PA BOY, THROUGH AND THROUGH
On seeing an article about the upcoming regular deer hunting
season in Pennsylvania, I was whisked back to my own, not so glamorous (or
successful) experience in stalking the white-tailed deer in different places
around Danville. Being a regular old PA
boy, I of course was indoctrinated into a sport hunting culture at an early
age. Having a dad who was the local Deputy
Game Commissioner and who was known, both affectionately and, at times derisively,
as “Birddog Weaver” (we always had at least two German Shorthair dogs trained
to sniff and point out wary pheasant hiding in the underbrush of overgrown
fields around the area) cemented my expected introduction into sportsmanlike
conduct.
Unfortunately, I was not, nor would ever be, a natural born hunter. I had other interests, and while spending
hour upon hour looking for adventures in the woods and farmland surrounding
Danville was an enjoyable part of childhood, tramping around with a rifle or
shotgun in search of furry creatures to shoot was not high on my list of things
to do while there. Even more so because
much of hunting season occurs in the cold months. I hate the cold.
But I was a trueborn Pennsylvania boy and the Son of Birddog
to boot (imagine being burdened with that moniker while coming into adolescence
in the 60s). So, at the tender age of 12,
I took the obligatory Hunters Safety Course (yes, taught by my Dad). I should have known that being a hunter wasn’t
destined to be the best of experiences because during the training I was asked
to stand in front of the group and be the model for demonstrating the different
life-saving pressure points of the body for stopping bleeding in case you got
shot. (Wait a minute! In case you got shot? What the hell was I getting myself into???). As the different pressure points were demonstrated
on my body, either the heat in the room, the fact of being the focus of 15 or
so young faces or a combination of the two, resulted in the room beginning to spin
and the group being able to see some real live first aid stuff when I fell to
the floor in a faint. Good start, eh?
Another limitation to fitting well into the proud, put
meat on the table and antlers on the wall culture was that I was, and
probably still am, a terrible shot. Oh,
give me a stable table and a not-too-distant and reasonably-sized target and I
can probably get a few holes within the boundaries of the paper. But add to that the need to think fast, raise
the gun to my shoulder and shoot at a moving target you better just go ahead
and hand me a bazooka. Or a claymore
mine. Anything that doesn’t require less
than a twenty-foot radius of accuracy. A
grouse or rabbit or pheasant exploding out of a clump of brush had a more-than-excellent
chance of making it to safety, even having enough time to pause in its escape
and turn around to give me the raspberries.
Deer hunting was even worse for me. I mentioned earlier that I hate the cold: especially
the kind of cold that creeps into your bones, goose-pimples your skin and
causes your muscles to shake and your teeth to chatter. As long as I’m moving and my body is covered
with those one-zip Carhart quilted coveralls and I have an expensive pair of gloves
or mittens, I’m okay. But deer hunting as
practiced by my family was a sit-down affair:
Check the trails out beforehand, find a tree, remember where it was, get
up a 3:30 or 4:00 in the morning, drive to the chosen mountain or forest, walk
into the woods in the dim light of early dawn, find your tree, sit your ass
down on the snow covered and frozen ground and put your back against the tree and……..wait. Don’t move.
Wait. Wait for the deer to
make its cautious way through the woods until it is close enough to you to hazard
a shot. Wait as the heat you generated hiking
into the woods fades from your body and the outside cold creeps through the
outer layers of your coveralls, your shirt and your long underwear, your
gloves, the earflaps on your hat. Wait
as the cold from the frozen earth below latches on to your butt cheeks. Wait as your ears begin to tingle, you nose
begins to ache, you butt goes numb and the rest of your body begins to shiver. And maybe, just maybe, a deer will come. And of course, not just any deer, but a male
with a huge rack of antlers. Wait.
We used to hunt a lot up on Bald Top Mountain, just outside
of town. It was easy to get to, and my
dad had a particularly good knowledge of the area because as a Deputy Game Warden,
this was an area that he covered, stocking deer feeders during harsh winters,
checking hunting licenses and on weekends patrolling the roads at night to
thwart off-season poachers who would freeze night-feeding deer in open fields
with the glare of a bright light. I have
a memory of once accompanying him in a dark night chase through country
roads. This part of his part-time job, of
course, was what made “Birddog” a not so favored man among some of the good old
boys in the area.
But back now to my wonderful experience as a hunter. And the cold.
Did I mention that I hate the cold? There was one especially frosty
November morning when the sitting and the waiting was longer than usual. My fingers had stiffened into frozen, painful
stubs. The hot chocolate I had drunk
from my thermos had turned to an unbearable urge to pee. I stood up, pulled off my mittens and tried
to grasp the zipper of my pants, but the lack of feeling in my fingers made it
impossible, so I ended up leveraging open the buckle on my belt and snap on my
pants to let them drop to my knees, lower my long underwear and get some
welcome relief. I did not, however,
think about how I was going to get my pants and belt buckle up and secured with
my still frozen and unfeeling fingers.
Enough! No goddamn deer was going to come anyway! I was able to more or less pull my pants over
my hips and, holding them up with one elbow pressed against my midsection while
I cradled my rifle in the crook of my arms, I hobbled out of the woods to the
car.
I hunted up until the day I shot my first and only deer. It was a young buck that had the misfortune
to come close enough that not even I could miss. It did not die right away, and I had to look
it in the eyes as life slowly faded. I
couldn’t handle it, and shot it again in the head to stop its pain, shattering
the antlers which should have become the trophy of my first deer. I never hunted again.
I am not condemning sport hunting. Nor do I think those that
practice it are bad people. It is a
culture – one that is integral to the particular region of Pennsylvania where I
grew up. I learned a great deal about
nature and the environment during those years.
My dad especially showed me how integrated everything was – not so much
in an active teaching mode, but just by being who he was. I experienced aspects of nature that I never
would have if I had not been out in the woods seeking to (unsuccessfully) bring
home a rabbit, a pheasant or some venison and a rack of antlers to hang on the
wall. I remember once sitting up on Bald
Mountain on a mild day as morning light filtered through the trees and a large
owl glided from tree to tree. I sat so
still on one occasion that a doe that was making her way along the trail in
front of me, walked unaware that I was there until she actually stepped on my
boot and bolted away in fright. I witnessed
fox and bear in their natural environment.
I was able to explore the area around Danville, finding corners that I
never normally would have come across.
I was a Pennsylvania boy.
Deer hunter, fisherman, half-country/ half-city guy, football playing,
scrapple eating river rat from along the Susquehanna river. And yes, I learned to play the accordion.
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