First Hunt

A humorous memoir on a first time hunting experience set in Western Pennsylvania.

First Hunt

A long time ago ... back when we were a great country, it was fall of 1994. We were either in the process of or had just moved from Tidewater Virginia to a shore duty post in Central Florida after my father had made Chief in the US Navy. The U.S. Navy still taught Nuclear Power A school in Orlando at this time but was going to shut the base down while my father finished teaching the last few cohorts there. I was about eleven years old. The two big ones. As a size "husky" even when I was eight, my Dad had decided in his inestimable wisdom to teach me how to run the lawn mower for while he had been out to sea, but now, my parents had finally agreed that being eleven also enable me to go with my Dad deer hunting for the first time while we were back up home in Western Pennsylvania.

My step grandfather Lou had given us some land near his own seemingly limitless supply of local acres of forest land near Brookville Pennsylvania. We would be up home in any case in nearby DuBois for Thanksgiving for about a week or so which meant I would be able to accompany Dad to post and then hunt the property for at least the opening day of regular firearms season, a sacred and holy holiday in Western Pennsylvania that remains so.

We stayed for most of the time at my maternal grandparents' house in DuBois Pennsylvania just east of Brookville off interstate 80. The day before the holiest of days, Opening Day of Regular Firearms Season, we drove west on Interstate 80 to Brookville and drove into town in the quiet of the morning. My father's mother and stepfather Lou lived part of the year at that time in an apartment above the furniture store in town. I cannot remember the name of the store, but the furniture store in question owned the showroom floor, the mezzanine above it, and my step grandfather had somehow procured the entire apartment suite above the mezzanine. The main grand stairway up through the stories of the building also let off to a law office in the building on the second landing of the stairway, so my grandparents must have had the absolute top floor mostly to themselves. There was a service elevator in the back of the building where the gravel lot was. We parked here, and for some reason I cannot now recall, my step grandfather happened to be there to let us up in the service elevator.

The service elevator was new to me, as I had not known that my grandparents had access to such a conveyance. We had always taken the grand staircase from the sidewalk out front before. (This staircase may have just seemed "grand" to my little kid imagination: dark green carpeting with gold trim pieces bordering what seemed to have also been even darker walls, small gold light sconces with those old fashioned wide lampshades from the 30's... basically 1932 in stairs) The service elevator, thinking back now, seemed like a shady and poorly maintained contraption with metal grates and bars, the kind of thing the mafia would have used to lug victims and their bodies up and down the floors of their headquarters. The building itself must have been built in the 20's or 30's. Whenever I think about Lou manning the controls of that elevator, I also can imagine Tom, Dick, and Harry there in zoot suits and semiautomatic shoulder holsters holding some loser they've just beat up.

The elevator stops at the mezzanine, which is dark and filled from one end to the other in furniture of various types covered with dust sheets waiting to be sold below. They look like furniture ghosts in the dark. We walked briskly across the mezzanine and entered a small stairway that opens up to a sort of mud room at the back of my step grandfather's huge living room/dining room/office combo room. It was the main room of the apartment. It was huge and thickly carpeted in some kind of luxurious shag in a vague orange-brown coloring that remains indescribable. The mudroom, however, was also somewhat new to me in a way. I knew it existed for a couple of years but hadn't been in it before. The mud room's contents that early morning were mostly unremarkable save for two glaring features: 1. The pile of used hunting gear piled up on the plywood floor: hats, boots, gloves, more boots, bandoliers, gun cases, blaze orange vests, hats, gloves, boots, coats, and more boots. 2. There was a huge coffin against the wall of the mud room. Probably for Tom, Dick, and Harry to use after they wasted someone.

Obviously the presence of the coffin there left quite an impression on me as a kid. A number of thoughts and fears zoomed through my core as I pretended to pay attention to my Dad and Lou leafing through the pile of hunting gear: 1. Was grandpa about to die??? 2. Was I about to die?? 3. Should I go hunting after all?? 4. Well, this is Western Pennsylvania, where else would people keep their coffins until use?? 5. Why was the coffin so big? Obviously now, the coffin belonged to the furniture store and was waiting to be delivered, and it's very likely that Lou, wanting to maintain a good relationship with the furniture store as a neighbor, let them stash it as near the service elevator as they could get it which was in his mud room.

"Hey, make sure you pick out some good boots for yourself," my father said, snapping my attention back to reality from the coffin and ghost furniture.

If I had a dollar for every time my Dad has said "Hey make sure you ..." in front of something I'd be a rich man today. Someday I know I'll miss it, so I let him say even now while I can still hear him say it. Of course, that morning I made a poor selection in boots, which seemed more like rain boots than actual hunting boots. I remember distinctly that they had zero tread, which would haunt my first hunting experience very shortly, but also helped to make this particular story. I also nabbed a huge blaze orange vest that I still use to this day, which was once Lou's safety shooting vest, the only thing I have of his left to me, and a blaze orange knit cap that was way too big.

My father then snapped open the two front oversized chest pockets that were common on 90's kids padded winter coats back then and promptly filled them to their brims with handfuls of 12-gauge magnum game load shotgun shells.

"Don't let these smack into the ends of each other or they might go off." "See this little primer here in the brass, that's where the firing pin hits to set them off."

For the rest of the day, I would walk around with my arms held up and off of my sides and very very carefully take each step I took so as not to jolt the pounds of ammunition next to my beating heart. KABOOOM!

We then left the mud room in our new used gear, said goodbye to Lou, and went out into the gravel parking lot. We drove further into town to the hardware store. My Dad got out of the van and took the Harrington and Richardson single shot 12 gauge out of the van and handed it to me with the chamber open. I balked. Were we going to walk around town .. in broad daylight .. with .. a gun??

My Dad looks down at me and says, "Here, we can't leave this in the car here. Hold on to it while I grab some posting signs and nails."

Me: "Are we allowed to walk around the street with this gun?"

My Dad stopped and looked at me, as we stood out in the street in the West Pennsylvania sunshine in downtown Brookville.

"Christopher," he said, "every single person around you has a gun, owns a gun, or owns multiple guns, or is carrying a gun, or has a gun in their vehicle right now at this time of year. That's why the Brookville bank has never ever been robbed. And .. if some idiot fool were to try, you would suddenly be aware that everyone around you has a gun." "That idiot would never make it out of Brookville alive." "So yes, we're allowed to walk around here with this gun." "Wait here on the sidewalk with it."

So, for about eight whole minutes I held a shot gun, on the sidewalk, of a city street, while my coat pockets were full of ammunition, while my Dad bought some posting signs. No one said anything. No one batted an eye. I was in shock. We would NEVER have done this in central Florida, or Virginia, or upstate New York, or .. at least it seemed like we wouldn't have. I then trotted along behind him with the gun as we hopped back into the van and drove out of town to the countryside beyond.

At the property, I think I still carried the gun around, like a golf caddy carries around a golfer's equipment. My Dad wielded the hammer and nails and posted several signs along the edge of the property along the gravel road on trees facing the roadside. Every ten feet or so we would stop and nail up a bold yellow placard declaring: POSTED. Private Property. No Hunting, Fishing, Trapping, or Trespassing. Violators Will Be Prosecuted. There was a line underneath for you to squiggle your name on it if you wanted. We squiggled a few lines with a sharpie, but quickly tired of that and left most of the signs as they were. We then trekked up into the woods.

The property Lou had given us wasn't very large, but to a little boy, it seemed huge. Dad took me to the little creek and showed me some spaces where we could build a house (which we would never do), then a hill from which he wanted me to bury him or some such (which we never will) and then the field that adjoined the meadow where we could someday hunt rabbits (which we would never do either). I have tried hard to forget all of this portion of that particular day, as I knew even then, in my heart-of-hearts, that it was all nonsense. We never were going to build houses or bury our family or even go back there ever again.

It was a dream, and sometimes that place still enters my dreams at night, with him there, we sit on a fallen trunk, or stumps, and wait in the quiet together, and watch as the biggest deer, elk, moose, dinosaurs, giraffes, and giant ostriches, and other fanciful creatures stalk the woods, and then we raise our weapons, and BAM, immediately, instead of firing, the barrels droop like in a cartoon, and nothing happens that should, the huge record animals flee, Dad magically disappears, I'm alone, not a kid anymore, not even a young man, but old, and the woods suddenly seems unfamiliar, dark, deep, and strange. My dream self feels sort of lost and tired as everything morphs around me and changes. I try to make my way .. back? To the vehicle? The road? The creek? The meadow? I'm not sure which or what. My dream self finds that some others have encroached on the land. There are houses, and signs, fences, and whole neighborhoods, and buildings and businesses now where there shouldn't be, where I don't want them to be. The woods shrink and I'm suddenly surrounded by people going about their normal post-modernist dupe activities. They're texting on their phones or have ear buds in their heads. They have man buns, jogging shorts, and leggings on now, and those watches that everyone can text on and read their heart rate with. They look at me in bewilderment, with my blaze-orange knit cap, camouflage winter hunting coat and insulated camo overalls, the clear plastic license holder hanging off my right coat sleeve, the stupid droop barreled gun with the obsolete wooden stock, now useless. They laugh or stare at my bewildered face and sip their lattes. I wake up.

None of that happened that day. That night, later on, I probably had good dreams. The next day was Thanksgiving anyway. The Monday morning after the holiday, early and in the dark I was awakened again, probably closer to 4 am this time. Nowadays this day is used by people to shop online, but back when were a great country, people used it to kill stuff and eat it. That's what we were about to do, and for me it would be the very first time. I was groggy of course, since it had been a few days since I had last gotten up early. The shotgun was replaced with the .30 06 rifle my mother had bought my Dad about a decade ago and my front caddy pockets were now filled with spare rifle cartridges.

We drove in the dark to the property, but the very first glimmers of daylight were now peeping over the trees behind us as we got out of the van. It's usually cold that time of year in early morning in Western Pennsylvania, but whether because I was so young, or so well clothed, or pumping adrenaline, or a mixture of all of that, I cannot say, I do not remember that being a cold morning. Perhaps it was. There was no snow, or very little that had been already on the ground here and there. That didn't matter very much as the treadless boots now seemed to work against me. I slipped and slid along behind, arms out for balance and to keep from exploding. Although Dad had never said anything about these cartridges doing the same thing as the shells would.

The woods slowly woke up, but very quietly, as the light touched each and every now bare tree twig, and limb. There was no wind or breeze by then that I can recall either. No sound, except us barely crunching the fallen leaves on the forest floor. We moved slowly in my father's trademark beginning of hunt stalk pattern. It covers an incredibly short amount of space in what feels like an eternity. It is also only employed at the very beginning of a hunt and afterward is dropped as a method of movement for the remainder of the day. This has always amused me, even to this day. To perform it you take a few very slow and careful steps from heel to toe and then alternate the procedure with the other foot to take a full and complete step, and then you stop and listen while trying to not fall down. Heel to toes, toes to heel, heel to toes, toes to heel, heel to toes, then stop. Swaaayy. Then Listen. Then repeat. Look around everywhere while you listen.

We were suddenly startled by the departure from the shadows ahead of another human form along the logging road we were maneuvering upon. Both parties stopped and regarded each other in the dawn twilight. He was of average height, stooped a little, also armed, and bearded and, in my memory, had a dim miner's light on his head. He was and certainly looked much older than my Dad then, having been gnarled and made wiry by his chosen way of life. We stood awkwardly and eyed each other, since it seemed to my mind that he wasn't supposed to be there .. but my father seemed to know who he was, and after an exchange of pleasantries whispered we all went on our way. As would be usual from then on out my father and I didn't use his trademark stalk the whole rest of the day.

We eventually began to parallel a small trickle creek that ran through the middle of the property and nearly cut it in half. It cut a small low valley near the house spot that was never to be. We posted ourselves in some blow downs on a couple of stumps left behind from when Lou had last logged the place. We sat and watched the creek. The sun warmed our backs and necks. Time drug on or so it seemed. I looked down. Some ants stumbled around in the cold. A spider flitted by my boots. Moss grew on the stump. The steam of my breath grew less noticeable in the growing light. In spite of my great and best effort at avoiding it .. I slowly became .. bored.

I tried hard not to be, but I'm just there to sit and caddy for now. I'm not the one with the rifle. I absent mindedly picked up some twigs. I have no idea why really. I snapped one in half .. pop. Dad stiffens and jerks forward in his seated position on the stump. I also jerk forward and peer intently at the creek.

Nothing. I realize the sudden absence of boredom had arisen from the pop of the busted twig. To make sure .. I test it again .. pop.

Dad jerks again and this time twirls around to see all around himself. I stupidly repeat the procedure .. pop. He looks at me. I grin like an idiot. "Knock it off he hisses." I drop every twig I still possess including some I was not aware of and spin back around to face the creek. Then .. after several minutes, a small shape walking warily on all fours comes over the creek valley rise opposite us on the far side of the creek. She looks about herself very cautiously, and noiselessly, seemed to float on her feet toward the creek where she stops and drinks. She looks up. Behind her .. another form .. on all fours also materializes silently from the exact same spot she had first manifested to us.

This second form is a little taller, bigger, and the shadow of branched antlers protrudes from either side of its head. He, like her, seemed to float rather than canter down the side of the valley wall to the creek, but some way to her left. They are both obviously aware of each other, but they are oblivious to our presence a hundred yards or so across from them. My Dad very slowly rises from the stump and motions with his left hand for me to stay seated. He places his left hand on the trunk of the tree in front of him with his thumb extended out from side of the trunk. He swings the rifle stock up with his right hand and wrist and rests the fore stock on the outstretched thumb so that the barrel of the rifle points to the buck about a hundred yards in front of us. The safety catch is slid out of place with a soft click. Nothing moves. Both deer drink and look up, drink and look up. We wait until they seem to have drunk their fill. The doe starts to move away. The buck looks up. I look at his face, full in the sunlight that has now more than fully dawned as the morning has waned. CRAAACKK! The buck still stands, and now, even looks straight at us, but is still, so is the doe now separate from him several yards away. Dad works the bolt and chambers the next round, he has the distance, and that first shot has shocked everything into silent stillness. CRAAACKK! The buck jolts and goes down. The doe vanishes, and the white of her tail flashes in the light as she bounds away. The crash of her rush through the forest dies down quickly and there's a new silence. The rifle barrel sways a little, very slowly, back and forth, from left to right. Birds start to chirp again. The woods return to normal. My Dad motions to me to follow, a tear on his cheek. We cross the creek with a woodsman's creek jump, another skill learned that day, like the stalk, and arrive at the buck laid out in peace as if asleep on the fallen leaves. A very few very small flecks of snow fall around us as we regard him and count his six antler points. The snow doesn't last very long, just a few passing flakes in the pale but strengthening Western Pennsylvania sunshine of late morning, flakes that melted as soon as they landed.