The Green Van Vrs DNR Restrictions

Later in my years I found its hard to get all the brothers together for hunting. We had a great group but it was not only my dad but my 2 brothers and 2 of my brothers best friends we will call them Shark and Mousey. Now Mousey was older and a great guy as was Shark (we will talk about Shark in tomorrows story). Anyway my parents farm was about 1 mile from any of the woods we would hunt. Each year Mousey would show up with the van. The thing about the van was Mousey and Sharks parents use to run a milk and ice cream store. So there were no seats in the van. So what Mousey would do was he would put milk carton crates on the floor and we would sit on them. And if we got a deer we would throw it in the back of the van and we could always spray it out the blood that is. There were times when we would have 4 or 5 deer in that van with 7 people sitting on milk cartons (totally comical).

The issue with this van was the seating. The longer you rode in the van the more your back would kill you because of the crates. Not to mention the fact that when you hit the brakes the crates and you would slide forward. In otherwords you had to work at sitting and staying in one spot. Mousey would always drive and my brother Dan would sit in the front with him stagging up the smell of the van with a corncob pipe. My brother was also one for saying "Mousey Stop the Truck I want to get out and shoot that deer".

Well it got me thinking one time I told Dan you know you can only hunt like 75' off the road or whatever the stipulation was. The going joke from that day forward was Dan said "I can hunt right from that ditch if I want too". Now of course he was joking but you know how each year when you buy that hunting liscense there is a ton of rules? The DNR is very strict about those rules so just fyi you really are wise to follow them or the DNR might want your truck and or your rifle and some money.

But the point of hunting is getting together with friends and family. Having some of moms awesome chili and maybe a bacardi or two. And yes the rule book from the DNR? Well in our household we read it every year and think of the rules we would like to break and how we would like to rewrite certain pages. And its always important to have a truck that you can get bloody, dirty or even hairy from a deer. We have also found it fun to take the van out in my fathers farm and drive around and talk about the old days. We dont do much hunting at that point but we are together and its always nice to see your family. Some day they are not going to be there and its nice to make memories.

That dam green van went for about 20 years (we used it about 10 years of hunting). Dont know what ever happened to it but I will never forget it.

The Black Widow