Hi!
I read your story in Ontario OUT of DOORS about Groundhog Day and it took me back in time when I was in the Canadian Army and posted at Canadian Forces Station Carp (now the Diefenbunker Cold War Museum) and a bunch of us would go out to different farms in the area to hunt groundhogs. Most said “yes” and told us where the cattle were so there would not be any interference. One evening we were at a local restaurant after a successful evening and someone mentioned what would the groundhogs think of what we were doing and about 20 minutes later I had penned this ditty about their thoughts. There was a TV broadcast at that time by famous Evangelist named Billy Graham called “My Answer,” thus the title of the poem. I hope you enjoy this.
Thank you for the memories,
Dave
My Answer — By Billy Groundhog
I bask all day in the warming sun
But ere the night when day is done,
Proceeds the hunter with his gun
And fighting for my life’s begun.
I bother not a single soul
As I sit beside my hole,
But the rifle’s crack and down I dive
Thanking God I’m still alive.
Most all my friends have met their death
Spitting blood with their dying breath.
They, in the fields, and on the road,
Lay so still, so dead, so cold.
There is no way to beg or plead
The hunter’s bound with too much greed
If just one favour would be give,
I’d ask that all my kind may live.
Dave McBride, 1965
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