{"id":1602,"date":"2011-10-15T08:48:11","date_gmt":"2011-10-15T14:48:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.keloland.com\/lund\/?p=1602"},"modified":"2023-07-20T21:00:08","modified_gmt":"2023-07-20T21:00:08","slug":"remember-just-shoot-the-pretty-ones","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.jodystaples.com\/main\/remember-just-shoot-the-pretty-ones\/","title":{"rendered":"Remember, Just Shoot The Pretty Ones"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>I always found that one of the most difficult tasks for a reporter was trying to come up with something original to say when assigned to do a story about an event that happens every year. You know, like the craziness of early morning shoppers on the day after Thanksgiving..now called \u201cBlack Friday.\u201d\u00a0 Then there\u2019s the \u201cParade of Lights\u201d and \u201cSt Patrick\u2019s Day\u201d parade. Plus, we must not forget the yearly trek to the airport on the Friday before pheasant season starts to cover the arrival of out of state hunters. Perry Groten got that assignment again this year and always manages to round up a few guys with Southern accents to give entertaining answers to his questions. Perry tends to fly under the radar at Keloland but he\u2019s just a wonderfully clever writer, a master of puns and a fine anchorman. Oh, and don\u2019t ever get into a sports bar trivia contest with Perry because\u2026well, you\u2019ll lose.<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_1605\" style=\"width: 320px\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\"><img aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-1605\" decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"size-full wp-image-1605\" title=\"pheasant anderson\" src=\"http:\/\/blog.keloland.com\/lund\/files\/2011\/10\/pheasant-anderson.jpg\" alt=\"Painting by Mark Anderson\" width=\"310\" height=\"241\" \/><p id=\"caption-attachment-1605\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Painting by Mark Anderson<\/p><\/div>\n<p>I used to look forward to hunting pheasants in the fall but that was when I had cousins who lived on farms that were loaded with birds.<br \/>\nGetting permission to hunt wasn\u2019t an issue and you didn\u2019t have to pay for the privilege. \u00a0<br \/>\n\u00a0You could sometimes get your limit by road hunting and not have to worry about being shot yourself by an angry farmer if you crossed his fence to retrieve a kill.<br \/>\n\u00a0Speaking of getting shot, my cousin Robert once came close to blasting me into oblivion on a hunting expedition.<br \/>\n\u00a0Pheasants don\u2019t like to fly if they don\u2019t have to and will often just run on the ground of an unpicked cornfield ahead of the hunters walking behind.<br \/>\nThey\u2019ll only take flight when they reach the clearing at the end and that\u2019s where I..as the self-appointed blocker..would be waiting to nail them with my dad\u2019s 16 gauge Remington pump action shotgun.<br \/>\n\u00a0Robert wasn\u2019t too thrilled about doing all the hard work of walking the fields without ever getting a shot off so, in frustration, he forgot or disregarded all the hunter safety rules..lowered his 4-10 and opened fire at a rooster running just ahead of him.<br \/>\nA split second later I could feel bb\u2019s whizzing around my head and making a \u201ctick-tick-tick\u201d sound as they sprayed into the dry corn stalks all around me.<br \/>\nWhen he emerged from the field and saw me standing there white with fear..he apologized and that\u2019s when I believe I actually said, \u201c you idiot, you coulda shot my eye out!\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Aside from covering the annual arrival of hunters, you could always count on another Keloland tradition at the close of the Big News at 6 when weatherman, Dave Dedrick, would remind everyone heading to the fields to \u201cRemember, only shoot the pretty ones guys.\u201d<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_1606\" style=\"width: 554px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><img aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-1606\" decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"size-full wp-image-1606\" title=\"pheasant redlin\" src=\"http:\/\/blog.keloland.com\/lund\/files\/2011\/10\/pheasant-redlin.jpg\" alt=\"Painting by Terry Redlin\" width=\"544\" height=\"317\" \/><p id=\"caption-attachment-1606\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Painting by Terry Redlin<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I always found that one of the most difficult tasks for a reporter was trying to come up with something original to say when assigned to do a story about an event that happens every year. You know, like the craziness of early morning shoppers on the day after Thanksgiving..now called \u201cBlack Friday.\u201d\u00a0 Then there\u2019s&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[60],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jodystaples.com\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1602"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jodystaples.com\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jodystaples.com\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jodystaples.com\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jodystaples.com\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1602"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.jodystaples.com\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1602\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11760,"href":"https:\/\/www.jodystaples.com\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1602\/revisions\/11760"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jodystaples.com\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1602"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jodystaples.com\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1602"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jodystaples.com\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1602"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}