2. Chasing the birds we should have shot together.
Frost crept in over the
sashes as our Montgomery Ward space
heater tried to keep up with the bit-
ter cold breaking its way through the
bedroom window. My grandfather
built this home when the neighbor-
hood was just an open field of dirt
and weeds. He didn’t see fit to pipe
heat to the second floor; let the kids
freeze, I guess.
Summers were worse. Oppressive
heat made sleep hard to come by—not
that you need much as an adolescent.
But slumbering in a pool of your own
sweat is downright awful. Only an
August thunderstorm would save us.
Carl, my younger brother, and I would
plead with our father to let us get out
sleeping bags and enjoy the cool of my
parent’s room. It was a meat locker in
there. So cold, you could catch a cold.
But we were at a disadvantage. Dad
had spent his entire life in this house.
No fans, certainly no air-conditioner
window units in his youth. He dealt
with the heat, and so would we.
OUR OWN PLACE
Piled under layers of covers, his massive
hand pressed on my chest.
“Wake up, boy.”
Before finding the motivation to
brave the cold temperature I would
expose myself to by peeling
off blankets, I looked up. His
silhouette filled the room. At
6-foot-7, he was the biggest man
in the world—at least to me. This
was a day we both had been looking
forward to for months. We were going
to “his island.”
So I sprung from my trundle bed,
probably stepping on Carl just to
rub in the fact I would be duck
hunting with dad, and he was
likely destined for some terrible
department store with mom. The
old man was already dressed in full
camo, and thinking back, I’m surprised
he didn’t have the recently purchased
Browning BPS in-hand. It was a toss-
up what he was more proud of, his
two sons, his Chevy or that darned
BY JOE GENZEL
From the author: In the dream my father is just as he was 25 years ago. Big-rimmed glasses and
an even bigger smile on his face, he walks towards me. I’m older than him now, but he still
wraps me in the biggest bear hug and I’m 10 years old all over again. I wrote the story that
follows in 2012 to remember dad, and in recognition of my younger brother and mother,
who never gets much credit for raising two ornery boys and a disobedient black Lab
mostly by herself. Since then my wife, Katy, and I had a boy of our own and
named him after dad and her grandfather—Donald Bucky Genzel. There
is not a person I love more in this world. I hope this Father’s Day finds you
well, and close to your daughters and sons. —JG
Huntingformy
Many evenings were spent
practicing on this Olt and hand-
carved goose call. Dad rarely
missed a chance to chirp at the
resident Canadas passing over
our house each afternoon.
FATHER
y
June/July 2016 | WILDFOWL Magazine 57wildfowlmag.com
3. pump-action shotgun. Pulling on a
tight pair of snow pants and parka
from the previous winter, which I
had already outgrown—we Genzels
are of a sweaty, large-bodied ilk—it
was off to fill our Thermoses with hot
chocolate and coffee.
Dad’s island sits on the Illinois River,
near Peoria. It was an interesting and
lucky find. There aren’t that many places
to duck hunt in the central part of this
state unless you’re a private landowner,
buy a lease or belong to a duck club.
My dad was a union carpenter, who
co-opted his way through high school,
going to class half the day and spending
the other half working as a mechanic.
So, we wouldn’t be joining a club or
making any land acquisitions, limiting
our options. His island is just north of
a highly-trafficked bridge, so my guess
is that’s how he discovered it. I vividly
recall him locating the owner of the
land we crossed to access the island,
and them giving him the go-ahead.
He was ecstatic. It meant we didn’t
have to launch a boat, it meant jump
shooting the shoreline, and best of all,
it meant we’d have a place to kill birds.
SAGE ADVICE
The summer was full of “scouting”
weekends. We would head out, watch
for birds and dad would quack and
honk at them, doing his best to mimic
the call tapes. That usually lasted
an hour or two, then it was off to a
dingy tavern, where he picked the
brains of legendary duck hunters, err,
boozers, that worshiped at the altar
of the nearest jar house. My job was
asking for quarters to pump through
the PAC-MAN machine, and stuff
ballpark-sized hot dogs and frozen
Snickers down my gullet. And to “not
tell mom.”
The legwork paid dividends, so I
guess those barflies had a few wise
words…a few. We walked the shore-
line, chasing the ducks—no blind,
no decoys, no dog—down the birds
fell. Some days they poured in, oth-
ers I laid on my belly, building sand
castles. Our chest freezer was full of
limits of mallards and a few Canadas.
It was coming together.
There was work to be done, though.
We needed decoys, a blind and a dog
that could retrieve, a determination
made after our own black Lab wouldn’t
fetch up any doves at a nearby strip
mine. Dad downed the bird and it fell
over the deepest end of the pit, Dyna
just stared up at the two of us. After
much prodding and zero response, he
pushed the gun into my chest, grabbed
the dog’s collar and dragged her down
the side of the hill. He picked up the
bird, stuffed it in her mouth and made
the ascent, cursing her. Tom Dokken
would not have been proud.
LAST SEASON
It wasn’t hard finding another hunting
partner. The old timer had a boat,
and a dog, which we ended up using
sparingly as the birds tended to fall on
land or in the shallows. We built a box
blind; I helped by finding big rocks and
chucking them into the water. Dad
scrounged up some cash and got us
in on a blind for goose season—which
ended my junior hockey career, I think.
That’s OK, killing honkers and having
enough teeth to eat corn-on-the-cob is
more important. He pilfered a batch
of plastic oil drums from a mechanic
friend. We sawed the barrels in half,
spray-painted them black and white,
and affixed plastic Canada heads to
the make-shift decoys. Once again,
our freezer runneth over.
But that was the last season we had
together. He died suddenly of an atrial
fibrillation Oct. 5, 1991, not long before
duck season opened. The doctor told
my mother his heart was too big—I
Dad, Carl and I doing our best Gomer Pile impersonations.
We shot plenty of shells on this fall morning from an Illinois River duck blind.
58 WILDFOWL Magazine | June/July 2016 wildfowlmag.com
Hunting for my Father
4. believe it. Hunting started to go by
the wayside. My uncle enrolled me in
a hunter’s safety course and we went
on some squirrel and rabbit shoots,
but I guess it just wasn’t the same. As
an adult, you look back and think,
“I should have stuck with that.” The
knowledge, friendships and hunts I
could have been exposed to would
have been endless. I watch the eyes of
deer hunters turn into saucers as they
reel off a big-buck tale; guys around
the office brag of shooting an Alaskan
black bear. That could’ve been me with
mounts on the wall; those could have
been my stories.
BLIND DAYS
Lucky me, I have some great friends,
and a few years ago was invited by
one of them to go sit in a duck blind,
not far from my dad’s island. It was
reinvigorating to say the least. Saturday
night we took a boat ride and watched
the ducks fly in over a few beverages.
The next morning we got after some
birds, and though our shooting was
hardly impressive, I was renewed.
My office building is right across the
river from that spot I spent so many
days jump shooting and sipping hot
chocolate. I’m drawn to the windows,
looking east towards our old spread. I
inquired about hunting there recently,
and found the state declared it an
official preserve, so it’s off-limits. A
few floating steel cranes work there
now, digging silt from the bottom of
the Illinois, likely incorporating dad’s
island one day. Before that happens, I
hope the DNR will re-open it, giving
me and whoever else wants to join, a
crack at the ducks and geese that still
flock there.
As the seasons have progressed,
I’ve found myself in more and more
blinds, thinking of him often. We used
to watch Canada geese drop into a
local marina, and I recall one time in
particular, a massive bird hunkered
down on the docks. He just stood there
ogling it. They were his favorite. This
year, the honkers were elusive, at least
for me. My brother and I went goose
hunting together once, and I wanted
him to have a chance at one. We sat
together for hours, eating crackers
and smoked salmon, ribbing each
other over a few of the terrible shots
we’d made on birds in past seasons. It
didn’t matter the geese weren’t flying
as I could only think of how much
dad would’ve enjoyed this moment,
and how his two sons would’ve likely
glossed over it. But since he’s gone, we
realize the importance of days such as
these. With sunset approaching and
still nothing in sight, I peered over the
treetops and asked dad for some help.
Just one straggler, please…but no
response came. Figures, he was prob-
ably in his own blind, hopefully on
the birds.Donald Bucky’s first goose season.
The old man when he was a young man holding a honker alongside his
brother Fred (right) and a neighborhood friend.
June/July 2016 | WILDFOWL Magazine 59wildfowlmag.com
