For everyone who has ever spent anytime at a hunting camp, you completely understand the enjoyment of someone when they begin telling tales. For those who haven’t had the experience, I hope for your sake that someday you can.
We all have memories of hunting camp. This year for me the memories may run a little different than previous years. I’m not sure I can put a finger on it but I can try. For one thing, three of the young men who are all part of the Inman family had returned safely from the war in Iraq. One can only wonder with three of them there if they would all return. We are blessed from God that they did. That for sure made this year’s trip special.
The atmosphere was relaxed making for a better opportunity to relive previous years events – there are so many. Many of us are now members of the 50-something age group and I have to admit, we’ve slowed down considerably but some of us tried harder to strut our stuff with the young blood around.
As always, the laughs were good. Walter Inman was the last of the three to return from Baghdad and we thought he might have been still feeling a bit shell-shocked. Although one of his jobs in Iraq was being a sniper, he had trouble hitting his target that was a deer. One of our camp traditions is a shirt tail party. The camp rule says that if you shoot at and miss your target, you must surrender a one-inch by one-inch square from your shirt tail, tack to the wall and sign your name and date it.
All photos taken by U.S. Hunting Today chief photographer, Milt Inman.
Walter ended up with several squares removed from his shirt by the end of the week.
There is nothing that can be said about friendship and family bonding time. I personally have been going to this family camp for over 30 years and I couldn’t begin to express the impact it has had on my life. Group photos are a helpful reminder years from now of the shear pleasure of spending quality time with life-long friends.
Second from left is Walter, to his left is Travis and standing in the back of the Mule with Travis is Vern. These three guys fought for our freedom in Iraq and for that we are all grateful. Walter and Vern are brothers. Travis married a cousin of Walter and Vern’s. Oh, I’m the good looking dude second from the right trying to hide in the back.
After a long morning and sometimes several miles of walking through dense forests, it’s nice that one of the guys brings his new toy to camp. Gregg Inman brought his new (to him) Mule he had adopted from the New Hampshire International Speedway in Loudon. He and I had a great time putting some miles behind us exploring places we hadn’t been before. I still owe him for gas. Maybe next year.
In the photo below, Gregg began picking up hunters headed back to camp for lunch. By the time we were in sight of camp, Gregg’s father Milt captured on film what could be construed as something it wasn’t. How would you like to meet this gang coming through the woods?
Tom Remington
