Tag Archives: rabbit hunting

Bullet

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Bullet: (n) a projectile for firing from a gun

I was thirteen years old and my dad placed a rifle in my hands.

He explained that it was a small gun. I think it was a .22. He had promised to take me out on one of his rabbit-hunting trips.

I was thrilled.

I was especially pumped up when I was allowed to go out for target practice, to shoot some cans–or at least, attempt to do so.

He loaded the rifle, told me how to hold it and laughed a little bit when I was surprised with the kick-back.

When the day of the hunting trip arrived, my dad asked me to load my own rifle. I had watched him do it. But now it was in my hand.

For about a minute, I did nothing but finger the bullet, roll it around in my hand and stare at it. It was not huge, but it was very hard and scary. I put it into the chamber, heard the click, loaded another one and another one.

All at once I realized that these pieces of metal were going to be fired at an extraordinary rate of speed, toward a living creature. It wasn’t that I was against the idea of hunting rabbits or eating them.

Suddenly it was just about the bullet.

So when we arrived in the field and scared up a few rabbits, my older brother shot one. There was a big cheer. We all ran over to the location and I looked down at the ball of fur laying in the grass. It didn’t look real. Certainly did not look alive.

My dad showed me what a good marksman my older brother was because he had struck the rabbit in the head.

I gazed at the wound. Dark red–sticky, with blackened fringes where the impact had exploded the bunny brain.

I was taken aback.

  • It didn’t make me anti-gun.
  • It didn’t make me anti-hunting.
  • It didn’t make me against “the right to bear arms.”

It just made me damn aware of what a bullet can do to anything living.

 

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Boat

Boat: (n) a small vessel propelled on water

Dictionary B　My dad liked to hunt and fish.

He was not a “manly man,” but discovered his inner macho with rod, reel and rifle.

My older brothers quickly learned that the best way to curry his favor or spend any time with him at all was to join him on one of these expeditions to seek out game.

I wanted to. He placed a rifle in my hand and set up some targets. I shot it and knocked over a few cans, so he felt confident to take me rabbit hunting.

Do you know how fast rabbits run?

I do.

Every time he set me up with a shot to kill a bunny, I would miserably miss, failing to anticipate the hair-brained escape pattern of the hare.

Fishing was much the same. At first I was a little frightened to put the worm on the hook–and then an additional problem came into the mix. Because I was a fat boy, the little boat my dad was able to afford did not sit well in the water when I sat on the seat. Matter of fact, I came near to sinking us with my “weighty matter.”

The motor didn’t work as well, and my dad wanted to scream at me about my blubber, but restrained himself so as to maintain a few vestiges of fatherhood.

What eventually transpired was that my dad made it a secret when he was going fishing or hunting, and I would never find out until he was long gone and my mother confessed his plans.

So there is a part of me that wishes my dad had been alive when the movie “Jaws” came out.

You remember the line, right?

“We need a bigger boat.”

 

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