Last Friday’s edition of the Goshen, Ind., News, includes a story by Bob Kulp, who reminisces about the night a deer jumped through the laundry room window and wrecked havoc in the parsonage at the Grace Brethren Church, Everett, Pa., where he was then pastor. A portion of the story appears below. Click here to read the complete article. (Bob currently pastors the Grace Brethren Church in Elkhart, Ind. Melvin Van Orman is the current pastor at the Everett, Pa., church.)
Deer provides a whopper of a story
My homeland of Pennsylvania is known for many things, among which is hunting. I can remember scores of guys coming to our farm to hunt ring-necked pheasants. I have not seen a pheasant in decades! Many would go to the northern counties to hunt deer. Here in Indiana, we are in the midst of various deer hunting seasons.
As for me, however, I am not a hunter. The only time I ever shot a rifle was at summer camp and one year in junior high gym class we spent some time on the rifle range. I’m not against hunting at all, but I have no desire to do it myself. As for deer hunting, I quit hunting for my dear when I found her 42 years ago. However, what happens when the tables are turned and the deer hunts you?
It was a normal mid-November Tuesday night in 1987 in Everett, Pennsylvania. We lived in the parsonage of the Grace Brethren Church (my first pastorate) which was actually connected to the church and formerly had been the town’s old hospital located downtown on Main Street. Behind the parsonage was a garage, which was beside a miniscule backyard beside the wall of the next door funeral home.
On this particular night, we and our girls were fast asleep. I was dreaming away when suddenly the world in my dreams was blown to smithereens. I sat straight up at 1 a.m., thinking, “That was some dream!”
Then I heard a movement in the next room. My first reaction was that one of our girls had gotten up. Then I heard running down the hallway! A burglar? Leaping out of bed unarmed, scantily clothed and half asleep, I pursued the “criminal.”
I nervously walked down the hallway into the living room to the dining room where the venetian blinds allowed enough street light in to see the figure of a large animal. When it raised its antlered head, I uttered, “I can’t believe it’s a deer!” Then I shouted, “Honey, there’s a deer in the house!” Disoriented, the deer began leaping upward seeking an outlet with family heirlooms falling off the bookshelves. Without thinking, I threw myself in harm’s way to stabilize the tottering shelves.
Click here to read the complete article.