Opening Day is a coming of age story.  A Boy in the MidWestern United States celebrates an anticipated rite of passage with his grandfather.  There are stories of the hunt that contain gore, the thrill of the chase, adrenalin of the kill, and the butchering of large game.  Despite the setting, this is not one of those ‘hunt’ stories.  The seed of this short story stems from a list I keep of inspiring moments.  I was raised in the MidWestern United States at a time when the rituals and rites of passage to manhood were not dissimilar to the one in this story.  Mine was a generation spent with grandfathers while our fathers fought a war thirteen thousand miles away.  The inspiration to write this story sprung from the new millennium, new wars across the globe, and my many friends and relatives that are now grandparents.  I wrote this for the grandfathers, fathers, and grandsons that have hunted here and abroad.