Where I grew up hunting it was all old time Mennonite farmers and Amishmen, in Central PA. The humor there is sometimes cold and harsh. One event that is still as clear as a bell to me happened one evening while sitting in camp after the first day of deer season. The custom was to go camp hopping in the evening, swapping stories of the day’s events. Well, there was a certain city fella that somehow had got permission to hunt the property in and around our camp area, I think through marriage or some such thing, but he wasn’t very well liked. He stayed in a camper at the bottom of the lane that led up to camp, about a mile or so up the mountain. Well he comes in to camp and the small talk soon switched to some prime property that just got posted that year because of a cow that was shot the year before (some felt that it was this fella that did it). Anyway, he brings the topic up, asking why John A. posted the property, not realizing that John A., who arrived a few minutes before, was sitting right next to him. Seems he knew the name of the owner, but not the owner himself. Well, as old farmer humor goes, my Uncle starts egging him on, with statements like, “I don’t know why he would have done that. Doesn’t seem right, though, huh?” The guys takes the bait and says, “Hell no!! Who the hell does he think he is? I’ve hunted that property for years now.” My uncle counters with, “Well, have you talked to him yet?” The city fella pauses a second and says, “Yeah, I tried to. I saw him out in the pasture and we talked a while but when I asked him why he posted the property, the Sonuva B**** waved me off and drove off on his tractor.” The whole time John A. is just sitting there beside the guy nodding. Finally the guy left after my uncle kept at him a while longer, getting him to say more and more negative things about a man he never met, but is sitting right beside him. When he closed the door behind him, my uncle says to John A., “He doesn’t seem to like you posting your land, or you, for that matter.” All the old timers laughed their butts off but I just sat there dumbfounded, experiencing my first taste of old time Mennonite farmer and Amish humor.

-Brad
Eastern Nebraska Bowhunter