SOMETIMES LIFE REALLY GETS TOUGH !

As oft stated in this Blog, I was born in Kentucky. I have a sister and other kinfolks who call the Bluegrass Commonwealth home. Therefore it is with considerable pain that I recount the following story.

Wilbur Blanchard, his wife Flo and their six kids , live in a double wide about 12 miles southeast of Prestonsburg, KY. The past three years have been real tough for this family. Wilbur lost his coal mining job at the Big Blue Independent coal mine that was forced to close because of numerous OSHA and EPA violation. Flo lost her part-time cleaning job with the family that owned the now closed mine. They took their 2 million dollars and moved to Florida.

Piece-by-piece their few saleable items were either pawned or sold at eye-watering low prices. Even their 1989 Mercury was sold to buy two ricks of stove wood for the coming winter.

The kids would catch the school bus at the blacktop intersection with their gravel and mud road. Either Wilbur or Flo would walk 2 miles to a Dollar General Store for the few meager items they could afford. Their food stamps always ran out before the calendar turned.

For some, deer hunting was a sport; for the Blanchard’s it was a necessary food source. Wilbur took the 12 gauge that had belonged to his grandfather and walked purposefully into the woods behind their trailer and started to slowly climb up a homemade deer stand that overlooked a major deer trail next to a freshwater spring. Three steps up the old lumber gave way and he fell to the ground.

Fortunately, the loaded shotgun didn’t go off. However,  Wilbur was knocked semi-conscious and staggered around in the woods for about three hours. As he neared the edge of the woods he spied a rather small buck with a smaller doe standing nearby. He was still addled by the fall but had enough presence of mind to lift the old shotgun and blast the small buck.

He ran to the buck only to discover he had shot a Christmas decoration that was still in someone’s front yard from 10 months ago. Wilbur pulled the wire attached head off and took it home. His wife really became upset when he mounted it on a piece of old dry wall and hung it over the couch that had three springs showing.

His sarcastic brother-in-law came by the next day and said, “Wil, what the h**l happened to your buck deer in your front yard?