I'm not sure where I fall in this interesting and thought provoking discussion. I've been hunting since I was girl - usually got rabbit, deer, elk, pheasants and Milk Duds. I have no problem killing them and no problem eating them. (The game - the Milk Duds are dead when I open the box) I do go out of my way to make a fast killing shot and I'll pass up anything that I don't feel I've got every chance of bringing down cleanly. I've seen too many "hunters" take shots that were stupid at best - game too far out, or at the wrong angle, or trying to shoot them through brush that deflected shots. I don't want to have to chase down what I am hunting and shoot it again and again. You only have to hear a deer cry once to remember it for your whole life. And if we aren't going to eat it, we don't aim at it, period.]
I remember once, many years ago, when Ken and I were deer hunting along the river in South Dakota. We were cold, tired, and hungry, deerless, and our motel room in Bonesteel left a lot to be desired. So we cleaned up a little bit and then went to get a bite to eat at Fort Randall casino. Our waitress was slow, busy flirting with every young man in the place, and looked like she was barely out of puberty. After she opened her mouth I began to wonder if she was even out of diapers. She smiled at Ken and asked, "You've been hunting?"
Well. let's see....hat hair, fluorescent orange coveralls, boots....here's your sign! But Ken replied, "We've both been hunting pretty hard today and we're starving!"
She turned to me in shock. Then her expression changed to total disgust, like she's smelled something bad. (Truth be told it had been a long day so perhaps she did) "YOU were hunting too? Oh, I couldn't do what men do and go out hunting....how can you look into those big brown eyes and kill a deer?"
For that brief moment I was mesmerized by the fact that her eyes were brown and I didn't think I'd have too much trouble ....well, never mind. Anyway, I guess I was too tired and hungry to play games with her. I just looked back up at her and said as nicely as I could, "Sweetie, when I'm hunting I ain't aiming at his eyes."
I must have said it less nicely than I thought. She disappeared and another young lady came over to take care of our table. Ken said I'd sneered at Miss Bleeding Heart. Maybe I did. But it was hunting season and Fort Randall Casino is in the heart of some pretty productive hunting area.....it couldn't have been that she was unaware that almost every table in there was full of hunters. No, it was the fact that I was a woman and I hunted, so she felt some kind of God-ordained need to separate herself from the barbarian. Back then not as many women hunted as they do today and she was looking at me like I'd forsaken all things womanly.
My grandparents all lived in that corner where South Dakota, Iowa and Minnesota meet up. I knew what I was eating and I knew where it came from. Often I helped with the butchering. It's not that I don't feel anything when it happens...it's more like a sort of inevitability about it. There's a cycle to life and I'm just one little part of that cycle. Someday my spirit will leave my body and I'll feed the grasses and bugs that feed the chickens and cows and so it goes.....
