Opening day - The hunt is on

My sister-in-law called and in breathless near-hysteria related how, as she and my older brother drove North on Bigelow (in Spokane) in their Subaru Outback, a deer cleared the forest at the side of the road, spring-boarded using the hood of their car in it’s frenzied effort to escape whatever chased it, and bounded away on the other side of the road.

Not once was it hit by their car, but the car was surely assaulted by it, with the car hood trashed to the point that it couldn’t be opened, and a leak of antifreeze puddling under it in a clear environmental menace. Shockingly, no haz-mat team arrived to close down the road and clean the antifreeze before it poisoned the environment.

No dog, big foot, coyote, mountain lion or other critter was seen at the forest’s edge, but something had clearly spooked that deer to the point that even traffic didn’t impede its desperate escape. I have my own theory on it. I think that somehow that deer discovered that hunting season was about to open.

My beloved husband, the ruggedly handsome Mark, is always at the ready when the moment arrives that makes legal the slaughter of those tasty creatures.

I don’t go hunting with him because, although I have had years of experience shooting guns and am a fair shot, I don’t aim at anything that breathes, especially when that critter has large, soft brown eyes, a Disney movie made about its distressing childhood, and offers no threat to children.

I believe that deer hunting season is a male bonding time and very important to the mental health of our men. Probably all hunting provides healthy divergence from modern stresses for the men we love.

That theory is supported by the happy happy happy of those rodent-and-frog-consuming heroes of Louisiana, the well-adjusted and family-oriented Robertsons (and friends) of Duck Dynasty.

Back to Eastern Washington. Mark will spend a week outfitting the camper and ensuring that everything is in good working order. Water and holding tanks will be filled or emptied, flushed out if necessary, and all fuel tanks at capacity before he leaves.

Camo and ammo in abundance is loaded into the special places reserved specifically for them, and the refrigerator and cupboards stocked to overflowing with foods lacking in fiber and nutritional value.

Last Friday, Opening Day Eve, Mark departed Ritzville to rendezvous with his hunting buddy, Doc, and other friends who gather together once a year on Doc’s cousin’s property somewhere in the general direction of Walla Walla.

There they sit around the campfire each night, imbibing in spirits, telling stories of their hunting prowess of years past, relate near-death experiences, and when they run out of those lies they will guffaw at tales of their wives’ cooking, snoring and driving.

The ambiance will be reminiscent of the campfire and beans-eating scene in Blazing Saddles.

On opening day, at 6 a.m. when the legal moment finally arrives, they are bleary-eyed, coffee-filled, and at the ready. Every scope is in use, every hunter in position, and every deer in peril.

At day’s ends, assuming that at least one deer is downed, the men break out the only vegetable present, onions, which will be fried to perfection along with the liver(s) of the dead deer(s), and they all partake of the traditional consumption of the recently functioning organ.

Mark returns home triumphant, bloody and dressed carcass proudly displayed in the garage for three days as the meat ages (during which time I do not enter that garage for any reason), and then he butchers and processes the meat.

The kitchen will look like a blood bank for a day as he happily grinds, packages and cans his venison, which he will enjoy for the coming year. I will survive that day with maximum doses of Ibuprofen for my daylong migraine, copious amounts of tea with honey, chocolate and prayer.

I doubt that at any point during that hunting trip Mark (or any of the other guys for that matter) brush their teeth, floss, shower, change their underwear, apply deodorant or take their vitamins.

In other words, when the wives aren’t present, the guys regress.

But he comes home happier, more content although constipated, and with many tales to regale his male audience at the morning coffee sessions at the Ritville Golf Course clubhouse for weeks to come.

Happy hunting, Honey.