Good Will Hunting or doing the right thing for others

Paul Meisenheimer

Paul Meisenheimer

Well-known member
How about a thread for those folks who have gone out of their way to take someone hunting that couldn't otherwise go?

Here are a couple of good will pictures for everyone to enjoy. Both of these boys were 15 when I first hunted with them.

This young man was badly burned from his thighs to his feet in a farm accident. He was in critical condition for a month or more and hospitalized about 100 miles from home for a couple of months. He had recently been released from hospital and one of his wishes was to go hunting. Nobody in his family hunted ducks or geese and he was stuck for a chance to get out. His aunt works in a hair salon where my buddy gets his hair cut and Dave heard about the situation. I had recently been drawn in a lottery to hunt a DU project pit blind and so we took him out. He later hunted with us a few times.

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The next picture is a young man whose grandfather is a legend in the lore of hunting the north shore of Lake Erie. The old fellow was now legally blind and asked us to take his grandson out for a hunt. It seems his parents don't hunt. Nathan shot his first goose, first duck and a dandy black duck that day in the same DU field blind. (Yes I have been lucky enough to hunt it several times over the last few years.) Big Dave even shot a black duck with a tracking unit back pack that was released in Ohio. It was one of those days when the birds are dying to get into your decoys. It was snowing and blowing and cold! Grandpa was thrilled to hear all about the hunt. Sadly, he passed on shortly after.

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That duck was a Russian spy taking pictures and testing the Canadian air defenses.

Very nice stories, I bet Grandpa was pleased knowing his grandson had started his journey.

For every story of jerks, fools and thieves, there are many quiet kindnesses performed by good people.
 
Well done, Paul. These moments last a life time and warm the hearts on a daily basis.

Bill, I really like what you said, "[font=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica]For every story of jerks, fools and thieves, there are many quiet kindnesses performed by good people."

Al
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It is wonderful to spend a little time with kids that love to hunt. That is why I am involved with the Outdoor Dream Foundation. All our kids have life threatening illnesses. Not all kids want to go to Disney World so we provide hunting or fishing trips for this kids. God bless for what you are doing with your kids.
 
Paul, My hats off to you and yours for taking the young men along! I would of loved to had been along to see the smiles on there faces! Thank you for sharing the pics and the story! Brian
 
A refreshing note about helping others, thank you for posting...

I like the following quote:

Albert Schweitzer - "Do something wonderful, people may imitate it." "Example is not the main thing in influencing others. It is the only thing."
 
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leroy martin... that is wonderful stuff! I have the good fortune to work for a great company where we have given over $1 million dollars in the last year to organizations that work with disadvantaged and disabled kids. Our purpose is to promote a healthy and active lifestyle for kids in need. While it is not hunting related I have seen a lot of kids benefit from what we do. Tomorrow I am presenting a cheque for $10,000 to the Sunshine Foundation so they can help make some kids' dreams come true.
 
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I bet Grandpa was pleased knowing his grandson had started his journey.
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Bill, you can't imagine how happy he was. Alister owned the local hardware store and he still went to work every day even though he was in his 80's, was blind and was nearly crippled with a bad back and hip. Many an afternoon I spent in that store, listening to his tales of the early days hunting the marshes. He was a real character and he was thrilled that his grandson would share in his legacy after seeing the interest skip a generation.
 
Our company has a Halloween trick or treat tradition.
Here is a short story of one of the trips taken from a newspaper article:

Sweet treat is just being a kid

Leia, the princess that she is, took her time making selections from the basket offered to her yesterday.

Runts. A Kit Kat bar. Nerds. A Hershey bar.

She pulled them, one by one, from the basket with a thumb and finger, which was wrapped in a tiny pink Band-Aid.

Princess Leia, regal in her white gown and trademark twin hair buns, stowed the booty in her bag.

She was, after all, traveling on a pirate ship.

Today is Halloween, a time to be someone else. A monster, a superhero, it doesn't matter. The idea is to sample another kind of life.

For Leia - along with a wolfman, a pirate and a lot of other characters on a Halloween cruise on the Great South Bay - Halloween marked a time to be something even better: Children, just plain children, having fun and pulling in as much trick or treat candy as possible.

Thanks to Surfside 3 Marine in Lindenhurst, a band of children who first met each other at a cancer-care center boarded a yacht and spent more than an hour going from marina to marina, collecting treats.

It looked so easy, but it wasn't.

Take Princess Leia.

Her name is Erin. She's 6 years old and lives in Bellmore. Last year, Erin, who has brain cancer, couldn't go trick-or-treating.

She was too sick.

Erin spent the yesterday morning in the Cancer Center for Kids at Winthrop-University Hospital in Mineola. She was anemic as a result of chemotherapy, and her mother, Joan, wanted to be sure Erin didn't need a blood transfusion.

Princess Leia made it to the party a bit late. But the boat wasn't about to leave without her. So she collected candy. And sorted candy. And was a child. And with her mother looking on, Erin ate quite a bit of candy, too.

"We take it a day at a time," her mother said. "Today is a good day."

Erin stayed mostly in the yacht's main cabin. But Daniel Hart, a 4-year-old from Westbury, explored as much of the boat as he could.

It was Daniel's first time at sea. And he dressed for the part as a pirate - just like the one who says, "Are you ready, kids?" on "SpongeBob SquarePants," his favorite cartoon show.

One minute, Daniel was climbing steep stairs to the top of the boat; the next, he was below deck, checking out the sumptuous sleeping cabin.

"The joy is that he is here," said his father, Paul, who took a day off to celebrate Halloween with his family.

Last year, Daniel had trouble walking as result of surgery and treatment he had received for a tumor on his kidney.

But yesterday, he was one of the first to board the boat. And one of the first to line up for candy when the boat stopped at the marinas.

"Thank you," the children said, mostly as a chorus, as they accepted baskets and pumpkins full of treats. "Happy Halloween."

Each of the children had boarded with one bag for treats; they left with two.

And when the boat made its last stop and turned toward home, Erin sat quietly with her family, while Daniel climbed into the captain's seat. The young pirate steered the ship back to port in Lindenhurst, laughing all the way.
 
How about the other end of the age spectrum. This is my grandfather. He's almost 80 years old, he can no longer go up the mountain during deer season, and can't get in and out of a lay out blind or sit up to shoot if he was in one. So we dig a shallow pit for him in one of our fields and put him in it on a reclined beach type chair then pile the corn stalks up around him. All he has to do is lift his gun and shoot when the geese come in. The man has hunted his whole life, but at his age this and a few deer hunts where we can drive right to his stand are about all he can manage. My father didn't hunt, so it was my grandfather who taught my brothers and me. It will be a sad day for us when he decides he can't do it anymore, but in the meantime we put in the extra work to get him out. When we clean up the goose spread we tell him that his job is to sit there and tell us what we're doing wrong. Not only is he really good at it, he seems to enjoy that job a little too much.



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Seeing and reading the stories posted through this thread hits home and brings back memories of why and how I started hunting.

Thanks.


I use to hunt with an old timer who had so much energy and enthusiasm about hunting ducks. George was about 70 when I first met him, and we gunned a few times out east for phesants on a farm that he had written permission from the landowner to hunt. I was an invited guest, and we hit it off right from the start. I knew George had some lung issues do to the boiler work he did as a youn man, and it eventually got to him. As we spent more outings together, George was feeling ashamed that he couldn't walk alot, or couldn't carry his share of the decoys. I told him, at his age he was doing more than most younger men, plus I didn't mind carrying the bulk or waiting for him. We had great conversation, he talked about his younger days in Maryland and I just kept thinking "I hope I have this much energy when I'm in my 70's". We hunted and fished a lot for almost 7 years before he died. Thinking back on my hunts with George, he was helping me more than I realized; getting me to see things differently. In a way, Good will hunting was what George did for me. As I continue to hunt, I encourage the young and old to go outdoors. The combination makes the old feel young, and the young will learn things that are not on the web or in a book.
 
Leroy,

Good on you for what you're doing. It truly matters to the families. Unfortunately my family knows first-hand. I lost my niece and God Daughter Maddie a little over two years ago to bone cancer. Cancer is a horrible thing when it strikes children. I know the efforts groups like yours did to support my brother and his family. For those you might not hear it from, many heartfelt thanks and know that it makes a difference.

Bill
 
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