Wide watching green eyes dart around
a child among those getting grey with age.
At last allowed inside this club,
a first turning of my young life's page.

Sitting silent on a splintered bench
on a chill November day.
Father, uncle, older cousins,
brother, most now have their say.

The air is thick with drifting smoke,
hand rolled cigarettes, pot bellied stove,
but thicker with camaraderie
as the men tell tales, a treasure trove.

All gathered after morning's hunt
them drinking coffee, me a coke.
Kenneth got a six point buck!
"purest luck!" his friends all joke.

And I munch on saltine crackers
some with cold cuts, some hoop cheese.
Way back in nineteen sixty four.
A time now passed like errant breeze.