Column: Huntin’ season

I used to hunt some, but living with Dolores took the fun out of that. She doesn’t really believe in shooting critters, and in my doting older age, neither do I.

Besides, the older I get, the heavier gets the gun.

I recall sitting at the top of a small cliff in western Maine, watching a half-dozen deer wander along in the woods below. It would be fun to shoot one, I thought, but it was even more fun just watching them wander past. Besides, it wasn’t hunting season, and I didn’t have my gun with me.

Besides, I enjoyed just watching them wander past my cliff. If I had shot them, they wouldn’t be able to wander past my cliff. They would have disappeared fast as they raced off deeper into yonder forest. Probably all of them would have raced off, because I wasn’t that good a shot anyway.

I recall half-racing along behind Jim and Clarence as we hunted in the woods along a dirt road west of Bethel. I never met a guy who could walk-race through the woods while carrying a rifle as Jim could. Clarence was going pretty fast too. I was bringing up the rear, not nearly as fast.

Another time while I was hunting, I was sitting at the edge of a hollow up on a wooded hill. Suddenly a shot rang out, and it wasn’t mine. Later I learned it had been a teenage whom I knew and whom I didn’t think was mad at me. At least not mad enough at me to shoot me. He ‘fessed up awhile later when I stopped at his parents’ house for a cup of after-hunting coffee. He hadn’t known I was sitting up there at the edge of that hollow.

What I know about hunting season these days is not to go into the woods during hunting season. It could be my last venture into those woods.

And I see far more deer when it’s not hunting season. And sometimes they stop to stare at me, and, seeing I have no gun and seeing it’s not hunting season, they either stare at me awhile longer or wander a bit deeper into the woods.

They don’t seem to be as afraid of me when I don’t have a gun.

Besides, the older I get, the heavier gets the gun.

It’s not that I’m getting old, just older than I was. Definitely older than I was when I carried that heavy gun around the woods.

Come to think about it, I don’t really know why I carried that heavy gun.

And, also come to think about it, which I didn’t then, was just how heavy that deer would have been to drag out of the woods.

Besides, I’d rather see a deer alive now days and walking away from me then falling dead because I shot it with that heavy gun.

A hunting we won’t go.

Milt Gross can be reached for corrections, harassment, or other purposes atlesstraveledway@roadrunner.com.

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