Hunting with my Uncle Randy fulfilled a childhood dream. This PA buck, taken last November, is my biggest whitetail ever.

My family tree is rooted in the rich soil of southwestern Pennsylvania. And in the branches somewhere, about 20 feet up, you'll find a treestand.

I was in a stand like that one drizzly November morning before light, charged with anticipation, when I found myself pondering my growing obsession with bowhunting for whitetails. It all had started with a chance hunt with family but grew into an all-year pursuit. I smiled in the dark because the individuals responsible for my growing obsession made my obsession look like casual interest.

My uncles, Randy and Tim, my hunting idols from childhood, introduced me to archery. One year, at the age of five, I was lucky enough to be visiting them on the opening morning of archery season. Randy crept into the house just after sunrise, dressed head-to-toe in camouflage, smiling through green face paint at my excited expression, and plucked me right out of bed. He carried me outside and set me on the tailgate of his pickup truck, next to a young whitetail buck he had arrowed that morning. He talked me through the whole scenario, and I listened with fascination while running my hands over the hide and antlers.

I was in awe of this guy who could creep within spitting distance of a deer and tag it with one shot from his bow. I think at that moment, deep in my brain, some mysterious wiring was connected, and I would forever be drawn to hunting that way. Over the next couple of years, I shot Randy's old aluminum arrows out of a sapling bow, and re-read Tim's letters about his hunts as if they were scripture. I was intent on following my uncles into the woods as soon as I was of legal age to hunt.

However, when I was still young, my family moved to Idaho. When it came to learning about bows and how to shoot them, I had to take care of myself, and I cut my teeth chasing mule deer and elk in the mountains instead of whitetails in the dense hardwoods. Through the years, I kept in touch with uncles Randy and Tim, but, as hindsight always proves, not enough.

My Uncle Tim was an accomplished bowhunter. He died before we could ever hunt together, but I still consider him one of my whitetail bowhunting mentors.

And my hindsight came into acute focus one day when my parents called to say that Tim had terminal cancer. I was devastated and sat for a long time, remembering rushed telephone conversations at Christmas when Tim, Randy, and I had talked about hunting together, the three of us -- someday.

At the funeral, Tim's best friend from college, Bob Gray, introduced himself. Tim had held Bob in the highest regard as a bowhunter, and it was obvious from Bob's first words that he was cut from the same cloth as my uncles. He encouraged me to renew my bonds with Pennsylvania and my family, so I called Randy one night a few months later and asked if I could tag along with him that fall.

My call apparently caught him off guard. Following a long pause, he said, "If you come back here, I'll take you hunting. Just be ready." He was warning me, of course, that my hunt would not be a casual, one-season visit back home.

When Randy picked me up at the airport, the weather was damp and gray. We went right to the house and unloaded. I had only a vintage bow but no scent-reducing clothing, no rubber boots, no treestand experience, and little understanding of whitetail behavior. After looking over my gear and asking me a few questions, Randy took a deep breath, as if to say, Let's get started, and motioned me into his workshop. He not only went to work on my equipment, he went to work on my mind -- imparting the wisdom only a diehard whitetail bow-hunter could gain in 40 years.

The next day, he strapped a climber stand to a tree for me and stood below as I ascended, all the time telling me exactly where the deer would appear and what it would do, walking me through the shot.