Grateful for small Thanksgiving, and a great story to tell

I am thankful for friends, not that I see them, but the Zoom calls have a set pattern now: five minutes getting the link and letting people in and settling the view, five minutes of chatter, and then it is nice to have a drink and just talk. None longer than an hour.

Nothing good comes in the second hour of a Zoom call.

I do worry about friends. We’ve had a few get COVID and one has died. The virus is run amok, and is annoying and exhausting and deadly and real. Be safe, everyone. Keep an eye out on each other. Hug each other when you can. And wear the damn mask.

This is the first time I’ve used the next words in a positive statement, but I am thankful for Big Pharma. We’ll all be getting our jabs soon. There will be an order to it, and we’ll be able then to crowd together on beaches and bleachers and around dinner tables. Crowds. I’ve always avoided them, but I look forward to them now.

I am thankful for small diversions, and this leads to a story. I was folding laundry the other night. I heard a thud and then a yell from the front of the house. As I made my way toward the kitchen I heard more anguished yells from the direction of the road.

As I ran outside, I realized I didn’t have a light or my phone. I almost went back to get them, but a man running back and forth on the pavement, his phone’s flashlight bouncing up and down, casting him in eerie flashes of light as he jogged, yelled, “Do you have a fire arm?” I slowed a beat, and said quietly, “Not on me.”

Now, it is not a settling question, even in rural Vermont, but I heard the young man out. They had hit a deer just in front of our house. I checked in with the people in the car — the woman behind the wheel, on the phone with the game warden. The little girl snug in her carseat in the back, watching something on the tablet. They were good, just rattled.

The man looked at the smashed-in left-front quarter panel. “We just bought it,” he said, anguished. We went to see the deer, which lay off the berm on the far side of the road. She was not moving or making a sound, and I did not think breathing. The young man thought she was still alive. He wanted to put her out of her misery.

‘Come on, I said,” and we walked together back to the house so I could get my phone, the big flashlight, and my grandfather’s hunting rifle.

My grandfather died in 1978. He owned a lever-action .30-.30, a Marlin 336. My grandfather loved to hunt, although I think the gun was more an excuse to be in the woods with good friends. After my grandfather died, my dad had the rifle for decades, but did not use it. My dad is not well now, and when his illness first started to take over, he drove up and gave me the gun. I don’t hunt, but once a year I clean the rifle and take a few shots at milk jugs full of water. It is a loud and thrilling event. I appreciate having the gun very much, even though it is of no use to me.

I fished the rifle out of the closet and searched for ammo. When I found some, the young man and I walked back out to the deer. I handed the gun to the young man. I’ve never shot a deer and I wouldn’t that night. As the young man raised the rifle, the woman in the car yelled out. “Don’t shoot it! The warden said not to shoot it!” The two argued for a bit, but then the man handed me the gun.

Flashing lights of fire trucks. Just after the fire trucks came the ambulance and a police car. The call to the warden had triggered an emergency response. The firemen checked the car, the EMTs checked the driver and the little girl, the cop talked to the young man. I waved to a member of the rescue crew I know and headed back to the house. As I passed the young man I just mentioned, “I do like venison.”

Back in the house, I heard one shot. The emergency vehicles peeled away, the young family followed. About an hour later, a pickup truck pulled up, two men jumped out. I assumed they were hauling the deer into the bed of the truck. What a night.

I'm thankful to live in a place where the question, “Do you have a firearm?” is innocent and reasonable. I’m thankful for Stowe’s emergency responders, mostly volunteers, and all decidedly professional. I’m thankful for a bit of excitement and human contact.

I will still be thankful to put this year in the rearview mirror, and surround myself in a crowded room with friends and family so I can tell this story again and again.

We’re thankful for David Rocchio, who lives, works and writes in Stowe. We’re sure he’d be thankful for a letter, emailed to the editor, news@stowereporter.com.