I was scanning the internet when I came across a posting for the "Glenn W. Hoffman Award" of excellence in education. It has been many years since my last encounter with Glenn. He was some special guy that I crossed paths with without knowing, at the time, how special he actually was. That is what this blog is about.
It was many years ago and I was just a teenager. We went deer hunting up in the Elk Creek area of California. It was hot as it always is during deer season. We hunted the lower brush area around Grind Stone canyon. There were a lot of deer, but the brush was so heavy that to get a shot, you had to be right on top of the deer. If you went crashing thru the brush, the deer would hear you and disappear out of sight. The only way to get a buck was for someone to crash thru the brush and drive the deer back toward the shooter. The shooter was me and Glenn was the dog.
The canyons around there are very steep and a few years earlier, several Navajo Indians died fighting a forest fire there when the wind turned the flames against them. This is the terrain that Glenn decided that he would crash thru to try to drive a buck up to me. I sat on a rock outcropping where I had a good view of the canyon. Glenn took off down the canyon. I could only catch glimpses of him periodically as he worked down and around the canyon. He pushed out several deer, but all were does. In this heat, I don't know how he did it. I don't think that he took any water along. As time passed and as Glenn started his journey out of the canyon, he pushed out a nice buck. It was at least 250 yards from my location and all I had was a model 94 Winchester 30-30 with iron sight. That would be a very long shot for a 30-30 under any conditions, but this was down hill into bush with heat waves blurring the target. I did not have one of those fancy range finders, like today. I had to guess at the range and the correction. I got into position and rested the rifle on my left hand and held about 6" over the back of the buck and pulled the trigger. It seemed to take for ever before the bullet got to the buck, but when it did, it was clear that it was a good hit. The buck rolled over and I saw a flash of white and knew that the buck was down.
It was sever minutes before I saw Glenn again working his way up out of the canyon. I wave to him with improvised hand signals indicating that I had shot a buck and where he was. Glenn understood my signals and worked his way toward the downed buck. Glenn actually got to the buck before me and was starting to gut it out. It took us almost to dark before we had the buck back up to the truck and back to town. I can not remember thanking Glenn for driving the buck up to me nor do I think that Glenn expected any thank you.
That was the last time that I saw or spoke to Glenn. A few days later I was off to college and the rest of my life. Looking back now, you wonder how you did not recognize how special that relationship was. I know that most people have no idea what a special person Glenn was. I sure did not!
It was many years ago and I was just a teenager. We went deer hunting up in the Elk Creek area of California. It was hot as it always is during deer season. We hunted the lower brush area around Grind Stone canyon. There were a lot of deer, but the brush was so heavy that to get a shot, you had to be right on top of the deer. If you went crashing thru the brush, the deer would hear you and disappear out of sight. The only way to get a buck was for someone to crash thru the brush and drive the deer back toward the shooter. The shooter was me and Glenn was the dog.
The canyons around there are very steep and a few years earlier, several Navajo Indians died fighting a forest fire there when the wind turned the flames against them. This is the terrain that Glenn decided that he would crash thru to try to drive a buck up to me. I sat on a rock outcropping where I had a good view of the canyon. Glenn took off down the canyon. I could only catch glimpses of him periodically as he worked down and around the canyon. He pushed out several deer, but all were does. In this heat, I don't know how he did it. I don't think that he took any water along. As time passed and as Glenn started his journey out of the canyon, he pushed out a nice buck. It was at least 250 yards from my location and all I had was a model 94 Winchester 30-30 with iron sight. That would be a very long shot for a 30-30 under any conditions, but this was down hill into bush with heat waves blurring the target. I did not have one of those fancy range finders, like today. I had to guess at the range and the correction. I got into position and rested the rifle on my left hand and held about 6" over the back of the buck and pulled the trigger. It seemed to take for ever before the bullet got to the buck, but when it did, it was clear that it was a good hit. The buck rolled over and I saw a flash of white and knew that the buck was down.
It was sever minutes before I saw Glenn again working his way up out of the canyon. I wave to him with improvised hand signals indicating that I had shot a buck and where he was. Glenn understood my signals and worked his way toward the downed buck. Glenn actually got to the buck before me and was starting to gut it out. It took us almost to dark before we had the buck back up to the truck and back to town. I can not remember thanking Glenn for driving the buck up to me nor do I think that Glenn expected any thank you.
That was the last time that I saw or spoke to Glenn. A few days later I was off to college and the rest of my life. Looking back now, you wonder how you did not recognize how special that relationship was. I know that most people have no idea what a special person Glenn was. I sure did not!
