Tuesday morning on FirstNews, we had a story from Martin Augustine about the over-abundance of deer in parts of the metro. Martin was surrounded by his furry friends. It was as if Snow White had become a news reporter. The wildlife looked very much at ease around Martin. Apparently, they could sense that he is a calm, gentle and decent person. What you didn't see, after they turned off the camera, was that the woodland creatures actually helped Martin put away his equipment. There was a little chipmunk carrying his microphone. A couple of blue-birds lifting the cables. A team of squirrels toting his reporter's notebook. Martin, himself, was singing as they left the scene of his report. Anyway, Martin's antler angle got me thinking of my childhood. Frankly, everything puts me in mind of some aspect of my younger days...before my middle was sagging and my hairline was lagging.

Now, I know there are folks who find the idea of deer hunting a little off-putting, but when I was in school, hunting season was a nearly sacred period of time. Lots of kids would get out of school to hit the woods...extending their Thanksgiving Break. My dad had been a hunter in his early days, but by the time I came along, he had long since stopped. Apparently, having four sons was enough of an adventure. He still used to dress up in his blaze orange coat and insulated pants and go stand in the woods, but that had nothing to do with hunting. I really don't want to get into that right now. Anyway, I stayed in school with the other non-hunters. It worked out pretty well. We didn't do very much because the teachers did not want the missing kids to be left behind. We played games and read a lot. Some of our teachers were hunters but had to be at work, anyway, so, they'd put a salt-lick in the middle of the room and hide behind their branch and brush-covered desks just waiting for us to enter the room. It was a little creepy.
Still, you felt a part of the season since the results of others' hunting were all over town...on top of cars...in the trees...peeking from inside garages and sheds. Between Thanksgiving and Christmas, you could easily tell which kid had been hunting: they had day after day after day of evidence in their lunch buckets. Venison sausage. Venison chili. (From a particularly cold morning, apparently.) Venison soup. Cold, leftover venison roast. Venison meatballs. Creamed venison...which seems a little redundant, if you ask me. Venison jerky, which must have come from an obnoxious deer.

You'd also hear lots of talk of "points" as in an eight-point buck or a ten-pointer. I was quite old before I figured out that they were talking about the points on the antlers. For years, I just assumed that, after getting the deer, you'd lift the white-tail and see the number of points awarded. It was confusing for us as we got to driving age and "getting points" became a bad thing. In my case, I've usually missed the "point" so often on so many topics it just becomes totally pointless.

I never got the taste for venison and I never tried hunting. One of my brothers, who shall remain nameless...Craig...had convinced me as a small child that every deer we saw hauled out of the woods in the fall was actually Bambi's mother, father, brother, sister, cousin, aunt, uncle or close personal friend. When you're about three and have made it through the cinematic trauma of watching Bambi, that kind of postscript is troubling. Craig told it like a gruesome Paul Harvey "The Rest of The Story" and it stuck with me.

To this day, when I see the deer out in the fields as I drive to work, I can hear them plotting against me. I roll down my window and yell "I never did the hunting thing! I never ate the venison! Yes, I'm from Wisconsin but I didn't do it! I ate cheese! Lots and lots of cheese." Of course, that exclamation is not acceptable to the cows in the next pasture. This happens every morning. I'm in a rut. But don't say the word "rut" around the deer, either.