I Was Picked by Howard Shapiro

Author:Howard Shapiro
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Animal Media Group, LLC

PART 8

THE GREAT OUTDOORS: JOHN’S LOVE OF HUNTING AND FISHING

Though John’s athletic endeavors may have been slightly hampered by his lack of size, size played no role in his love for hunting and fishing. When it came to these two sports, he was a true all-star.

Hunting season started five months after John was diagnosed, and both John and Scott were determined to keep things as normal as possible, with a few minor adjustments and hurdles along the way. John’s friend Travis Bell and his dad invited John and Scott up to Marionville, Pennsylvania, to go deer hunting. They had hunted there three years prior to John being sick, and they were determined to make sure that this year wasn’t going to be any different. Scott got John a disabled motor vehicle permit from the Pennsylvania Game Commission, which allowed them to drive in to areas at the state game lands where most people had to walk.

Scott set John up outside the truck with a lawn chair, TV tray, and sandbags to help him brace his gun. He checked with John to make sure that he was okay and promised to try to drive deer to him. Scott roamed for about an hour, working his way around a few hills before he returned to John. As he came out of the woods, he walked toward the other side of the truck, where John was sound asleep. “I took a few pictures of [him], but he swore he was never sleeping,” Scott recalled with a laugh.

Much like during their first hunting season post-diagnosis, John was eager for fishing season too. His need to have everything in place and in order was ever present. He started to get ready before the season started. He even had a checklist, as Scott recalled: “God help me if I forgot anything! You would think we were going on a two-week trip. Actually it was less than twenty hours, and he made sure he used everything that he took with him at least once.”

On the trip, Scott parked the van near a picnic pavilion and ran an electric cord to the van. He put an electric heater inside so John could stay warm all night. “It was twenty-eight degrees outside, and it was around eighty in the van,” Scott recalled. “John was in his glory that he was still doing it.”

During the summer of 2007, John read in Field & Stream about the Hunt of a Lifetime Foundation, a nonprofit organization that grants hunting and fishing dreams for children under twenty-one with life-threatening illnesses. He mentioned it to Scott, who encouraged him to fill out the application. A few weeks later he heard back; he was going to Baker City, Oregon, for a Rocky Mountain elk hunt. The trip was scheduled for October.

In mid-September, John called Scott at work to tell him he had received a package from Cabela’s. As Scott recalled, “He was so excited! He told me that it had everything he would ever need for hunting.

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