They Hunt!

A few years ago, a relative of mine was visiting his sister in a Midwestern college town. The sister and her husband have done well. They have two lovely children and are in the upper middle class. The husband is an entrepreneur and a developer. The sister and kids are athletic.

My relative is an accomplished woodsman, hunter, and shooter. He is not above a play on words or a practical joke.  He shares an opinion with Thomas Jefferson. Ball games do not impress him. He followed Jefferson’s advise on exercise:

“…I advise the gun. While this gives a moderate exercise to the body, it gives boldness, enterprize, and independance to the mind. Games played with the ball and others of that nature, are too violent for the body and stamp no character on the mind. Let your gun therefore be the constant companion of your walks.”1

He taught his children how to shoot at an early age. Their home is on the edge of semi-wilderness. Bears in the yard are not uncommon. The garden has to be protected from deer and rabbits. Wolves roam nearby.

He accompanied his sister to a local soccer practice. The kids were playing and the half dozen other soccer moms were in conversation.

One of them attempted to include the brother. She asked if he had children. He said he did.

How many? A boy and a girl.

She politely asked: Do your kids play soccer?

No, he said, they don’t play soccer.

Do they play basketball?

No, they don’t play basketball?

Do they play baseball?

No, he said, they don’t play baseball.

By this time the other soccer moms were interested and were listening intently to the exchange.

The questioner asked, finally, What do your kids do?

The brother said, nonchalantly, deadpan, with a slight shrug, as if it were of no particular interest:

“They kill stuff.”

Six jaws dropped toward the floor. The sister, with only the slightest of hesitations, exclaimed:  They’re hunters!  They hunt!

The sister’s children are also accomplished hunters. Her husband hunts as well.

Part of hunting is killing. Killing used to be an understood necessity. All of society understood the necessity a hundred years, or even sixty years ago.

I told an 88-year-old friend, who tends liberal, and who lives in the same mid-western college town, of the exchange, which happened more than a decade ago.

She burst out laughing. We discussed it. She said she found it to be hilarious.

As a retired nurse, she understood the realities of life and death well. Her husband had been a hunter, a soldier, a musician, had a B.A. in music, and had stopped just short of an M.A. in music to be a professional meat cutter. It paid
better.

The older generation had a better understanding of basic realities.

©2018 by Dean Weingarten: Permission to share is granted when this notice and link are included.

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