2 weeks Ago
I bite into a juicy hamburger and, alas, my pleasure is dampened by a childhood memory: that hour in the basement between two buckets. Jack Peradotto remembers a pointed lesson from childhood. Guns are a hot topic these days.
But back when I was a boy and my father took me hunting for the first time, the political and moral climate was different. The National Rifle Association made little or no news. Before Dad finally determined that my Daisy BB gun days were over and it was time to take me hunting, he instructed me carefully in the use of firearms.
Several times we visited a landfill where I honed my skills on bottles, cans and, on one occasion, an unlucky rat. When my father considered it safe enough, we set out for the real thing. The first time out, he thought me insufficiently skilled for targets that leave the ground, so we kept our minds on rabbit.
I spied one, huddled low in the snow, and raised my gun to aim. “Wait,” my father whispered. “Wait till it runs.
” We waited, and when it finally bolted, I fired, and it went down. My first shot in the field and my first kill. It unsettles me now to write that, but back then I felt a rush of excitement and pride.
“Good shot,” my father said. He was smiling, but it was, I noticed, an odd smile, a sad smile. When we returned home, I was about to rush into the kitchen to share the good news with my mother, but Dad touched my shoulder and pointed to the basement steps.
“Downstairs,” he said. “There’s something we have to do first.” Once we were in the basement, he placed two empty buckets near the sink and drew out a sharp knife and a pair of tweezers from a drawer where he kept his tools.
“Hunting is not all fun,” he said. “It is killing.” I flinched at the word.
“You have to understand what that is and what it means to do it. We are going to clean this rabbit. We are going to prepare it for cooking.
That bucket,” he said, pointing, “is for the parts we do not eat. The other is there if you need to throw up.” And I did, more than once.
We started with the hardest part, the skinning. He did half to demonstrate and then handed me the knife and the carcass to finish. From there we opened the body for a lesson on edible and inedible parts.
My gorge rose at it all. When I turned my head away at the smell, he said, “I know. Not so nice, is it.
It’s what we’ve done. Next time we hunt, remember that.” When we’d come close to finishing our work, he quietly said, “You know, don’t you, that we all look pretty much like this on the inside.
” With garlic, rosemary and oregano my mother transformed the carcass into a fragrant roast. My father warned us to chew cautiously against any buckshot that might have slipped through the most painstaking of our work in the basement. My first bite should have been delicious, but I couldn’t finish.
My mother, noticing my hesitation and knowing my tastes, said, “If you don’t like it, I can fix you a hamburger.” When I nodded, my father, quietly but still as intent on making a point as I’d ever seen him, and with that odd, sad smile, said to me, “In the long run, Jack, a hamburger’s the same thing. Just a different animal and a different hunter.
“And a butcher to spare you the trouble of that second bucket.” Catch the latest in Opinion Get opinion pieces, letters and editorials sent directly to your inbox weekly!.
