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Show Hunting poses interesting questions As the Ball Bounces ii "i By G. BRETT HART to appear in their eyes and their hands would begin to twitch. Almost unnoticeably at first, they would become increasingly jumpy and agitated as if answering some unconscious or imperceptible call, the call of the wild (or something like that I imagine). I also noticed that the central theme of conversation began to center on one topic-bagging topic-bagging the big one. Everything else seemed unimportant, girls, football, even pizza. All that seemed to matter was lugging that lifeless carcass home on the hood of dad's station wagon to hang in the garage for a week or two eventually to become a smorgasbord of venison delights and proving to everyone that civilization had not dulled his (or her) primal instinct for survival. Now, don't get me wrong. It's not that I have anything against going out and bagging that big one to put a little meat on the table. After all, it's in our genes. Man was made to kill. Why else would God give us guns? I guess what bugs me most about hunting is that we seem to enjoy it too much. If only there was a little sport left in the hunt. Not many deer can outrun an armor piercing, hollow-tip bullet launched from a 30-30, semi automatic rifle with the words "deer killer" etched in the side. Yes, and its a rare day when the deer lie in wait outside a favorite human "watering hole" ready to gore the first helpless man that wanders beneath the neon sign that reads, "Ed's Beer Hall.' I guess I take that back; the hunt is a little more evenly matched than I thought. When God created guns, he realized that he had given man an unfair advantage over the rest of the food chain, so he created beer the great hunt equalizer. A friend of mine made the observation that he quit hunting while he was working as a beer delivery man. I think it had something to do with the fad that the biggest beer sales came (you guessed it) during the opening weekend of the deer hunt Now, I have nothing against a frosty can of beer, however, you know there's something wrong when a guy's provisions for a three-day three-day hunt include a couple cases of beer and a bag of pretzels, in case anyone gets hungry. Well, I guess what I'm trying to say is go out and bag that big one if you must. But as your prey calmly nibbles his breakfast silhouetted against the rising sun early on opening day and as you align those cross hairs between his moist, brown eyes, just stop and think for a moment: What will his wife and children think when their father, husband and bread-winner doesn't come home that night? Then look twice, make sure it really is a deer and blow his brains out so your family will think you are a good father, husband and bread winner. OK, call me a wimp, but I can't let all this hunting hype pass without adding my two-cents worth. Not that I have anything against the wanton slaying of innocent animals, it's just that I've never had much of a taste for the destruction destruc-tion of our four-legged friends. I guess it all began when I was eight, and my dad used to take me fishing. I didn't mind the worms too much (although I must admit that once I tried to put myself in the worm's place, I've had a tendency tenden-cy to use artificial lures). I didn't even mind reeling in the hapless fish struggling at the end of my line to escape his imminent doom once he was hooked. In fact, in a morbid kind of way, it was even kind of fun. I think what bothered me most about the whole adventure adven-ture was 'mercifully' bonking the poor creature over the head with a handy pair of pliers, slitting the fish from stem to stem and scooping its guts out. You could say I'm not much of a guts kind of guy. I like mine where they are and am perfectly happy to oblige everyone every-one else, man or beast, with the same courtesy. But I digress, back to hunting. As I grew older and my friends became great white hunters in their own rights, I began to notice a slight change in their countenances with the first signs of fall. Yes, around the beginning of October, a strange gleam would start |