I’M IN TEXAS BUT I DIDN’T HAVE TO KILL MY DINNER

Texans have a stereotype. We hunt. We eat venison a lot. Partly true for some. But, hunting is keeping a tradition alive for many. Me included. I only hunt dove. September 1 thru October. Then I’m done.

The hunting experience shouldn’t be discarded as tasteless and conducive to gun violence. When I was old enough, my father gave me a Remington 1100. 12 gauge semiautomatic, gas recoil. I had hunted with him and my uncle and grandfather before. But, at 16 I was old enough to wander off by myself.

That’s when I first experienced it. When you get deep enough into the fields or the woods that there aren’t any signs or sounds of civilization. There is only you. The silence. It’s eerie. But, you have a 12 gauge in your hands. It’s empowering. You’re omnipotent. You wouldn’t really be scared unarmed, but now you are fearless.

Rabid raccoon, bring it on. Escaped mental patient with a dangling, bloody handcuff and a meat cleaver. Come get ya some. When you fire, even the insects stop making noise for a little bit.
That feeling of omnipotence, of power can be harnessed. If I ever needed to show no fear. I just imagined that I had that 12 gauge in my hands. A board room, school yard, or in your front yard.
The actual eating of something you killed with a gun brings a certain satisfaction. Your niche in the food chain clearly defined. You are a predator.
I remember a life lesson I taught to my son and one of his friends when they were about ten years old. I had gone hunting with my friends and came back wearing cammo, gun over my shoulder bearing my limit in dove.
They were wide-eyed. I asked them.
“Would you like to see how I clean them?”
They nodded and followed me through the back yard to the alley. I set up the water hose in the chain link fence with a steady stream. I had a trash bucket and a bucket of salt water for the breasts. I grinned at them. They had no idea what was coming.
You only eat the breast. So I stuck my thumb under the breast bone and ripped the bird in half with my bare hands. Then I pulled the skin off the breast and rinsed it off. It went into the salt water the rest went into the trash.
They looked at me like I was Satan walking the earth.
I delivered the lesson.
“Those chicken nuggets you eat. Somebody killed a bird to make them. They pulled its’ feathers off and it looked just like that. Only bigger. That hamburger meat you see in packages. Somebody had to kill a cow for you to have it. If you eat meat, something died to feed you. Remember that.
My own son wouldn’t talk to me for days. But, he didn’t turn vegetarian or anything.

James Monkres

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