Time travel is impossible, you say?
Literally, yes. Figuratively, no.
I was walking the dog recently when a turn at the end of the sidewalk took me back decades.
The turn led from the neighborhood’s manicured lawns to a stretch of unpaved ground dotted with hundreds of cottonwood leaves. It was the leaves, or rather their earthy fragrance, that did it. In an instant, I was a teenager again, hunting with my two best friends among the autumn colors along the Boise River.
It’s fair to say that not only was I not cut out to be a hunter, but was something of a menace to anyone within shooting range. Often as not, this was Howard Snyder, the mentor to most of the kids in our neighborhood when it came to hunting, fishing, virtually anything outdoors related.
It was Howard who taught me how to hunt with a dog, lead a bird on the wing and other aspects of wild game hunting. All but one of the birds we bagged, however, were due to his expertise rather than anything I managed to do.
The exception was a blue grouse. We were hunting in the mountains overlooking Boise. Howard told me to walk along a road while he flushed the birds from a hillside above the road. Unprepared for the sudden explosion of wings when that happened, I fired on impulse straight up. Miraculously, a plump grouse landed at my feet.
“Nice shot, Tim!” Howard shouted.
I never told him that my eyes were tightly closed.
We were pheasant hunting one day when our friendship was tested. He was on one side of a brushy thicket, I was on the other. When something suddenly moved in the brush, I blasted away.
And narrowly missed hitting the “something,” his prize hunting dog.
One morning we were duck hunting from his boat on Lake Lowell when, due to an appalling lack of restraint or common sense on my part, tragedy almost struck. We’d been shivering in the boat forever without seeing any ducks when a flock of them flew right over us. I stood and fired, right over Howard’s head. If he’d stood up a second sooner …
It was a long ride home that day.
You’d think that hunting with a seasoned marksman like Howard would have instilled, if nothing else, a passion for hunting safely.
You’d be wrong.
My other companions were the aforementioned best friends, John and Justin. The three of us bonded over a shared interest in music. We were three-fourths of a rock group that had enjoyed a fair amount of success. Our success as hunters, however, was non-existent.
John was the only one with a vehicle suitable for hunting, an old pickup truck that belonged to his stepfather. He wasn’t allowed to take it to Lake Lowell or other destinations more than a few miles from town so our excursions were limited to the banks of the Boise River on the outskirts of town.
It’s funny how you see ducks when you aren’t hunting for them. You see them flying overhead when you’re driving. You see them swimming on the a lake or a river when you’re out for leisurely walk. But we rarely if ever saw any within range when we were hunting for them.
Part of his may have been due to our lack of preparation or anything resembling stealth. If it occurred to us to make a duck blind, we failed to do so. Too little knowhow, too much work. Instead, we trudged along the river banks – talking, crashing through brush and otherwise making a racket that would have frightened away any self-respecting duck within a hundred yards.
Then, one fateful morning, we spotted one.
Or thought we did.
“Look, there’s one!”
“Where?”
“Up in that tree.”
Sure enough, a bird was perched on one of its branches. Mallard ducks rarely do this, a fact of which we were blithely ignorant.
We blasted away.
It may have been the only time we ever hit anything. The bird fell from the branch, landing in some tall grass. We all but fell over one another racing to retrieve it and decide which of us would be the lucky one who took it home for dinner.
It wasn’t a duck. It was a golden eagle.
It wasn’t dead yet. If I live to be a hundred, I’ll never forget that fierce, beautiful bird glaring at us as if to say we had committed an unpardonable sin. We had to shoot it again to end its suffering.
I haven’t hunted since.
These days I’m content to walk the dog, smell the autumn leaves and enjoy the fall colors.
No preparations are needed.
It doesn’t cost anything.
And nobody gets shot.
***
Has there ever been an election with so many pre-election questionnaires and requests for donations?
“What do you think of your postal worker?”
“Do you think Covid shots should be free?”
“Please verify your party affiliation by 11:59 p.m.”
“What Democrats would you like to see run for president.”
“This is the last time we’ll beg you for just $5.”
“Our hearts are breaking.”
“We’re crying tears of joy.”
I’m crying tears of joy that the election is over.
Tim Woodward’s column appears every other Sunday in The Idaho Press and is posted on woodwardblog.com the following Mondays. Contact him at woodwardcolumn@gmail.com.
