Old Joe

Joe is an amazingly calm and centered man. He's one of few men it's easy to say that I love.

He was raised close to here in a sod hut. He's lived off the land, much like a native of old, all his life. He's 77 years old. He's got all his faculties and knows the Roseau River like nobody I have ever heard of much less known. His skills as a marksman are that of legend. Far and wide people have celebrated stories of Joe's exploits in hunting where others were fools.

He's humble beyond reason. Like a Zen priest, he's given his entire life over to the well being of others. He lives a spartan life with only enough wood to see him through the winter.

The first fall we were living here, Joe took it upon himself to educate me in the ways of firearms. Not by preaching, but by example. Pedagogically correct in the most arduous of tasks, that of training an adult to conform to a world completely foreign to the student, me.

For several years he tended to my education, using me to tune himself up for moose season. I learnt to hurry under his tutelage. He knew the land so well that he could describe events far ahead of my time, so when he said to be somewhere at a certain time, I learnt that his request was not an approximation. I watched several white tails trot off away from me before I caught on.

I was shamed to have put him in such a position as I did yesterday. I remain the student.