My Dad, Part I, Hunting

Growing up I thought my dad could do anything. He was a manly man, with many manly friends. They played poker and pinnocle and something called cribbage. They ate hearty manly food whenever they did this and drank a few brewskis. They played softball, and watched most sports on the TV, but especially football, baseball and basketball.


These men also gathered at our house before going on the annual hunting expedition for a deer or antelope. This expedition was planned well in advance with herd reports and weather reports and lists of food and drink and other things (like TP -- they learned to put that on the list when it was forgotten one year). Now the list for food was well planned by my dad, because he was the head cook. And he was a great cook. These men ate well on the hunting trail.


Then, off they'd go, with rifles, food, lots of orange clothing, drinks and cards (for playing poker, etc. in the Colorado Rockies).



A week or two later, they'd return, dirty and smelly and in a variety of moods. For reasons I will never comprehend, I would rush up to my dad, even though I knew what was going to take place next. Hugging your own smelly, dirty dad is one thing. Being rubbed on your babysoft face with his stubble that felt like a prickly pear cactus was endurable because I loved him. But then, all the guys got in on the action and by the time it was done, my face was red, raw and hurtin' from being rubbed by all those guys' stubble. My nose was assaulted and my clothing smelled like theirs -- really bad body odor mixed with campfire and possibly the blood and guts of a killed animal, which were now hanging in our carport or garage by their hind legs. For a prissy, girly girl this was almost unbearable. But I loved my dad, so it was ok.


You could always tell who had gotten an animal because of their mood... those who regaled us with stories of the hunt and eventual kill. Those who hadn't gotten a deer or antelope told stories as well, but they weren't as jubilantly shared.


And then, the "process" would begin. The process whereby an animal is prepared to go to the butchers. The animals had already been gutted in the mountains before bringing the animals to our place. For this I am eternally grateful. After hanging the animals by their hind feet from the rafters, the skinning would begin. The sound of this will forever ring in my ears. It's not a natural sound. But you could at least look at the animals with their skin on. Skinned they were ugly and smelly and exposed. The sounds of breaking bones, ball and joints being seperated, ribs being cracked open... those are things you just can't dismiss easily.



To think that from that came meat our families would eat... yuck! Of course, I never was one for enjoying a very gamey meat (and I've certainly tried many in my growing up years like snake, bear, quail, duck, antelope, deer, moose among others). But, I wonder if I couldn't seperate the meat before me from the sites and sounds that so impressed my mind with its yuckiness. No matter how good a cook my dad was, some things just do not lose their gamey flavor. You can hide it, you can provide more powerful tastes to compete, but it's still there.



My dad enjoyed hunting very much. He always told me that it was because he enjoyed being out in the mountains and being part of the nature that God created for us to enjoy. I believed him, because we went camping every weekend between Memorial Day and Labor Day as a family for many years. Dad was different up there in the mountains. You could see how much he enjoyed it.



Now he's in an assisted living facility as life slowly drains from him and he no longer can enjoy the mountains in person. It's difficult to watch a virile man become so helpless. It's difficult, too, that he confuses me with my mom, whose been dead for 7 and a half years.



Still, I love him and try to remember the better times.