Good Will Hunting

I should have looked in the mirror when I took my dog for a walk yesterday. Since it was hunting season I wore my bright orange Syracuse sweatshirt. On top of this put my bright red jacket vest. With my signature brown hermit hat I looked like a giant pumpkin.

No need I guess then to worry about getting shot while taking my walk near the woods. I think I heard some laughter from the trees; it was hard to tell if it was hunter's or forest animals laughing. Lucky for them I no longer hunt.

Not that I was ever much of a hunter; I've only gone hunting once. As a kid I killed a pigeon with a bow and arrow; I felt guilty for a long, long time. We used to hunt rats in the grain barn behind our house back then too. I even killed one with a stick. Not too bright a choice of weapons to be sure; I wouldn't go within a hundred feet of a rat now with anything less than a bazooka. So all in all I never fashioned myself much of a hunter.

That changed when I got married. My wife's family were all avid hunters; the first day of hunting was a stay-home-from-school holiday for her and her brothers. My wife would get all decked up in her hunting outfit and head out the door with her gun, looking like a cross between Annie Oakley and Elmer Fudd. She relates the story of how her Dad had her crawl up into a deer stand to wait. After a few hours of shivering alone in the cold she decided to get down, though she was sure her Dad would be upset with her. She found them back at the house drinking coffee and eating doughnuts.

I decided that it would help me fit in a little better with the family if I gave it a go, at least once. I love to walk through the woods as much as anybody, as long as I'm not dragging some 250lb carcass. Make that some other 250 lb carcass. Since my wife now had little ones to watch back at the house, and with her family all being expert shots that sort of made me the designated doofus for the day. My main task was to help get the deer moving, or at least laughing, then the real hunters would know where they were.

The day I went was really cold, about zero degrees. At least it was zero when I found myself sitting in my designated spot deep in the woods at six o'clock in the morning on top of a new layer of freshly fallen snow. Better for tracking they say. Better for making sure my ass stays frozen to ground when I try to stand up I say.

While the deer were not in any more danger from me than they had been from my wife (her only shot at a deer went straight up in the air. If any had been hovering about she would have had one) I still actually saw one, close enough for even me to shoot it. Unfortunately, I was trying to slide down a steep little tree-covered hill at the time. Since there was a better than average chance I'd fall head first, I put the safety on my gun and slid it forward ahead of me. As I hung between the tree I was clutching and the bottom of the hill, Bambi's mother ran right by me, just ten feet away. I could have sworn she stuck her tongue out and went “booga-booga” as she galloped by. I slid the rest of the way down the hill to grab my gun, like Hawkeye in the Last of the Mohicans. It turns out my caution in putting my gun down before coming down the hill was justified as I tumbled forward in an inglorious heap, going Natty Bumpo off a tree. At least I didn't shoot off any valuable limbs. Score that; deer 1, next-to-last-of-the-Mohicans 0.

That was the only time I ever officially went hunting for live food, now I track it down in the frozen food section. I prefer to take my camera with me when I venture out into the woods, it's a whole lot easier to shoot them digitally, and its not 6 in the morning when I do it. So if you're ever out walking through the woods in my area and you see a tall pumpkin, wave and say “Cheese!”