Thanksgiving Day in Racine, WI

Our family lived in Racine from 1971 until 1982. During that time I established a Thanksgiving tradition with a good friend. Andre Carrielo and I worked at J. I. Case and while neither of us worked for the other, we were in the manufacturing area and were colleagues. Andre has a knack for noticing things and suggesting a change, he isn't shy about doing it either.

Around 1976 Andre suggested I buy a shotgun as he knew I used to hunt and we could go out to Bong, which was an old SAC airbase that had been closed for years. The Wisconsin DNR had a "put & take" pheasant program there. They stocked the birds on Tuesdays and Thursday and you could buy a tag for $0.50 per bird and hunt them up after they had acclimated for a day or so. It was enjoyable, a cheap source of game birds and good exercise for the dogs.

Well, it got to be habit that he, I, his son Dom and cousin John would go out to Bong on Thanksgiving morning for a hunt. It was a good outing, exercise, and made me feel like I was in touch with the pilgrim's searching out the food from the land.

I had a big, blue 1976 Ford station wagon. One Thanksgiving, probably about 1978 I packed up a cooler with some good Wisconsin cheese, sausage, crackers and I bought a bottle of Port, plus some soda for those who may partake of that. After four hours of hunting, a couple of birds, and a lot of watching the dogs work we closed the hunt and went back to the cars. I dropped the tailgate on the wagon and brought out the cheese, sausage and wine and we kicked back for about an hour eating, drinking and talking about the day, the dog's work, the possibilities and all of those things I had dreamed of since I was a lad.

There were two dogs, Captain, my big male Golden Retreiver and Andre had a small Llewellyn Setter whose name I have forgotten. The dogs lay in the tall grass by the side of the road. We had water and some treats for them, so they lay there exhausted from the morning's effort while we looked over the fields and built a fine memory of the day.

We did that several more years until 1982 when we moved from Racine to Sheboygan Falls, WI. I still went back once to join in the Thanksgiving hunt, but it was almost two hours from the Falls and just broke the day up too much. So I continued my own tradition by hunting out in the Kettle Moraine area with Captain scaring up an occasional Ruffed Grouse.

Andre and I spent many a lazy morning or afternoon hunting at Bong. We even cultivated a farmer nearby who let us hunt his property. Andre would take him a big smoked salmon every Christmas as an appreciation gift. The man owned 80 acres, but it actually gave us access to some larger property we kind of drifted onto. Wisconsin pheasant hunting is not like hunting in the big grain states like Illinois or the Dakotas. It is tough walking through tall marsh grass and hummocks of dried grass, but the effort makes each bird worth it.

I still try to take a long walk of some sort on Thanksgiving morning as a reminder of the pilgrims, their out door adventures and my own.