Conference vmsnet::hunting$note:hunting

203.0. "Putting Things in Perspective" by TSE::LEFEBVRE (Weather's here, wish you were fine) Wed Aug 31 1988 17:07

Copied without permission from Deer and Deer Hunting magazine...

		"When Maples Turn"

		by R. P. Schwalbach


	Autumn was fast approaching.  For a week now, the ground had been white
with frost each morning. The old man looked out the window at the sugar maple
in the backyard.  Its leaves were vibrant with color, a living flame, and all 
the maples in the neighborhood looked that way.
	Was it peak color, he wondered, or was that yesterday?  He asked him-
self that question every autumn, a little game of his, and he concluded that
it didn't matter.  Yes, the scarlet and golden banners were wonderful, but they
were only preliminary to a more important event.  Deer hunting.
	Still, it would be nice to get out and take a walk under the maples.  
He needed a few things from the drugstore and decided that would give his walk
some purpose.  He reached into the closet by the door and his gnarled hand 
touched his buffalo plaid coat.
	He hesitated, wanting to wear the old deer hunting coat, then he reached
further for something less conspicuous for a walk about the town, an old sport 
jacket.  As he put it on, he remembered that he hadn't shaved in a week. "It'll
take too long," he said to himself, "better use the daylight to travel."  An 
old woodsman's instinct.
	For a man of eighty years, he walked at a brisk pace.  "Lots of sixty-
five-year-olds couldn't keep up with me," he thought and grinned to himself.
It was true.  He had been a walker all of his life.  A grouse hunter and a 
deer tracker.  He lived to walk.
	He was marveling at the day, the brilliant maples against the blue sky,
when his joy in being out was diminished as a camouflage-painted truck zoomed
by him at a street corner.  The driver was a bearded young man, still wearing
his camouflage suit, and he did not even see the old man.  Several bumper stick-
ers proclaimed the sexual appeal of bow hunters and on the roof was the gro-
tesque body of a dead doe, her tongue hanging out. The man frowned. Advertising,
he thought.  We don't need it.
	He walked past the barber shop.  The coat rack by the door held several
blaze orange hunting coats.  More advertising.  Passing the cafe, he looked at
the counter.  Three men in camouflage suits, their faces still painted, were
leaned over their lunches.  He hoped they were minding their manners.

	All of this caused his day to deteriorate because something he loved
was at stake.  The dignity of the hunt.  He never wore hunting clothes in
common places and he would not talk about hunting with strangers or casual
acquaintances.  He never publicly displayed his kills.  He believed that a
man's game bag was sacred, and that the game should be cleaned and put on
ice before it was ever transported in a car.  He felt a man owed it to the 
game and the future of the sport.
	He was still feeling bad when he entered the drug store.  He shopped
quickly, without even saying "hi" to come people he knew.  Nobody seemed to
pay him any attention and he preferred it that way.  Then, as he stepped up to
the counter and the clerk behind the cash register remarked, "Growing your
deer hunting bear, eh?"
	He was shocked, and before he had time to think of a reply, a woman 
with a three-year-old child in tow bemoaned, "You're going to kill Bambi?!"
A well-groomed young man in a business suit behind her did not assist him 
either in saying, "I didn't know there were many deer left around here."
	The old man did not like confrontations.  Normally, he would have 
said nothing, because experience taught him you cannot reason with most
people, especially rude people.  But this time, he felt he needed to try.
	He felt he needed to try and right the terrible wrongs that had just
been uttered.  He felt he owed it to himself and his kind.  Silently, taking
his time, he figured his odds.  Three to one.  And then he remembered how his
parents had taught him to deal with people that may not like you.  He smiled.
And it was no forced smile, but a genuine smile of one who is sure of himself.

	"You know," the man gently began, "Bambi is a wonderful book.  I read
it every year, in fact, about this time."  He held the three adults and the 
child firmly in his gaze, and he was truly surprised, yet encouraged, to see
them intent on listening, as if they had just heard music for the first time
in their lives.
	He continued, "What I like best about Bambi are the luscious descrip-
tions of the glade and the meadow where Bambi played and lived.  As I read how
Bambi played with Gobo and Feline, I can just see the deer that play in front
of my cabin on summer evenings.  Deer really do play with each other, you know,
I've seen them.
	"But there are some things I don't like about Bambi.  One is how the 
deer refer to themselves and to other animals and plants as 'people.'  That is
not how things really are.  You and I are people, animals are creatures.  Yes,
they are wonderful creations of God, but not *people*."
	Amazingly, the three adults stood without answering, and the old man
felt that more could be said and understood.  He had more to say.
	"The author of Bambi mixes fact with fiction.  On the one hand, 
animals kill each other in the book.  A crow kills a sick, young rabbit.  A 
ferret kills a squirrel.  A fox eats a pheasant.  These things are true; they
really happen.
	"On the other hand, the author writes about men with guns moving through
the forest shooting at everything they see.  Birds, fox, deer, they shoot in-
discrimanately as if it were war.  This is pure fiction.

	"I am a hunter.  When I go deer hunting, I hunt for one deer.  I put
one shell in my gun or hunt with a bow and arrow.  When I hunt grouse, I hunt
only grouse.  If I see other game, I am thrilled, but I do not shoot.
	"Furthermore, when I have killed something, I treat it with dignity,
unlike some of the so-called hunters you see in this town who tie dead deer on
their cars and parade down the street.  I never expose dead animals to those
who might be offended."
	The old man was intense, maybe too intense for the moment, he thought,
and he forced himself to pause and be gentle.
	"The amazing part of Bambi," he continued in a soft voice, "which no-
body ever mentions is Gobo, the buck that was Bambi's playmate as a fawn.  Weak
from running, Gobo fell into the snow and was captured by man.  Gobo was fed
hay and kept in a warm barn his first winter.  He became a pet.
	"Then Gobo escaped the next year and returned to the forest.  When he
told the other deer how wonderful 'He' been treated him, the other deer were
not envious at all.  In fact, they pitied Gobo, because he had forgotten the 
skills to survive the winter in the woods and how to escape danger.  Later,
Gobo was killed by a hunter, while a wilder, smarter deer got away.

	"Do you know that this is one of the most important themes of the 
book?" the old man asked.  He saw surprise in their eyes and continued. "It
is very simple.  A wild animal is better off when it is strong, wild, and
free.  By hunting, we insure that those deer who do survive are the strongest,
the wildest, and the best able to carry on the genes!"
	As the old man paused, the young woman spoke to him, "You mean that 
you actually *do* care about animals then?"
	He smiled at here and answered, "Yes, I love wild things.  I kill one
deer so that others will live.  There is no meanness in my heart.  Most of the 
time I feel a little sad when I kill an animal, but I *understand* what hunting
means.  It is unfair for those who don't to question our motives."
	"And there are plenty of deer left to hunt?" the young man asked him.
	"Plenty of deer *left*?!  There are actually *more* deer now in this
country than ever before - thanks to conservation-minded sportsmen!" he joy-
fully replied.
	"By the way," the old man continued, "a good friend of mine who loved
deer just died.  His name is Jake Day.  Maybe you've heard of him.  He's the
guy who animated Bambi for Walt Disney way back in the 1930s.  Might surprise
some of you folks to know that Jake was an avid sportsman.  He hunted deer 
every year with a bunch of guys up at Cherryfield.  Jake's son is a deadeye
shot.  Jake himself was actually more interested in photography and just being
outside, but he hunted too.  Ate fish and venison right along side us.  Think
about that next time you go see the show."
	The congregation observed a moment of silence and the old man handed
his money to the clerk.  When he turned, clutching a small brown bag, the 
young woman  with the child spoke to him.  "Sir, I think there are more who
should hear this."
	He looked at her, and at the others, and replied, "When you meet them,
tell them."  He had nothing else to say and felt his normal shyness returning.
Looking down at his feet, he walked quietly toward the door.
	Once outside, he looked up and saw the maple trees.  They were gorg-
eous.  It was a lovely day.

        I think this story tells alot to the avid hunter. It
    sounds like this old timer respects the wildlife as we all
      should.     
                        Excellent story..........
    
                                                     j
                        

    Excellent, thanks. Saw it over on soapbox (314) but don't think
    that that it would make any difference to some folks there.
    I will add an entry here that I heard on Paul Harvey if I can find
    it...
    
    Dick

    ....recalled from memory as best I can, a poem that Paul Harvey
    once read on the air...
    
    
    
    
    	And on the eighth day, God looked down on his planned
paradise and said "I need a caretaker".
	God said "I need somebody willing to get up before dawn,
milk cows, work all day in the fields, milk cows again, eat 
supper -- and then go to town and stay past midnight at a
meeting of the town school board".
	"I need somebody with arms strong enough to wrestle a
calf yet gentle enough to deliver his own grandchild..."
	"Somebody to call hogs, tame cantankerous machinery,
come home hungry and have to wait lunch until his wife's
done feeding visiting ladies -- then tell the ladies to be
sure and come back real soon -- and mean it".
	God said, "I need somebody willing to sit up all night
with a newborn colt and watch it die and then dry his eyes
and say, 'maybe next year'..."
	God said, "I need somebody who can shape an ax handle
from a persimmon sprout and shoe a horse with a hunk of car
tire...
	Who can make harness out of hay wire, feed sacks and
shoe scraps...
	Who, planting time and harvest season , will finish his
40 hour week by Tuesday noon. Then, paining from tractor
back, put in another 72".
	God had to have somebody willing to ride the ruts at
double-speed to get the hay in ahead of the rain clouds and
yet stop in mid-field and race to help when he sees the first
smoke from a neighbor's place.
	God said, "I need somebody strong enough to clear trees
and heave bales...
	And, yet, gentle enough to yean lambs and wean pigs and
tend the pink-combed pullets...
	And who will stop his mower for an hour to splint the 
broken leg of a meadow lark".
	It had to be somebody who'd plow deep and straight and
not cut corners...somebody to seed, weed, feed, breed and 
rake and disk and plow and plant and tie the fleece and
strain the milk and replenish the self-feeder...and finish
a hard week's work with a 5 mile drive to church.
	Somebody who'd bale a family together with the soft
strong bonds of sharing...
	Who would laugh...and then sigh...and then reply
with smiling eyes...
	When his son says he wants to spend his life doing what
dad does...


	So -- God made a farmer