tween_the_banks
Senior Member
I've often wondered what kind of person I would be today had I not been raised by a father who hunted deer. When I was younger, before the rebellion of my teen years could distract me from what later would grow in to my true passions in life, I remember waiting by the window for my dad to come back from the woods. It was like Christmas morning. My breath would fog the glass of the trailer as I'd sit close to the blinds in suspended anticipation. Back then he drove a 1986 Toyota 4x4 pickup which was heard well before it was ever seen. We lived up on a hill on two acres that my grandparents, who lived below us, had sold my parents when I was just old enough to begin those unintelligible human chirps that would someday grow in to words. I could always hear the RPMs of that old Toyota rising in to the air and cutting muffled through the thick pines between our trailers when he'd down-shift at my grandparent’s driveway as he neared the stop sign that stood at their corner lot where their road met ours. My hands would rip back the blinds as if they were a colorless wrapping paper. I'd remove my breath from the glass and wait for the tan truck to bounce up the red Georgia clay that was our driveway. I never left the window until he had exited the truck, however. Over the years I've figured my dad out about as much as I think I ever will. Generally, he is a reserved man. Happiness and love pour from him on to myself, my sister, my mother- any that cross his path. But anger and frustration, weren't and still aren't emotions that escape him easily. Deep within him it's as if there lies an intricate understanding of such dangerous emotions. If the mouth is a gun, my dad rarely draws. And if he draws, it is already known to him that it is to kill. Guns are not play things, he has told me with other words. But he has also taught me without words that neither are mouths and the dark emotions of the human mind that sometimes lie behind them.
The reservation he applies to these treacherous emotions is absent with the pleasant ones, however. So I'd sit by the window and wait for him to exit the truck. Although his face would reveal few things regarding the outcome of the hunt, the movements of his body would tell of success or of defeat. As most hunters who are as old as my dad was then or as old as I am now know, the deer woods are humbling. Defeat lies behind each burned and withered blackberry bush for the archer. Defeat lingers along each late September feeding trail that dumps in to the ruffled leaves lying turned and strewn beneath the great white oak for the marksman. Defeat is as constant a thing as breathing; it is not anticipated but its happening is inevitable and needed. It is the life blood, the essence of the hunt.
I remember one cold Saturday in particular. The morning light which fell in to our living room floor had not yet matured in to the more orange, more harsh light of noon. It still held that hard-to-hold hue of dew. I was lying on my back in the fleeting morning light watching the activities of robins and cardinals. "Flying looks even stranger upside down." My child mind concluded. But it was when the penetrating light, having left the cold air of its journey at our window, began to warm my cheek and heavy my eyes, I heard a high pitch whine. As soon as my ears registered this new and somewhat alien sound which had pulled me from the hazy mouth of the dream world, there was silence. "It's too early." I thought. "Just a dream racket's all." But my conclusion was short lived. As soon as I closed my eyes to chase and destroy the maker of the noise which had woke me from inside the dream world, I heard a low, guttural growl. The growl paused, then growled again, sharpening in pitch. It was my dad's truck. And I not only knew the next growl would hold the sharper pitch of third gear but I knew that his returning home from the hunt this early meant that defeat had not gotten him.
I ran to the window in time to catch sight of the Toyota bouncing over the lumps and erosion gullies of our dirt drive way. I noticed immediately that he wasted no time after the now-purring-motor was killed to exit the truck and march toward the side door where his boy would be waiting openly, eagerly, for the saddest laments of defeat or the most magnificent tales of triumph. He never made it to the door however. I burst from it before he could make it to the first step. "You got one didn't you Deddy! I know you did!" I said this without noticing the dried blood on his hands. I had known this since the whine of his down-shift had plucked me from the clutches of a dream that sought to steal the rich hours of morning from a child. "Yep." He said smiling. "A big ole nanny doe. You want to see her?" I ran to the truck and dropped the tailgate. Without thinking, I got behind the deer and rubbed slick the hair of her forehead. Her eyes looked up at me with a stillness. Like the windows of an abandoned house; no people left to dust the frames and to grace them with the life of light. At an older age, my heart might have hurt. At a younger age, I wouldn't have comprehended enough to form the flimsy lines that stitch thoughts in to opinions, opinions in to refined philosophy. But somehow, in that cold October air, I understood that for all living things, there is time and there is death. I felt thankful for the doe that was fallen by my dad's gun. And within the growing realms of my child's mind I understood that death is on all of our heels. That it waits by the womb and will stalk us like the predator it is for all of our days. I understood that patience is the virtue of the predator because the predator will always get that which it hunts. I looked down at the hole in the chest of the doe. Pink bubbles told of a quick death. A clipped artery of the heart but mostly lungs it said. Had the winds decided to blow east rather than west that morning, she would have evaded my father. Her startling, alerting blow would have caused him to jump from his seat before ever realizing she was near. Her white tail would have bounced away through the hardwood hollows as if spelling defeat in a cursive that only the creatures still with wildness can read, or feel, or understand. But the predator which had inhabited my father would not have left the woods with him that day had the winds blown differently. No, it would have abandoned my father as quickly as my father's mind would have acknowledged the cursive message. As my father would walk away from the hunt with the familiar taste of defeat in his mouth, the predator would press on. His nose to the ground. Eventually spelling death in cursive.
My exposure to death, to this unwavering and unending circle of life, came at such a young age that it is now hard to imagine life without having had it. But there are those who haven't. I see them on the television. I run in to them at the grocery store, where death is a quiet thing that one can no longer hear unless one wants to hear. “These aren't dead animals. Just food. Nice, packaged, slivers of food.” The grocery store chants. The unnaturally red cuts of meat no longer are attached to the animal from which they were cut. Upon the white Styrofoam, beneath the clandestine purity of plastic wrappings, the human disconnect grows.
Last week I took a friend of mine hunting. He had never been hunting a day in his life. When I first asked him if he thought it'd be something he would be interested in, he gave me a funny look. Hesitation stuttered his words. I knew his upbringing was far different than my own but I also knew him to be a very open-minded person. So I decided to just start talking about what hunting means to me and why I feel it is so important for this human experience. I talked about the human disconnect between man and meat. I began talking of the C chord which is strummed over the DNA strands of my being when I enter the woods and finally see my prey. I began talking about the nanny doe with the still cold eyes that my father killed so long ago and of how thankful I was that her inevitable death had given us meat that we not only appreciated but understood. Before I could go any further, however, he stopped me. The hesitant and confused look was gone. It was replaced with what can only be described as awe.
"I think that what you're describing is something that I really need." He interrupted. "Something that I’ve been missing all along.”
I still don’t know what kind of person I would be today, had I not grown up with a father who hunts deer. But lately that question feels trite. Over the years I’ve asked myself all of the tired and hard questions that all people who take life to give life should at some point ask themselves. I have found that I can answer all of them easily and naturally. This is because, when explained with the right words and introduced within the right light, despite the listener, the aspects of the hunt will resonate within he or she, and what is natural almost always will transcend the ever-changing cultures and falsely sophisticated ideologies of society.
When my friend interrupted me and I saw awe in his eyes as I looked up, I couldn’t help feeling as if, for a brief moment, that some wild, cursive language had took a hold of my words and led him to the light.
The reservation he applies to these treacherous emotions is absent with the pleasant ones, however. So I'd sit by the window and wait for him to exit the truck. Although his face would reveal few things regarding the outcome of the hunt, the movements of his body would tell of success or of defeat. As most hunters who are as old as my dad was then or as old as I am now know, the deer woods are humbling. Defeat lies behind each burned and withered blackberry bush for the archer. Defeat lingers along each late September feeding trail that dumps in to the ruffled leaves lying turned and strewn beneath the great white oak for the marksman. Defeat is as constant a thing as breathing; it is not anticipated but its happening is inevitable and needed. It is the life blood, the essence of the hunt.
I remember one cold Saturday in particular. The morning light which fell in to our living room floor had not yet matured in to the more orange, more harsh light of noon. It still held that hard-to-hold hue of dew. I was lying on my back in the fleeting morning light watching the activities of robins and cardinals. "Flying looks even stranger upside down." My child mind concluded. But it was when the penetrating light, having left the cold air of its journey at our window, began to warm my cheek and heavy my eyes, I heard a high pitch whine. As soon as my ears registered this new and somewhat alien sound which had pulled me from the hazy mouth of the dream world, there was silence. "It's too early." I thought. "Just a dream racket's all." But my conclusion was short lived. As soon as I closed my eyes to chase and destroy the maker of the noise which had woke me from inside the dream world, I heard a low, guttural growl. The growl paused, then growled again, sharpening in pitch. It was my dad's truck. And I not only knew the next growl would hold the sharper pitch of third gear but I knew that his returning home from the hunt this early meant that defeat had not gotten him.
I ran to the window in time to catch sight of the Toyota bouncing over the lumps and erosion gullies of our dirt drive way. I noticed immediately that he wasted no time after the now-purring-motor was killed to exit the truck and march toward the side door where his boy would be waiting openly, eagerly, for the saddest laments of defeat or the most magnificent tales of triumph. He never made it to the door however. I burst from it before he could make it to the first step. "You got one didn't you Deddy! I know you did!" I said this without noticing the dried blood on his hands. I had known this since the whine of his down-shift had plucked me from the clutches of a dream that sought to steal the rich hours of morning from a child. "Yep." He said smiling. "A big ole nanny doe. You want to see her?" I ran to the truck and dropped the tailgate. Without thinking, I got behind the deer and rubbed slick the hair of her forehead. Her eyes looked up at me with a stillness. Like the windows of an abandoned house; no people left to dust the frames and to grace them with the life of light. At an older age, my heart might have hurt. At a younger age, I wouldn't have comprehended enough to form the flimsy lines that stitch thoughts in to opinions, opinions in to refined philosophy. But somehow, in that cold October air, I understood that for all living things, there is time and there is death. I felt thankful for the doe that was fallen by my dad's gun. And within the growing realms of my child's mind I understood that death is on all of our heels. That it waits by the womb and will stalk us like the predator it is for all of our days. I understood that patience is the virtue of the predator because the predator will always get that which it hunts. I looked down at the hole in the chest of the doe. Pink bubbles told of a quick death. A clipped artery of the heart but mostly lungs it said. Had the winds decided to blow east rather than west that morning, she would have evaded my father. Her startling, alerting blow would have caused him to jump from his seat before ever realizing she was near. Her white tail would have bounced away through the hardwood hollows as if spelling defeat in a cursive that only the creatures still with wildness can read, or feel, or understand. But the predator which had inhabited my father would not have left the woods with him that day had the winds blown differently. No, it would have abandoned my father as quickly as my father's mind would have acknowledged the cursive message. As my father would walk away from the hunt with the familiar taste of defeat in his mouth, the predator would press on. His nose to the ground. Eventually spelling death in cursive.
My exposure to death, to this unwavering and unending circle of life, came at such a young age that it is now hard to imagine life without having had it. But there are those who haven't. I see them on the television. I run in to them at the grocery store, where death is a quiet thing that one can no longer hear unless one wants to hear. “These aren't dead animals. Just food. Nice, packaged, slivers of food.” The grocery store chants. The unnaturally red cuts of meat no longer are attached to the animal from which they were cut. Upon the white Styrofoam, beneath the clandestine purity of plastic wrappings, the human disconnect grows.
Last week I took a friend of mine hunting. He had never been hunting a day in his life. When I first asked him if he thought it'd be something he would be interested in, he gave me a funny look. Hesitation stuttered his words. I knew his upbringing was far different than my own but I also knew him to be a very open-minded person. So I decided to just start talking about what hunting means to me and why I feel it is so important for this human experience. I talked about the human disconnect between man and meat. I began talking of the C chord which is strummed over the DNA strands of my being when I enter the woods and finally see my prey. I began talking about the nanny doe with the still cold eyes that my father killed so long ago and of how thankful I was that her inevitable death had given us meat that we not only appreciated but understood. Before I could go any further, however, he stopped me. The hesitant and confused look was gone. It was replaced with what can only be described as awe.
"I think that what you're describing is something that I really need." He interrupted. "Something that I’ve been missing all along.”
I still don’t know what kind of person I would be today, had I not grown up with a father who hunts deer. But lately that question feels trite. Over the years I’ve asked myself all of the tired and hard questions that all people who take life to give life should at some point ask themselves. I have found that I can answer all of them easily and naturally. This is because, when explained with the right words and introduced within the right light, despite the listener, the aspects of the hunt will resonate within he or she, and what is natural almost always will transcend the ever-changing cultures and falsely sophisticated ideologies of society.
When my friend interrupted me and I saw awe in his eyes as I looked up, I couldn’t help feeling as if, for a brief moment, that some wild, cursive language had took a hold of my words and led him to the light.
