On Freedom, And Flight

Some Notes From My Time in the Water Land

Ah, my friends from the prison, they ask unto me,

How good, how good does it feel to be free?

And I answer them most mysteriously,

Are birds free from the chains of the skyway?

--Bob Dylan, Ballad in Plain D

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I hunt. Or rather, I used to hunt. Ducks, to be specific. Though, in this case, "hunt" is a rather misleading term, in the strictest sense. What I really did was hide myself in a bunch of tall reeds, or in a heavily camalflouged blind, in an area where I thought the ducks might be hanging out anyway, and then I waited for some to fly by. The upper Texas Gulf Coast used to be on a branch of the main southern flyway for ducks traveling from Canada to Mexico and beyond for the winter. We'd see all kinds of waterfowl flying through here in the fall - from mallards to spoonbills, gadwalls to widgeons, "black" mallards to all manner of teal to even canvasbacks, and more. Geese, too; mostly Canadas and snows and especially speckle-bellies. We almost always "limited out", and usually quickly, so I rarely remember staying out in the marsh past about 10:00 a.m. or so most hunts.

I eventually grew out of duck hunting. Which is to say, as I got into my later teens, my increasingly demanding social life dimmed my desire to arise at 3:00 a.m. on a weekend morning and go sit out in a windy, freezing marsh, waiting for some birds to start flying around. Also, the flyway moved east, for various reasons I am not really qualified to describe in any detail. But this meant less ducks in this area, overall. The hunting experience is diminished somehow when one goes hours without seeing what one is out hunting to begin with. Not that I was ever only out there for the shooting, mind you, but that is another story.

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Like a bird on a wire
Like a drunk in a midnight choir
I have tried, in my way, to be free.

-- Leonard Cohen, Bird on a Wire

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I don't think the virulent anti-hunting crowd quite gets it. They label hunting as inhumane, forgetting that humans, too, have their place in the food chain; and that for 99% of our species' existence, they way we ate dinner was to go out and kill it first. Hunting is part of our makeup (as is violence, by the way), even if what we mostly are out hunting now is a good deal on brisket at H.E.B. But if everything blew up tomorrow, while the anti-hunters dithered around wondering what to do without a supermarket, there would be hundreds of thousands of people who would know exactly what to do - they'd pick up the shotgun and go out looking for something edible to kill and bring home for dinner.

I am not one to argue the hunter's cause, though. I'm a non-hunter nowadays, as I said, and in truth I have little sympathy for the real idiots out there, who shoot and kill for no other reason than the thrill of it. The thrill killers. These are the guys who mostly make it onto TV and radio with their "outdoor" shows. They are the worst representatives for hunting one could imagine, and it is no wonder they drive anti-hunters to distraction.

One thing you will almost always hear from hunting apologists, aside from bullshit like they are necessary to "thin the herd", or they somehow benefit wildlife by pursuing and killing it, is that a large part of the experience is the joy of just being out in nature, truly in nature. And that without hunting, most people would not have this experience at all. That drives anti-hunters nuts, too; but it is absolutely true. I know this from my own experiences.

Killing the ducks was all right, but what I really remember vividly from my hunting days, over twenty years ago by now, is not some great shot I made, but rather a dozen little vignettes of being out in the marsh when nothing was flying, and really experiencing nature like I never could anywhere else. Shooting time was thirty minutes before sunrise, and in order to be ready, we would often be out in our blinds, ready to go, long before that. Some of my fondest memories of duck hunting were those times when I found myself all situated and ready for shooting time, with thirty minutes or an hour to kill before getting down to business. I would settle down into my blind, pull the Thermos out of the game bag in my jacket and pour myself a cup of warm black coffee, maybe fire up a cigarette, and then just pay attention.

The marsh may not look like much from a distance, but there are a million little things going on there at all times. In the minutes before sunrise, when the first light of dawn strikes, things begin in earnest. The place suddenly comes alive, birds and bugs and fish (and nutria rats, and alligators) all in the commotion of living. It is literally thrilling to experience all that. It was in my duck blind that I first realized one early morning that there is a species of spider that can literally walk on water. I don't know what they are called, but they are small and apparently really light. They skitter across the surface of the water without ever breaking it. That is pretty amazing itself, but what really got me, when I looked closely, is that each step by each leg created a small indentation on the water's surface. Each step would almost break the surface, but not quite. These guys were designed to be just the right size and weight to almost fall through, but ultimately not to. Whatever your belief system is, you can go ahead and praise the overseer for the genius of this design. I just so happen to be Christian, and so I would thank God just for being alive and having the opportunity to be out in that marsh on that morning, at the start of another glorious day. And also for the cool little spiders, walking around on top of the water, just like they say Jesus did.

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Sometimes, after I was done communing with nature, I still had some time left to reflect a little on my own existence within it. This was a pretty natural thing to do in the peace and quiet just before everyone started blasting away with 12-gauges. I was young then, a schoolboy really, and I usually had some burgeoning romance to deal with. So I would sit out in the marsh and think about that, sometimes.

There was this one girl, Diane. At the time I was crazy about her, totally infatuated. I would think about her, and what she was doing at the moment (sleeping, probably), and what she would do when she got up, and if she would wonder what I was doing, out in the marsh. Just goofy shit like that, and it seemed to make the time pass very quickly.

The time still passes very quickly, I am sorry to say. But to this day, when I see a marsh, I think about little spiders. And about romance. That is mildy crazy, I know, but for me there is no way around it. One of my enduring mental pictures of myself is of me 20 years old or so, in my hunting gear in the blind, long hair pushed under a canvas Duxback hat, smoking a cigarette in the near light. Cradling my 16-gauge and armed to the teeth, waiting. And meantime watching little spiders run around on top of the pond, while thinking about my baby.

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If you arrive and don't see me
I'm going to be with my baby
I am free
Flying in her arms, over the sea

-- Shuggie Otis, Strawberry Letter 23

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