For some, those not inclined to wear red, the advent of November and all it implies, is a disappointing time. All the outdoor work of the summer has been picked, frozen, or blown into fencerow corners. Only the evergreens stand tall and lush against the flurries and the breeze of a resting world.

But to others there is a sigh of relief that most of the outside work has been completed and that their number one outside pleasure, deer hunting, is at hand. It is a time when traditions are honored. They are begun by the young hunger and remembered by the veteran.

I can recall the times when “real” hunters traveled to the Straits of Mackinac. There they passed hours waiting for a ferry that would take them across the waters and into the wilds of an otherwise rarely seen place called the Upper Peninsula. Great stories were shared by friends and strangers, as they waited, about areas like Seney and Newberry and Ralph, and about the great swamp bucks that inhabited those regions.

When at last their turns would come to ride the auto ferries, they would go their separate ways. New stories were the products of the week or two they’d spend, pitching a camp, cutting the wood for their fires and combing the woods for their bucks.

And each year there was another class of newcomers, often wearing hand-me-downs, red and black plaid hunting suits and as often as not, carrying home-me-down guns. They had to be initiated into camps by chuckling old-timers who mixed generous amounts of fiction with passable doses of wisdom. It was part of the season: part of the hunt.

Now a great span of cables and steel bridges the narrow waterway and some of the traditions as well. A thousand and one department stores accept plastic for hunting suits and guns, and a growing deer herd has expanded south, to and across the southern state line.

Still there are truths to be learned and skills to be sharpened by each hunter. In a very personal way he must rediscover his comfort deadened senses. Eyes that have been glued to a television or computer screen are not practiced at picking the shape of a deer from dense and dark woods. Likewise, ears “plugged-in” to stereos and Walkman radios are ill prepared to sort the sound of an approaching deer from that of an early winter end. To be successful in the “family room” of a whitetail deer, a hunter must first accept the fact that he is there and operate by the deer’s rules.

There may be the greatest attraction to deer hunting of all. The challenge of matching wits with one of nature’s wiliest creatures is exciting. And if one is not prepared to be embarrassed he should stay in by the television and stereo.

For a large group of us, however, there is a latent need to prove we can match wits with a deer and win. There is an enjoyment associated with eating wild meat that access to no variety of dinner cards can match. And there is a joy associated with the bonding with other hunters and outdoor types that no amount of reading can ever surpass. You may or may not get a deer while hunting but each hunt is a success.

This advent of November is good for us. The advent of deer season is good for us as families and as groups of friends. Just like Thanksgiving, it begs recollections of good times in the past, usually with some of our favorite people.

What better way to welcome youth into the center of family and friendship circles?

What better way to honor the old timers than by paying rapt attention to their stories – even if they are generously seasoned with fiction?