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.