ABC-SEMI Issue 1, 2019

16 Associated Builders and Contractors, Inc. HUNTING There’s nothing quite like seeing the dawn break over the woods on a cold, snowy crisp Michigan morning. The glorious majesty of the sun as it streams through the woods—casting shadows and waking up the birds and squirrels who live there. Add to that it is the opening day of our state’s firearm deer season and you have the makings of a great memory. “There is a special satisfaction in knowing that most of the rest of the world around us isn’t seeing these sights or hearing those sounds,” said avid hunter and ABC SEMI Board Chairman Robert Clancy. “It’s a successful hunt, whether we squeeze the trigger, release the arrow or go home with just a memory. Some of my fondest hunting experiences have often left me empty handed, but with a head full of great stories and memories.” Clancy, owner of Robert Clancy Contracting, Inc., believes it’s something that in the experience of hunting, it might be dreadful, but after the fact you look back on it, and agree that it was a good time. You wouldn’t trade anything in the world for that moment. He recalls passing early on a nice buck in Alberta Canada only to sit the next six days in a chilly hunting blind in the woods and see nothing. “You can laugh about it now,” Clancy admits. “But it is a great ‘one that got away’ story and a lesson to many who hunt about the sport. It’s called hunting not ‘shooting’ for a reason. It happens to the best hunter—for me passing on a shot is more about not wanting the experience to end so soon rather than looking for that ‘trophy’ animal. I imagine it is that way for a lot of us who take to the woods.” Every hunter knows that they are a breed unto themselves. Your average person just can’t understand in this day and age why someone would hunt instead of just going to the grocery store to buy your food. Often misunderstood or just simply unable to see the point of it all, hunters only are understood really by one person—another hunter. ABC SEMI Director of Membership and Safety, John Manor, knows this all too well. “My wife thinks I’m crazy for spending hours in a tree when it’s frigidly cold out,” Manor said. “My buddies think I’m nuts while they are at the beach and I am in the woods dealing with mosquitoes and ticks during the summer while tending food plots. Not to mention how my co-workers can’t wrap their mind around how it’s fun to spend a weekend in 100-degree heat putting up box blinds and installing trail cameras. Yet, the guys I hunt with know exactly what I mean when I WORK HARD PLAY HARD ABC Members Share Their Love of the Hunt