Hello again,

Sometimes it’s hard to write about something of interest every week, so this week I’ll delve into my memory bank and share with you my memories of a truly great man.

Weldon “Mac” Macninch was my great grandfather by marriage, but that didn’t matter to him since he always had one of my brothers or myself in tow.

“Grampa Mac” emigrated from New Brunswick, Canada as a young boy and brought with him a work ethic that is unheard of today. He transfered his work ethic into most things that he enjoyed such as trout fishing and deer hunting. To say the least, if you had a dollar bill for every trout that he caught in the town of Gray, you could have a heck of a party!

Digging worms was always a fun event with Grampa Mac. After every shovel full of dirt, he diligently sifted through the soil picking out the worms, and as he would toss them into a coffee can, he would name each worm. For some strange reason, every worm’s name was “lucky.”

Mr. Macninch didn’t sleep very much. If he wasn’t working, he was doing chores, repairing something or fishing.

A lot of people asked him where he got his energy from, his reply with a big grin was, “Corn Flakes, lots of Corn Flakes.” He should have been the poster boy for Kellogg’s Corn Flakes as he lived to be 95 and was still deer hinting with me at age 93!

You couldn’t find much wrong with this man, the only flaw he had was a slight speech impediment, which was quite humorous, as he would pronounce the letter T as an F. For example: His favorite gun was a model 94 Winchester that he only paid “Firty Free” dollars for it, and the truth of it is he shot far more than “Firty Free” deer with that gun.

Any time you spent with Grampa Mac was a learning experience because he would always take the time and patience to show you and explain things so that even a young boy could grasp. His talent at mentoring was tremendous.

I could go on forever about his many talents, but in closing this week, I reflect on how fortunate I was to have had his influence in my life. If the world had a few more like him, what a great place it would be.

Until next time, hunt hard and fish hard,

Hutch