Dave McCracken
Moderator In Memoriam
It was the 10th of October, 1958. It also was my 12th Birthday, and the present I got at the breakfast table was a new brown ducking hunting coat, matching Jones hat, and my first hunting license was pinned to the back of the coat already. The minimum age in MD then and now was 12. The smiles on my parent's faces mirrored my own.
Nowadays we speak of coming of age. This was that in spades. By giving me that coat and hat, the folks were telling me that I was old enough to deal with life and death directly.Old enough to be trusted.
I had accompanied my Father all the previous season, toting an empty shotgun. I acted like it was loaded, practicing safety and learning the feel of that old H&R single, which Blake Walters McCracken,my Great Grandfather, had given my Father, Blake Duane McCracken, in 1928. Yes, it was a birthday then also.
That old 16 had a mainspring that could hold up a truck and a trigger just as stout, but clean. After all was said and done, it had a lot of meat to its credit, much more than most shotguns regardless of price.
The coat already had a box of field loads in it, the old Western 1 oz load of 8s. I tried it on and wished I could wear it to school, but that was not possible.
Later that day, or possibly the next, Pop and I stood in the brush along a fence row dividing one corn field from another. The farmer had cut the corn already for silage, and doves streamed by with that jigging,spastic faster than it looks flight that drives dove shooters crazy.I was no exception, and had returned the shot from most of a box of shells to the earth without touching a feather. Pop stood near, trying to coach me. Finally, I got enough ahead of a speeding dove who must have been the unluckiest bird on Earth that day, and folded it.
I walked over to where it lay, picked it up in trembling hands and stuffed it into the game pocket like Pop would have, and sauntered back to Pop as if I had done it hundreds of times.
Comeuppance time. The dove came back to life in that game pocket, turning my victory into low comedy. I gyred and gymballed, trying to get hold of that bird before it beat my kidneys into froth. Pop figured it out fast and broke open his old Savage O/U. His big hand dived in to the game pocket, brought out the dove, and he used his other hand to tear the bird's head off, granting it rough mercy as good hunters do.
He laughed at all this, and after a moment I did too.
We resumed hunting, and some more doves fell to Pop, and I may have hit another but since Pop shot at the same time, the credit is doubtful.
The next day another lesson came unannounced. As we sat down to a dinner of roasted doves stuffed with bacon and apple slices, Mom said she would say the Grace instead of Brother or I. She thanked God for the meal and the meat which her "Men" provided. As this soaked in, I realized what men do.
We provide. That's our job description.
Later that same month, I was taught the joys of squirreling. Easing slowly through climax forest with the old 16 in my hands and my eyes on the canopy, I learned the tricks of 6 generations of PA hill folk. Pop said the squirrel woods will always be there for a meal, and also renewal. He was right.
And when November brought the bitter cold flowing down from Alberta and the big wedges of Canadas riding the storm fronts, we went waterfowling.
A November Saturday just as the Eastern horizon lit up pink found us crouched in a battered blind somewhere below Cambridge with Bill Offut and a lady named Lady. She was a Chesapeake Retriever with golden eyes which were always either on the sky or Mr Offut. She was well behaved for a Chessie, which tend to be independent or bullheaded, depending on who is asked. She was polite to us and tolerated my hand pats, but she worshipped Bill.
He was an older man with grey hair, facial skin composed of wrinkles piled on wrinkles, but his eyes were merry and young. A farmer and waterman, he had a tough and financially unrewarding lifestyle. He loved it and wouldn't have left it for all the money in Zurich.
Speaking of Dieties, mine must add a little more oxygen to the air in places like this one, or so it seems. Each breath was intoxicating, the gaseous equivalent of Chateau D'Yquem. As the sun rose behind the mist and drizzle, the Goose Music became louder. Wedges, vees and strings were aloft, moving in a natural choreography. As Mr Offut started his calling,we could hear the Hymn geese sing rise from hundreds of goose throats.The first Vee swung our way to the blandishments offered, and Pop muttered to me to wait for the signal before rising and shooting.
It soon came, and with a hammering heart I rose, found a sky beast over my bead, and pulled hard on the trigger. Down came the dragon, and if the ground didn't shake when it hit the mud and water, it should have.
Two other shotguns had spoken to good effect in that volley, and Lady busied herself bringing them back. All were held up and admired, and both Pop and Mr Offut lied through their teeth and said mine was the biggest.
(Later that week I'd bare my shoulder to my friends at the Boy Scout meeting and show the purplish bruise that unpadded light 16 gauge single and 1 1/8 oz loads of 3 shot left me as a momento. I then learned about something I didn't know the name of until much later. Bragging Rights.)
We settled in and let the day happen, rising to salute the geese again and again. I had beginner's luck, and the others were deadly. We got enough geese and another lesson was added to the day.
Enough is truly enough....
Nowadays we speak of coming of age. This was that in spades. By giving me that coat and hat, the folks were telling me that I was old enough to deal with life and death directly.Old enough to be trusted.
I had accompanied my Father all the previous season, toting an empty shotgun. I acted like it was loaded, practicing safety and learning the feel of that old H&R single, which Blake Walters McCracken,my Great Grandfather, had given my Father, Blake Duane McCracken, in 1928. Yes, it was a birthday then also.
That old 16 had a mainspring that could hold up a truck and a trigger just as stout, but clean. After all was said and done, it had a lot of meat to its credit, much more than most shotguns regardless of price.
The coat already had a box of field loads in it, the old Western 1 oz load of 8s. I tried it on and wished I could wear it to school, but that was not possible.
Later that day, or possibly the next, Pop and I stood in the brush along a fence row dividing one corn field from another. The farmer had cut the corn already for silage, and doves streamed by with that jigging,spastic faster than it looks flight that drives dove shooters crazy.I was no exception, and had returned the shot from most of a box of shells to the earth without touching a feather. Pop stood near, trying to coach me. Finally, I got enough ahead of a speeding dove who must have been the unluckiest bird on Earth that day, and folded it.
I walked over to where it lay, picked it up in trembling hands and stuffed it into the game pocket like Pop would have, and sauntered back to Pop as if I had done it hundreds of times.
Comeuppance time. The dove came back to life in that game pocket, turning my victory into low comedy. I gyred and gymballed, trying to get hold of that bird before it beat my kidneys into froth. Pop figured it out fast and broke open his old Savage O/U. His big hand dived in to the game pocket, brought out the dove, and he used his other hand to tear the bird's head off, granting it rough mercy as good hunters do.
He laughed at all this, and after a moment I did too.
We resumed hunting, and some more doves fell to Pop, and I may have hit another but since Pop shot at the same time, the credit is doubtful.
The next day another lesson came unannounced. As we sat down to a dinner of roasted doves stuffed with bacon and apple slices, Mom said she would say the Grace instead of Brother or I. She thanked God for the meal and the meat which her "Men" provided. As this soaked in, I realized what men do.
We provide. That's our job description.
Later that same month, I was taught the joys of squirreling. Easing slowly through climax forest with the old 16 in my hands and my eyes on the canopy, I learned the tricks of 6 generations of PA hill folk. Pop said the squirrel woods will always be there for a meal, and also renewal. He was right.
And when November brought the bitter cold flowing down from Alberta and the big wedges of Canadas riding the storm fronts, we went waterfowling.
A November Saturday just as the Eastern horizon lit up pink found us crouched in a battered blind somewhere below Cambridge with Bill Offut and a lady named Lady. She was a Chesapeake Retriever with golden eyes which were always either on the sky or Mr Offut. She was well behaved for a Chessie, which tend to be independent or bullheaded, depending on who is asked. She was polite to us and tolerated my hand pats, but she worshipped Bill.
He was an older man with grey hair, facial skin composed of wrinkles piled on wrinkles, but his eyes were merry and young. A farmer and waterman, he had a tough and financially unrewarding lifestyle. He loved it and wouldn't have left it for all the money in Zurich.
Speaking of Dieties, mine must add a little more oxygen to the air in places like this one, or so it seems. Each breath was intoxicating, the gaseous equivalent of Chateau D'Yquem. As the sun rose behind the mist and drizzle, the Goose Music became louder. Wedges, vees and strings were aloft, moving in a natural choreography. As Mr Offut started his calling,we could hear the Hymn geese sing rise from hundreds of goose throats.The first Vee swung our way to the blandishments offered, and Pop muttered to me to wait for the signal before rising and shooting.
It soon came, and with a hammering heart I rose, found a sky beast over my bead, and pulled hard on the trigger. Down came the dragon, and if the ground didn't shake when it hit the mud and water, it should have.
Two other shotguns had spoken to good effect in that volley, and Lady busied herself bringing them back. All were held up and admired, and both Pop and Mr Offut lied through their teeth and said mine was the biggest.
(Later that week I'd bare my shoulder to my friends at the Boy Scout meeting and show the purplish bruise that unpadded light 16 gauge single and 1 1/8 oz loads of 3 shot left me as a momento. I then learned about something I didn't know the name of until much later. Bragging Rights.)
We settled in and let the day happen, rising to salute the geese again and again. I had beginner's luck, and the others were deadly. We got enough geese and another lesson was added to the day.
Enough is truly enough....
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