The Cowardly Hunter

Definition of Coward 

Noun: A person who lacks the courage to do or endure dangerous or unpleasant things. 

Adjective: Excessively afraid of danger or pain.

Synonyms:  Dastard, Recreant, Funk, Craven

Cowardly, Chicken, Hearted, Timid

Definition of Courage

Noun: 1. The ability to do something that frightens one.

2. Strength in the face of pain or grief.

Synonyms: Bravery, Valor, Pluck, Gallantry, Nerve

   It's eleven in the morning.  The fog is so thick that I can barely see the tree mere feet from where my skis are waiting patiently to glide peacefully through the man-made fluff.  This is the first time I had seen snow this year, aside from the random photograph from home and while it makes me smile like a manic clown, I also feel homesick, wishing that North Carolina could magically transform into New York for a day.  DU is already halfway down the mountain, his wake carving elongated Cs, a curvature I am to follow.  The last time skis were strapped to these legs, my parents weren't divorced, my brother was by my side and I had yet to be kissed.  Life then was simpler, extremely far removed from where I stand, 13 years later.  

   Back then, I never really changed course, nor did I feel the need for poles.  I simply would exit the lift, go straight down the mountain, float back atop the land and glide right back down.  I would do this for hours, never really understanding why my fellow snow bunnies felt the need to turn when going straight was just so much easier.  Today, however, barreling down this mountain sans turning would ultimately lead to a very lifeless huntress, sprawled out against a tree, an illustration that shows that the wayward ideals of youth, if brought to adulthood, can be reckless at best.  So, with DU as my guide, I learned how to carve.  It really wasn't as hard as I thought it would be.  I took a tumble or two, crossed the boards strapped to my feet more than a few times, but I eventually got it.  Knees together, ankles parallel, use the edge, not the whole ski, enjoy nature, end run. 

    When we began our day, I refused to try a black diamond.  The courses with the green labels I ignored completely, as I didn't see myself as "beginner" as those children with their polka-dotted onesies.  I was comfortable with the blue ones, those meant for the middle-of-the-road skier, one who knows what he or she is doing but doesn't feel that doing a black diamond will really prove anything, except how to break a leg, femur or two.  DU, an expert at the craft, insisted that I at least try one black diamond before we leave.  I agreed, hoping that his bionic body, made of a whole lot of metal that gets angry when assaulted by cold temperatures, would give up before mine would.  Of course, it didn't and now I'm standing here, watching his retreating form and praying that I don't break a leg, literally. 

    Peering over the side of the steep incline, I watched as skiers descended from the upper black diamond to the lower.  Once the coast was clear, I propelled my skis forward and began to slide.  My skis began to do what they're made to do, go down a mountain covered in snow.  They went this way, and then that, crossed, uncrossed and had a rocking old time while their operator looked on, horrified as the ground whizzed past.  Normally, this is where my tale would end, a screaming huntress flying down the mountain at record speeds, taking with her a whole host of angry characters, raging from young to old, novice to expert, ending in a bloody massacre akin to anything Sir Jack the Ripper performed.  However, I, with all the strength I could muster from the day's events, straightened the boards, commanded them to do my bidding, and began to ski.  My cowardice vanished, in its place, courage.

Cowards?

    Recently, I started a Pinterest account in order to share wedding ideas with my future mother-in-law, maids of honor, and mom.  Just like any good idea, it began quite pleasantly.  I added pictures of the venue, ideas for centerpieces, and, of course, a bunch of stuff about hunting.  I felt pretty good about Pinterest until I was directed to a collection by an eloquent women, a series called, "On My [Expletive] List".  Underneath it, a gaggle of pins about hunting, all things "redneck", and pictures of political figures the woman in question obviously disliked.  The images were blurry, classless, and, to be crude about it, revolting*.  I would have written her lovely page off as amusing until I read the caption under a shot of the first edition of Bow America, an e-mag that I will be contributing to in the coming months.  The caption read: Coward. 

   This, obviously, made me pause.  A few of my twitterbuds commented, attacking the woman's statement and her attitude towards our ancient passion.  I mulled it over and wrote simply, "Personally, I would rather eat what God has created rather than what man has tampered".  I went on to advise the creator that if she did indeed eat meat, then she is one of the biggest hypocrites and should evaluate what she pins before she posts it.  An e-mail notification came hours later when the profound individual replied back, "If you don't like my [expletive] pins, don't follow them".  No educated response to our statements, no defending her point of view, no fundamental reason why we were cowards and she the hero, nothing except cloddish language and a harsh command. 

   I, as well as the hunters I know, do not subscribe to the definition explained above.  We, as far as I know, are not cowards.  We do not shrink back in terror when faced with danger nor do we cover our eyes when put in front of an unpleasant situation.  In fact, it seems the very nature of hunting, it being a dangerous adventure that puts humans and animals alike in unpleasant situations, is the antithesis of cowardice.  

   This next paragraph may read like a broken record but for the sake of my argument, it must be written.  Every day, animals are killed in a sacrifice to the human stomach, that's a fact.  They're killed in a variety of ways from electrocution, to drowning, to throat slitting and the like.  The parts are then processed, put into little bags and bought up by those who would rather see their food sans feathers.  It is generally, in my experience at least, those individuals who have a problem with hunters.  I assume, since the nameless woman above did not have pins speaking out against animal cruelty or the 101 reasons why being an orthodox vegetarian is the best and most moral way to live, she is one of those meat-eaters.  They see hunters as dastards because we hunt animals who can't defend themselves, who look cute in backyards.  We, the bloodthirsty few, who yearn to make hunting a bloodbath of fun, a murder if you will, a horrible death for any animal who walks in our path. 

   What the lovely Pinterest creature fails to grasp, as well as her meat-eating, organic, animal-rights counterparts, is that hunters akin to my style, seek a quick, painless death for any animal we intend to eat.  I don't shove it into a pen, fatten it with hormone-spiked, cheap feed, allow it to live caged its entire life, and kill it, along with thousands of its neighbors, whenever demand spikes.  No, reader, God does that work for me.  The animals I eat are hormone and chemical free.  They walk God's land for as long as He allows.  I thank each kill for its sacrifice, I gut the animal with my bare hands and use every part I can in respect for the fallen. I don't hide behind my computer screen, belittling others to make myself feel better.  I don't attack individuals who don't eat meat, make pin boards full of pictures of salads and those who eat them with captions like "poisonous", "disgusting", "revolting"**.   Respectful I am, coward I am not. 

    I made it down the black diamond, shockingly, in one piece.  The triumph was made all the more sweet when I gazed up the incline and only saw fog, making the peak look even more insurmountable.  The path I carved differed greatly from DU's,  a lovely testimony to making one's own way in the world.  It was there that I remembered how my tracks looked as a child, straight and narrow, naive, stagnant, confined.  How elementary it would have been to go along with the flow, believe what was told to me, see myself as superior because I took the easy way, the quick way.  But I didn't.  I learned, I grew, and I changed.  I became courageous in a way many people can't, I fill my own freezer full of food from God's own hand, best of all, I wouldn't have it any other way.

* I would have posted the link to her Pinterest account but for some odd reason, it's been blocked. Interesting.

** I love salads almost as much as I love venison so, in an ironic twist, I would have had to post pictures of myself, eating a poisonous bowl of leafy greens.  The point that I'm making here is that I don't publicly attack those whose lifestyles are different from mine.  Sure, I'll write about PETA and whatever brainwashing campaign they're going about next but I never post a picture of vegans, vegetarians, Liberals or Obama and slander them simply because I feel that I should. I don't bully because I was bullied in high school, and if that experience taught me anything, it was that bullies are who they are because they want to make themselves feel better. I don't need to feel any better about myself, so I simply write the facts, filled with informed knowledge in an effort to better you, my dearest reader.

Hockey Playing Squirrels

    My high school years were not filled with parties, football games or hanging with the popular kids.  No, I never went to a kegger at a friend's house, nor did I ever cheer for Aquinas at the homecoming game.  I didn't have time for all that hoopla, all those unnecessary adolescent societal gatherings.  Hockey was the name of my game.

     Saturday mornings found me at the rink, skating my heart out so my team could taste victory for a moment while Monday nights found me sweating profusely under my helmet, silently chucking angry expletives in the direction of my coach as he instructed us to do suicide after suicice (not the act, mind you, that would've been really messy and not kosher with the parents on hand.  Suicides are sprints of sort.  One starts at the far blue line, skates to the near blue line, skates back to the far blue, then turns, skates to the red line, skates back and so on.  The real doozies were dubbed "The Mile", a punishment restricted for the team when we acted like complete idiots.  This exercise involved skating to each line in turn and skating the entire way back to the original line. Agonizing? Yes.  Worth every stride in the third period, down by two? You betcha.).  My friends didn't understand me.  They wanted me to change, to stop acting like a hockey playing dude and start playing soccer or whatever it is that they did when we weren't loitering around our disheveled lockers.

   By the time my backside grew to epic proportions, along with it its ability to be the perfect surface to bounce quarters upon, I was graduating from one institution and signing up for another.  By that time, I had dedicated nearly a decade to gliding across a slick surface on an eighth of an inch of sharpened steel in order to propel a piece of rubber into a netted frame.  My teammates and I wore our "I can't... I have hockey" t-shirts proudly, making it clear to our friends that we had a better idea of what it meant to have a good time.  I left Aquinas and entered the hallowed halls of Niagara University, still thinking about hockey, still playing almost every day.  I can remember the jeers from my peers and family who begged me on numerous occasions to give up the sport, save the years of torment being put on my body, act normal, be normal.  I obviously never did, I have the scars, aches and pains to prove it.  I was born to be a hockey player, nothing could convince me otherwise.

     We have been trying, without real success, to convince Avery that she is a duck dog.  When she was a mere 14 weeks, scared to death of those around her, as she herself was left, along with her litter, to rot at Uwharrie State Park, she came home to a new home, a new life.  Her blackness astounded us.  From the tip of her tail to the inside of her mouth to the surface of her tongue and pads on her feet, she was black.  Not a square inch of that pooch is otherwise colored, save for a few stray snowy hairs that make up her little soul patch. Hence, we figured that she would be the perfect duck dog.  Sure, she hated water and seemed positively terrified when she came anywhere close to it.  And we couldn't deny the look of pure hatred she gave us anytime we placed her gently into the lapping blue of Lake Wylie but we figured this is just what children did when faced with something their parents want them to do.

    Time passed and just like in any cheesy Lifetime movie, Avery started to see our perspective.  She dropped the whole "I'd rather sleep than do your bidding" attitude, then adopted the "I guess water isn't that bad so long as I get food afterward" persona which rapidly progressed into "WATER IS AWESOME! IT'S LIKE CRACK FOR DOGS!!"  Soon enough, she was swimming around like a champ.  When her best friend, an overweight black lab named Sprocket, or her boyfriend, the neighbor's Australian shepherd, came for a visit, she would run in circles then attempt to coerce her companion into the water with her.  Best yet, she actually started to retrieve things.  This was the biggest crux in the enigma that is Avery.  She would get really excited about having something thrown in her general direction, she would run for it but after that, nothing.  Sure, she'd prance around with it for a while, showing whoever was around that she found something, perfectly tickled pink about her MacGyver-eqsue brain.  However, the charade ended there.  Generally, she became bored with whatever she was holding approximately 3 seconds after she picked it up.  She would drop the retrievable item wherever then proceed to chase squirrels.

    Soon enough, we abandoned the whole duck dog training thing and figured she would be yet another spoiled pooch who gets to sleep on the couch, watch TV and eat pound of puppy chow without ever really contributing to the family as a whole.  Our attitude towards our defected pup changed, however when Avery began to leap over our 6-foot tall fence.  It began as a puzzling mystery.  We could not figure out how Avery kept appearing at the front door, much less how she was getting out of the yard.  We realized she was leaping, much akin to a Kangaroo or a teenie bopper at a Taylor Swift concert, over the fence to chase rouge squirrels plaguing our yard.  Disappearing like Chris Angel was annoying enough but her magic tricks came to a head last week.

    I brought the trio to our local dog park to run around while my mom was in town.  We were enjoying ourselves, making lists of Wedding planning to do when Avery started barking.  She ran to the side of the fence, leaped over it, then proceeded to chase whatever it was that propelled her over the containment wall until my cries turned her around.

   Days later, fed up with my child's shenanigans, I told DU to take Avery to the woods to let off some steam while he and his buddy, Shoes, moved a stand.When DU came home hours later, he told a tale that spoke to my hockey-player heart.

    Avery was given free reign to run, as she always stays with DU when he's out doing man things.  The boys were walking around, checking out the land for urban archery when Avery took off like she was attached to a round of exploding dynamite.  DU, fearing that her affinity for shiny things would lose her to the overgrown forest, chased after her disappearing form.  By the time he caught up with her, she was dancing under a tree, eyes deadlocked on a squirrel who had chosen this day to screw with the wrong pooch.  Flabbergasted, DU clipped Avery's leash and watched as Shoes shot the offending rodent from his perch.  My black lab then picked up her prize, brought it to her master and began searching for her next target.

    DU reported that she ran for hours treeing squirrels and standing as a still as a statue until the fatal shot tattooed through the trees.  I could tell she was proud of herself when she got home so I showered her with the praise only a mother can.  I was then reminded of those who had tried to tell me to change who I was and realized, shamefully, I had done the exact same thing to Avery.  I wanted her to be a duck dog so badly that I missed her talent, her passion and dedication for the siege against tree rats.  Least to say, I have learned my lesson.  My little girl will grow up exactly like her human mother; free to follow her dreams (even if they're covered in fur), ferocious in her practice and praised for who she is.











  

The Power of Smith and Wesson

    Family Dollar is a place of business that I infrequently visit.  It's not because I believe myself above such a thrifty institution, in fact, given my current financial crisis, I should ask them if I can live within their isles, amongst the cheap bath tissue and generic greeting cards.  The only Family Dollar located in the fair hamlet I call home is positioned next to the town's only Subway.  A couple of days ago, DU's stomach began growling, as his body has been forced to quickly accommodate to the rigors of the night shift, so we fled to the land of beautifully crafted sandwiches.  Without really thinking about it, I grabbed my new leather holster containing a shiny Smith and Wesson 38 special just moments before I retreated from our log home.

   The newest addition to our gun safe is the product of a serendipitous occurrence.  My dad, being well informed about all things gun related with a small artillery of his own, informed me that a part of my Christmas present this year would be the funds that would allow for the purchase of my very first pistol.  DU and I had been shopping around for the perfect pistol for months.  I had settled upon a 38 special, not only because of its ease in shooting but also because the bullets are generally cheaper than any other.  I also had decided that I wanted a revolver.  I don't know what it is about revolvers that ignite my wild-west sentimentalities but all I know is that I feel like a gunslinger out of a John Wayne movie anytime I shoot one. 

    Our local outdoor haunt, God's Country, is currently in the midst of moving, as their operations have grown larger than their britches allow.  DU had heard they were putting on some great sales so we decided to hightail it on over.  Imagine our surprise when everything, and I mean everything, was buy one, get one 50% off.  I watched as a patron bought two top-of-the-line Kimbers for less than a grand.  Least say, we left the store with more than we had intended, including my beautiful Smith and Wesson Airweight 38 special revolver.

    Before this, I've never owned a pistol, nor had I ever really wanted to own one.  Given my extensive history with long guns, namely shotguns and muzzleloaders, I always felt that I would be a happy girl if I could just tote my 12 gauge around with me, in an extremely oddly-shaped purse.  A relationship with guns, as well as anything that can easily end the life of you or someone you love, at least for me, is a loving one that needs a nurturing touch and a whole lot of attention.  My first gun was a 20 gauge Mossberg.  It is an average firearm for every reason.  It has a stock, it has a pump, a scope, and, of course, a trigger.  I bought it for $250 at the local country store. I took it home and placed it in a corner.  There it sat for days, I, a newly minted huntress, still a little apprehensive when it came to all things lead propelled, walked carefully around it, least it suddenly decided of its own free will to take aim.

    I killed my first deer with that gun and took my first shot at a goose with it, which made it more than a gaggle of metal parts and synthetic wood.  When I eventually graduated to my Stoeger 12 gauge, I began to know how it feels when military personal say that their rifle is an "extension" of their bodies.  I love that gun, as it brought home my first duck and a whole truckload of geese that just wouldn't die (this is no hyperbole, friends.  The geese in North Carolina are bionic, they just will not die, even after having their necks rung multiple times).  But as much as I love that Stoeger, my Mossberg is still sitting behind the door of our bedroom, acting as my personal body guard, willing to face whatever comes through our door.

   Recently, a woman made headlines after shooting an intruder with her shotgun in order to ensure the safety of her infant child.  After calling 911, she asked the dispatcher if it was "okay" to shoot the intruder if the man decided to break her door down.  In accordance with Oklahoma law, it is legal to shoot an "unauthorized person person that is in your home...The law provides you the remedy and sanctions the use of deadly force".  The dispatcher told the frightened teen that he couldn't tell her what to do but that she should do "what you have to do to protect your baby".  The girl shot the intruder and scared off his accomplice who later turned himself into the police.  The gun-toting mother and her child were unharmed, saved by the grace of God, that and a little gunpowder.

    This story made this huntress extremely proud, especially because the attention this story has received has been nothing but supportive.  I expected droves of anti-gun-activists and the like to be driven out of their liberal hovels in order to illustrate ways the girl could have saved her life, without the use of firepower or lead.  One supposes that she could have simply asked her intruders to wait patiently by the door until the authorities got around to getting to her house.  She also could have asked politely for her attacker to pretty please put the knife down and scurry now, ya hear?  She could've put her life and the life of her child into the hands of nameless uniformed officers who would've gotten there just in time to see the assailants flee but she took her safety in her own hands.  As she stated to NBC, "there is nothing more dangerous than a woman with a child".

     After munching on a delicious assortment of ham, turkey, provolone, banana peppers (which are positively delicious, might I add) pickles, lettuce and a little spinach, I decided that a trip to the Family Dollar was necessary in order to procure items for a friend's birthday.  It is my own little tradition to create larger-than-life cards for loved one's days of birth.  These cards are always hand drawn, filled with glitter, and above all else, absurd to the point of insanity.  I paused briefly at the door while my fellow huntress, Lauren and her daughter pursued the shelf of discounted Christmas candy.  I read carefully through each of the signs on the door, looking for the tell-tale NO FIREARMS ALLOWED monicker.  Blessedly, the store didn't have such a sign so I waltzed right in.

    The counter girl, no more than seventeen glanced briefly at my holster before motioning towards the craft isle.  I smiled, thanked her for her help, and she smiled in return.  I gathered gigantic pieces of poster board, vibrant markers and glitter into my arms like a greedy 8-year old on Christmas morning.  We moved towards the checkout and as we chatted about the wedding dress I had found, I noticed a disturbance out of the corner of my eye.  Two youths, dressed entirely in black with raccoon-eye paint dashed across their lids were shuffling through the store, stuffing things into their oversize pockets.  They were making comments about those in the store and as they turned their gazes upon me, I felt their eyes dart to my hip.  When their eyes traveled back to the pistol's owner, they emptied their pockets and left. 

    I have never felt more safe or empowered in my entire life and I have Smith and Wesson to thank.