One day when I was 18, I walked into Alley’s Store and John Alley motioned me over to the counter and asked me, in a low voice, if I would shoot him a deer. He said he was tired of his friends jokingly asking him every day during the six-day hunting season if he got his deer yet.

I returned the next day with a nice fat spike-horn in the bed of my truck. John got all flustered and handed me some money to have it butchered.

I took the deer home and butchered it, wrapped all the meat up in small packages and froze it.

A few days later, I delivered the venison in secrecy to John. John was giddy as he handed me a case of beer and asked me not to tell a soul.

The next time his friends came into the store and teasingly asked if he got his deer yet? John would walk into the back room, where he kept his freezer and bring back a package of venison and as he gave it to them to take home, he would say, “Why as a matter of fact, I did.”