Some days start like any other. Some days start out exciting. Some days are just so different you end up writing about them 35 years later. This was that day.
My Dad is quite the outdoorsman. Hunting, fishing, and trapping were regular activities in his youth and he passed those interests on to the next generation. On one particular day, we were up before dawn for a big hunting excursion attended by my dad, my two brothers, me, an uncle or two, some cousins thrown in for good measure, and Jimmy Joe.
Before you jump to conclusions … no, it was not different because of some hunting accident. All of us kids had our official Hunter Safety patches proudly sewed onto our coats. No, it was not different because some wild animal charged us or something. Save yourself some mental energy and quit trying to guess. You're just wasting your time.
If hunting and its related activities offend you, this would be a good time to use the remote control to change channels if this were television. Since it isn't, there's a whole host of web pages to go to. See you later. I'll be happy to have you visit again when the imagery is not so barbaric.
[delay while you find a new web page]
OK, for those still here, it really isn't that bad. Matter of fact, if you're a hunter, I think you'll find this rather amusing.
We were poised and ready to begin the big hunt. For safety, not all the kids had shotguns. Our job was to just walk between the grown-ups so they could walk further apart. Made perfect sense.
The grown-up next to me was Jimmy Joe. Jimmy Joe was a pretty good story teller so you never knew when he was pullin' your leg or if truth was coming out of him. The sun was still just popping over the horizon so we weren't that long into the hunt when all of a sudden, Jimmy Joe freezes in his tracks. I signal that the line needs to stop walking.
Jimmy Joe, frozen like a statue, whispers something barely audible and I ask him to repeat it. "Th---- a pheas--- ri--- at my f---!" Still confused, I press for more info. He says, rather loudly, "THERE'S A PHEASANT RIGHT AT MY FEET!" I hear snickering at the other end of the line. Some of the adults thought Jimmy was, shall we say, less than coherent due to some sort of liquid none of us kids knew anything about.
Jim is looking at me like he is explaining with his eyeballs how the next few seconds are going to go down. I think I've figured out what's about to happen and, sure enough, in one fell swoop, Jim tosses his shotgun to me and jumps on a pheasant at his feet. He stands up with a rooster cradled in his arms.
He is so proud of his amazing catch that he doesn't even ask for his shotgun back. He walks the rest of the field, pheasant contently resting on his arm looking happy that it doesn't have to run or fly. [If birds could strategize, this would be an amazing idea, let yourself get captured by the enemy so they don't continue to hunt you down all morning. Brilliant!]
By this time, we're all laughing so loud about this we probably scared every other bird away within a mile. We didn't see much else so when we get to the creek, we take a break. Just as I am about to have a nice cool drink, my dad says "Does anyone want to shoot a rabbit?" "Me!!!" I blurted out.
Dad hands me his shotgun and points at the rabbit several yards off. I never really saw the rabbit. I just wanted to shoot the gun. I do my best to figure out what my dad was pointing at then pulled the trigger.
I knew this thing would kick because I'd shot a shotgun before at a practice range. But that wasn't my dad's gun. Like I said earlier, he was quite the outdoorsman. His specialty was letting others take a shot then, if they missed, he would pick off what was still flying. To do that, you need a 12-gauge, long tom with a full choke.
What does that mean? That means when I pulled the trigger, some seismologist in China said "Ooh, did you feel that tremor?" That means when I pulled the trigger, and happened to guess correctly as to where the rabbit was, there was no salvageable meat. You probably could have picked up that poor bunny with a magnet.
Just as my dad finished his autopsy of the rabbit, Jimmy Joe announces the pheasant meat was affected with gangrene and couldn't be salvaged. Then, as if smartness descended on us from above, we all thought at once, "Yeah, it must have been sick or something to just sit there in his arm without fussing."
So, after a full day of hunting we had no meat for the table. Every wild game feast our family had from that day on, however, had some mention of Jimmy Joe and his pheasant.
I highly recommend to everyone: get out and purposefully make some lasting memories with friends and family. Some day, all that remains will be one's glory days. Get out now and make life interesting so when your old and gray, you have some fun stories to pass on to the next generation.
©2009, Kurt Holdorf, Illustration and Story
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