Alarm clock blaring. Sleep in my eye. Toes frozen. Jolting out of bed like a lightning bolt; and the clock reads five-twenty AM. I feel as if I have been up for a few hours already. I can feel the excitement building inside me. It’s that feeling you get in your stomach, you know. Not butterflies, just pure excitement. I had been waiting for this day since deer season ended last year. It was finally opening day, and I had never been more excited. I climbed down from my bed, then put on three layers of clothes, which made my body stiff. I walked down the hallway stiff legged, looking like some sort of mummy. My mother had breakfast waiting for my grandpa, my father and I. We sat in the living room watching the news and eating breakfast, the same way we had done for the past six years. The tradition had lived on once again. When the clock struck six, we took our last sips of coffee and headed to the garage where we kept our thermalware.
I piled on my clothing, sweat shirt after sweat shirt seeking warmth as it was a very brisk morning. We gathered our gloves, hats and vests. As we slung our guns over our shoulders, the garage closed behind us. As we walked down the hill, my dad veered to the left into the swamp where his stand was located. The remaining two of us both joined in on wishing him luck, and my grandpa followed me towards to our stands in the  hardwoods. The dim glare coming from the mercury light above the barn slowly made its way behind our backs until it disappeared. After walking half a mile through a field, I too veered off, heading into the hardwoods toward my deer stand. As the two of us whispered the other to be safe, within an instant I had disappeared into the dense, thick woods. My stand was on the corner of the swamp, just barely tucked into the thick woods. I was surrounded by water, trees and many, many leaves. As I walked there was loud crunching, thanks to my flat feet. I finally reached my stand, and I climbed up the ladder. I overlooked the swamp, although all I saw was darkness. As I sat down, I listened. I heard something I had never heard before. Silience. No cars, no people, no birds. Just silence. It was the best sound I had ever heard.
As the sun came up over the horizon, mother nature displayed one of her many beauties. The leaves were covered in reds, yellows and browns. I could see everything, which was breathtaking. The swamp was covered in frost and thick fog which was quite eerie. As I sat fifteen feet in the sky, I enjoyed my view. Faint gunshots in the distance were heard. Some were close, some afar. As the morning progressed, a doe and her yearling came across the swamp and weaved back and forth through the thick brush in the swamp. I looked behind the two, searching for a buck. If being an outdoorsman had ever taught me anything, it was to respect animals. The doe and yearling were both well within shooting distance, however my father had taught me otherwise. I knew if I shot the mother, the yearling may not survive. I also knew that shooting the yearling would separate the mother from her baby, and that was something I would not do. My father had taught me well. The two moved on, however I did not.
For the first time ever, I decided to sit in my tree stand all day. I was determined to shoot a mature buck. You know, the monster buck you see on the cover of Field And Stream magazine in waiting rooms? As I sat, Boredom overtook me. However,  I stuck it out like a trooper. Over the rest of the evening, a few more does came past me, but there was not a buck in sight. As the sun fell and the dark came out, and I climbed from my tree stand.
I was beyond disappointed as I drug my feet all the way back home.               I kicked myself at the thought of one of my friends one upping me and getting the first kill of the season. I felt like I had wasted time that I could have been in school learning, rather than coming up empty handed in the woods. As I walked up to the house, I was once again surrounded by darkness and the faint smell of my mothers cooking. I could see my grandpa and father sitting at the dinner table as I walked up the steep hill behind our house, mercury light once again behind my back. It seemed as if we would once again carry on the tradition of eating my mother's bean soup, like we had year after year for as long as I can remember. As we sat down to eat, I talked with the two men that I had soon become to resemble almost identically. We laughed about how how I had froze to death all day, and the only thing I got was a cold. The two of them assured me that “that’s what it was all about.”
After the dinner was over, I had come to realize something. As I matured as a hunter, I learned what hunting was truly about. It no longer had to do with the killing of deer (although that was the main purpose of deer hunting.) To my family, it was more about continuing our family tradition. Three generations of hunters in the same woods every year, doing what our family has always done. We all enjoyed the wildlife interactions we had, along with the beauty of nature surrounding us. It made me proud to continue doing what my two elders had always done. The three generations of men battled the forces of mother nature, all to continue our tradition. I believe in tradition, and I feel proud to be apart of my grandpa and father’s.