Coursing
When I was seven I got to take archery lessons at the YMCA. We stood in a long row of tiny children shooting at bright red, yellow, and blue targets with blue carpeting hung in back to catch the misses. I got my first Daisy pump action BB gun on the eighth Christmas, and a gas powered pellet gun the next. My father got me a Remington semi-automatic .22 with a telescopic sight from a pawn shop when I was ten that I still have. The first time I fired a shotgun at twelve was very exciting. It didn’t knock me over or anything.
During this time I read Field & Stream and Robert Ruark books. Like with Robert, bird hunting was it. I knew all about flu-flu arrows and what shot was used for ducks and geese and all the rest. As a teenager walking down the street with a gun at the edge of Sparks to shoot up by Joe Conforte’s walled compound caused no great commotion at all. Joe ran the famous Mustang Bridge Ranch cathouse and lived in a fortress up above Sparks on the road to Sun Valley with yellow lamps around the top of the 8-foot brick wall. About all that happened was one time we got stopped by a drunken Indian who had pulled his jeep over under some cottonwood trees with his friends because they were too drunk to drive and the sheriff might catch them. The soberest one asked us if we could drive and would we go get them some booze. A few years before my babysitter when my parents went to work at night was a 6’5” Washo named Tommy. He is dead now from alcohol and the hopelessness of being an Indian in America.
I never hunted with dogs though, like is done in the back woods of Mississippi my best friends and I visited one Christmas break. Dogs are used there to run the deer out of the woods and across the dirt roads where the hunters wait to shoot them. You can’t hunt on Sunday of course.
I never knew just how useful dogs are for hunting until now. The wirehair fox terrier loves to grab a pillow off the couch and drag it out the back door and around the lawn to get you to chase her. If you decline she will shred the pillow in front of you, just to be sure you really do want to play her fun little game. Last night I set the doberman after her in the dark. He loped with ease up beside her and threw off her timing completely. He kept right next to her and took all the fun out of it, damn his eyes. She got herded back to the door and I took the pillow. Wow! Hunting with dogs is the best.
During this time I read Field & Stream and Robert Ruark books. Like with Robert, bird hunting was it. I knew all about flu-flu arrows and what shot was used for ducks and geese and all the rest. As a teenager walking down the street with a gun at the edge of Sparks to shoot up by Joe Conforte’s walled compound caused no great commotion at all. Joe ran the famous Mustang Bridge Ranch cathouse and lived in a fortress up above Sparks on the road to Sun Valley with yellow lamps around the top of the 8-foot brick wall. About all that happened was one time we got stopped by a drunken Indian who had pulled his jeep over under some cottonwood trees with his friends because they were too drunk to drive and the sheriff might catch them. The soberest one asked us if we could drive and would we go get them some booze. A few years before my babysitter when my parents went to work at night was a 6’5” Washo named Tommy. He is dead now from alcohol and the hopelessness of being an Indian in America.
I never hunted with dogs though, like is done in the back woods of Mississippi my best friends and I visited one Christmas break. Dogs are used there to run the deer out of the woods and across the dirt roads where the hunters wait to shoot them. You can’t hunt on Sunday of course.
I never knew just how useful dogs are for hunting until now. The wirehair fox terrier loves to grab a pillow off the couch and drag it out the back door and around the lawn to get you to chase her. If you decline she will shred the pillow in front of you, just to be sure you really do want to play her fun little game. Last night I set the doberman after her in the dark. He loped with ease up beside her and threw off her timing completely. He kept right next to her and took all the fun out of it, damn his eyes. She got herded back to the door and I took the pillow. Wow! Hunting with dogs is the best.
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