Pat Ruettiger Quotations

We didn't want him to be out there alone a lot, but he was very self-sufficient. She was a great cook, but he was a person who wouldn't let us do anything. He did his own cooking, washing and cleaning house. It was a big change for him, but he knew he had to continue.

He grew up being very independent. He had his chores like any kid did at that time. There was never any, 'I don't want to do it.' You had to do it to sustain yourself.

He'd be fishing in Wisconsin every Mother's Daywithout my motherbut it was all right with her because he always came back with fish.

Later, when the coyotes came into this area, he got a license and started trapping coyotes. One year, he trapped 15 coyotes near his house. The coyotes had taken over so much of the land where there used to be rabbit, mink, fox and pheasant. He saw it as keeping the balance in nature a bit. He'd go out in the early morning and be gone eight hours. My mother would call and say, 'It's getting dark out,' and he'd come strolling in.

I remember when we were kids he'd hunt muskrats, hundreds of them, and he'd have them all skinned and hanging in the basement. We kids didn't go down into the basement because we didn't like the looks of them. We also ate rabbit when we were kids, but out parents didn't tell us that. Rabbits were too cute and cuddly.

Everyone who knew him, whether they knew him for five years or for 60 years, thought of him as a storyteller.