great Thanksgiving hunting adventure with nothing more than my steal trap memory and my illegible yellow note pad.
I hope that I get it right, because I can't have him telling me the whole thing over AGAIN. Not until next year.
And I don't want to be sued. Writers have to be careful about lawsuits you know.
But Sven is a corner cutter, so while I'd hire a good attorney he'd probably represent himself and end up with nothing more than the dog.
SVEN THE ALMIGHTY HUNTER
It was Thanksgiving week in 1966 and Sven was a mere seventeen year old hunk. (I threw that part in)
He was allowed to skip school to go hunting because if you had permission from your parents to go hunting, rather than furthering your education, you could do it.
So he went out and bought himself a gun for just fifteen dollars. It was and Italian gun. Or else an Itslizn gun.
His friend Jon had his dad's car and his dad's camper. They towed the camper north to Pittsville, located in central Wisconsin, where Jon either knew of eighty acres of land owned by some tough old broad, or else some tough old broad was eighty years old and she had some land.
According to Sven she was skinny as a rail and had some goats that had gone missing and she had chased away a bear, with her gun.
But Jon and Sven had no place to camp once they got to Pittsville, so they pulled into a church parking lot, broke into the church and plugged themselves into to the church's electricity.
And then they got kicked out of there.
So they drove to a gas station and the gas station guy let them hook up to their electricity.
Then they went to a bar and had a REAL GOOD time.
The next morning they went out in the woods and assumed their hunting positions.
Sven took one shot at a deer and missed it and then they broke for lunch and then they went to the bar and had a REAL GOOD time.
The next morning at dawn they walked into a field. Jon went this way and Sven went that way. Again that morning Sven took a shot at a deer and he missed it and then they went to Central City, which consisted of three houses and a bar and they met somebody there and they either drank too much or else they drank with two men or else they drank too much with two men, (Oh my God, these notes.) and then they went back out to hunt some more.
Back out on the old lady's acreage, Jon went this way and Sven went that way, so as to be on opposite sides of a field where surely a buck would come through and they could easily shoot each other if one actually did.
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But then Sven got bored.
And then Jon got tired.
And then Sven began walking.
And then Jon fell asleep.
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So while Jon was laying in the grass snoring, Sven got lost.
After traipsing around awhile, Sven heard a hound dog howling in the distance and then it was getting closer and closer and he realized it was hound dogging it's way straight to him at a very fast pace. The hound dog got to Sven. Sven stood still. The hound dog circled Sven, sniffed Sven and then took off howling and hound dogging his way somewhere else.
Although Sven was relieved that he hadn't been treed and he had no dog bites, he was really, really lost. The kind of lost that he described in his own words as, "REALLY, REALLY, LOST."
"There were no cell phones then you know, Millie."
So, he continued walking.
He walked and he walked and he walked and then finally after a very long time he saw a town in the distance, but when he got closer he could see that it wasn't Central City. It was some other town. So he turned around and continued to walk and to walk and to walk for a very long time and then he spotted a fire lane. His keen instincts told him to jump onto that fire lane, figuring that it would eventually take him out of the woods. So again, he walked and walked for about a mile. But the fire land didn't take him out of the woods. So he turned around and again he walked and he walked for a very long time, about two miles, in the opposite direction. And that damned* fire lane still didn't take him out of the fucking* woods. (*My words)
Then he gave up on the fire lane and he left it behind.
Sven's direct quote.
"I was lost. I didn't know where the fuck I was."
Standing there in the woods, not sure what he should do next, he decided to turn around once more. Again he went back to that fire lane. This time he chose left.
He walked and walked again for another a very long time on the fire lane and after about three miles, EUREKA! He saw a REAL, LIVE, PAVED, ROAD.
AND It was the same road they'd come in on.
Soon after that he ran into a guy with a gun, a bed head and morning breath. Thank God, that guy was Jon.
And then the two of them went to the bar and had a REAL GOOD time.
THE END
So Sven is not an avid hunter. Matter of fact that was enough hunting for Sven.
But not being an avid hunter doesn't mean that Sven doesn't enjoy Thanksgiving.
Thanksgiving is really all about giving thanks and eating the turkey, anyway.
You know how every year, a couple of weeks before the holiday, all those frozen Butterballs show up in your local Piggly Wiggly freezer and they are all on sale for like 89 cents a pound?
You remember earlier when I alluded to the fact that Sven is a tight wad?
Well, it's true. Sven cannot, NOT, buy one of those cheap, on sale, birds when he sees them.
And when he brings that turkey home he canNOT put it away in the freezer to save for a few weeks.
NO. CAN. DO. IT.
So, every year just like clock work, two weeks before Thanksgiving, I come home from work, this year it was last Monday, walk in the door and smell the wonderful aroma of a stuffed turkey browning in the oven, potatoes boiling to be mashed and gravy simmering on top of the stove.
And every year, just like clockwork, the week before Thanksgiving, I take cold turkey and mayonnaise sandwiches to work for lunch everyday, we eat left over turkey and dressing for dinner and then we make creamed turkey and peas that we pour over toast and then and we finish off the last bit of that bird with a batch of turkey noodle, dumpling, soup. And then finally it's all gone.
JUST IN TIME FOR THANKSGIVING.
Ya gotta love my Sven.
