When geese fly overhead the sound is of departure.
When deer emerge from thickets they wear coats of secrecy.
For weeks the talk in middle high was of Hunting Season.
You going?
Some already had a license, had an orange coat, new boots.
Others were lingering on the edge of father’s sight,
hungry for another story, an uncle’s grin at “hunting camp”.
Soon a drive through the country meant to see deer hanging
from trees in the yard, antlers up so you could see them.
And guns.
Consider the caliber carefully, based upon the stories we
had heard or the preferences of our fathers.
Whole generations believed in the 30-06, while
Winchester marketed the 30-30.
I had heard that 30-30 could plow better through brush, and
the places I hunted were hairy with twigs and branch.
30-06 had range and carry. There was talk of 243 but I had not seen one.
When you are twelve years old this matters.
They were tools, blued steel rods lain against walnut or maple.
Lovely and deliberate as a drawer pull by Greene and Greene.
Imagine Stickley rifles or Craftsman designed pistols.
Magazines told us to favor the bolt action as marksmen. Articles
on a thousand-yard shots, ballistics and carry. Ads were for
home defense pistols, dark limbed semi-automatics.
Other articles were about hunting in Africa,
the mountains, or Great Plains. In the background there
were often rugged Land Rovers, jeeps or smiling guides.
Rarely women. To a twelve year old this also matters.
Memory is a magical thing. A scent of autumn, the
crunch of leaves and you travel through time.
You remember and you catalog the details. Do you
recall accurately? Is that how it was?
To men my age this matters.
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