Yesterday, when I left the house in the morning, I looked up at the mountain range above our house. The clouds were rolling in and the crisp air transported me back to those same mountains forty or so years before.
Back when around twenty-five percent of the state went deer hunting.
My dad was a hunter. I know because I've been told this by the people who knew him personally. I know because our home was full of rifles, and even though he never took us hunting--he was too busy building our house--we always knew he was a hunter. In fact, I heard one story about how my dad used to hunt in order to feed himself and his young brothers. I can't imagine relying on your shooting skills to survive. You don't hit the target, you go hungry.
Times have changed.
They've also changed the hunting laws, too. It used to be several weeks were set aside in the fall for the deer hunt. Maybe back then there were special hunts, doe hunts, archery hunts. I don't know, but I know there's so many different hunts now, it's hard to keep up. And since I'm not a hunter, I don't.
There are deer in the mountains behind our house. I have no idea if it's a good place to go hunting--when I went with my neighbor years and years ago, Wyoming was always a good place to go. But, if you didn't get a deer the first weekend, many of my neighbors would hike up above our homes to see if they could bag their buck. Some did, some didn't. We could even hear gunshots from hunters as they took aim and fired.
I can't remember the last time I heard a gunshot above our home. Maybe those laws have changed, too.
Looking up at the mountains, knowing it's colder up there than it was where I stood, it reminded me of a time when so many of my friends and neighbors took to the hills in search for a target.
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