I remember my first shotgun and the beginning of my tutoring in the art of wing shooting. What a Red Letter Day it was for me, for when I reached my tenth birthday Dad placed in my hands a double barrel shotgun, a family heirloom, and a good, reliable shooter over the years—used by my elders of the bygone days over whose everlasting bones the grass has grown and wilted. What halcyon scenes my aging eyes did see, what would I not give to recall them all? It does my old heart good to go back to them. I well remember the first duck I killed on the wing. A flock slackened speed as they saw the decoys, lowering as they came, while several of the keenest eyes searched the area around the decoys for danger. They flew around for reconnaissance in a wide circle, before setting their wings and gliding deadly close. Dad said, “Take ’em.” Then out of a shadowy tree line, a jet of fire and a sharp report came from my long gun barrel. Red hot needles of lead pierced a big greenhead just at the right moment. Frantic wings clamored away for safety as the dead greenhead never felt the water below as it splashed down. I gave a triumphant yell, and Dad responded in some surprise, “You got him?” “Of course, I did,” said I proudly, puffing out my chest, what chest I had. I was the happiest boy in the state of Tennessee. From the look on Dad’s face, as plainly as if this significant moment was chiseled into a monument of granite, and the silence that followed, I knew what this day meant to him and he knew what this day would mean to me. Oh, glorious days of boyhood, when the rich red blood of youth ran rampant through my veins, those times of dreams, how much I appreciate them in old age. They will linger for a long, long time. However, it is only now when the days spent afield are few and far between that I grasp their full importance, and I am overcome with merciless disappointment that I cannot relive the yesteryears once more.