It is opening morning of gun season for deer and the hunter tiptoes quietly through the woods before sunup, the glow in the east providing just enough light to keep him from tripping over the largest debris. A dense fog sifts silently among the trees as it is stirred slightly, eerily by a hint of morning breeze.

    The hunter is one of several who have formed a new deer hunting club and he is searching for an elevated shooting house near a planted opening. The others had told him how to find the stand, each with different directions, clear to each of them of course, but sufficient to ensure confusion in the dark woods.

    He has made several fruitless circles and determines that he is completely lost, when something unusual appears through the fog. It is some sort of beastly structure, bringing the hunter to a halt with a sudden rush of fright.

Startling scene

    Defying identification in the dim light, the thing appears to be some sort of tower, looming far up into the treetops. It is slightly squarish, but the fog shrouds its components into mere pastel splotches, adding to the hunter’s alarm. He feels an urge to run, but for fear of being discovered perhaps by some alien pilot of the beast, he slips cautiously back into the safety of the dark woods, heading back toward the road and sits quietly against the base of a giant, protective oak.

    What the new hunter didn’t know was that he had actually come upon the deer stand that he sought, the ungainly contraption having been fabricated in parts by Otha Barham and put together with help from a couple of unsuspecting and innocent fellow club members who managed to stifle their urges to laugh out loud as they worked.

    I have long been known to build the world’s ugliest deer stands and have written about them, claiming my creations as an art form in order to cover my ineptitude. But this one is certain to frighten sane hunters at their first and subsequent observations.

    To begin with, it is made from scraps. And it didn’t help that as we finished assembly in the dark one evening, I handed the rear panel to the workers upside down, resulting in an observation window a long neck stretch above the other three.

Design flaws

    An interesting twist is a door that had to be sawn in two and hinged to provide a viewing hole which I forgot in the design stage. And some flawed roof angle measurements led to an enormous height, sure to frighten new hunters as described above. The thing is so tall that I am planning another floor half way up to provide a second story; sort of a piggyback design. Hunters using the second floor will need regular sniffs from the oxygen tank provided to deal with the altitude.

    I build my own shoot houses in order to save money, you see. But in a solid month of cool mornings, I have managed to put enough hardware alone into this one to bring skepticism to this approach. My receipts show lag screws, dry-wall screws, wood screws, six kinds of nails, five sets of hinges, two turnbuckles, a length of cable, carpet tacks, metal straps, joist hangers, four kinds of bolts with nuts and washers, two S hooks and a sheet metal roof. I am not counting two broken drill bits.

    Well, at least gravity will pull on these items enough to hold the beast down until I can get some anchors and wire hold-downs in place.