In Minnesota's pheasant hunting heyday, WCCO radio would broadcast live from the state's hinterlands on opening day, reveling in an event — in effect a state holiday — that was as much about community spirit as it was about the splendor, and magic, of roosters flushing into cobalt skies on October mornings.
This was in the 1950s and '60s, when pheasants, which exploded in Minnesota after World War II, gave Twin Cities residents opportunities — excuses, really — to hunt, and to celebrate, while returning to the farms and small towns where they grew up.
It helped that pheasants were wildly abundant.
