Jack Wilson

Jack Wilson was a close childhood thru high-school friend. We drifted apart when we went to Med school. Jacks Dad and my Dad and I did a lot of hunting. His Dad (I think John), was a boost to my interest in medicine. We would go to a hunting camp for a weekend or whatever time, and we would go out and shoot cats off of front porches. It bothered me, but at the time, I could only remain curious. Both our Dads being rabbit and small game hunters did not tolerate cats as they preyed on the game animals. Doc Wilson, the elder, would take me into his office and let me see things and we talked. He had a really good German Short Haired Pointer, and when she had puppies, he gave me one…which I naturally named Doc. The puppy died 2 days after I got it from that disease that I can’t remember the name of. I was broken hearted, but at that time I was eleven or twelve. Then when Doc died, I took it really bad. I’ve had this experience twice in my life and can not understand it, but I could not stop crying. So bad, that my Dad had to berate me, which I never forgot.
Only if you’re in the Boy Scouts will you understand that Jack and I shared blood. We were in The Order of the Arrow, a special group in the scouts. It was a good time and I learned a whole lot about life and things to make a proper survival.
I may have mentioned earlier that I was given and Old Town Canoe for my 12th Christmas gift. It was 13 ft long and canvas and was perfect for fun on the crick. Redbank Creek ran around New Bethlehem and for sure the majority of my childhood was spent in it and on it.
So, Jack and I decided we would go camping for the night or weekend. We paddled the canoe a couple miles upstream to the site of the home of the Seneca Nation Indians. It occupied a large triangular patch of land and the crick surrounded it on two sides. It was a wonderful place to find arrow heads. We pitched the tent and put our sleeping bags in, and started a fire. I think Jack cheated and used matches. We had decided we would catch frogs and have frog legs for dinner/supper. After dark, we started collecting frogs along the bank of the crick. We took them back to camp and skinned them. Then, we decided we didn’t really have enough so we put then in a pot and set them in a little stream nearby to stay cold. We went looking for more and after deciding we had enough, we went back to camp….to find that a raccoon had eaten all our froglegs. We didn’t eat well that night.