johnsonboy

This is actually a column I wrote for the school paper.
It may be amusing to some. I wonder how different you find the style it's written in from the voice in these postings.

Snipe Hunting.

For me it was an uncle. Not exactly a kindly uncle, but the kind who would share an Olympia beer with a teen nephew of slightly less than legal drinking age.
Ok, a lot less. But along with this kind of behavior, he also taught me things.
Like snipe hunting.
Now, to be fair, it must be understood that the snipe is a reclusive, solitary, woodland bird favoring the heavy growth around quiet waterways and still pools.
But nobody actually hunts them except a few privileged sportsmen with expensive British fowling-pieces and deerstalker caps.
But, at least where I'm from, everybody goes snipe hunting. Usually just once.
The object of a snipe hunt is not the capture of a bird but a kind of step, from the innocence and illusion of adolesence to the hard cold world of facts and figures.
What happens is that someone like an uncle or older, trusted, male figure, along with a few friends and relatives, must convince the youngster that he wants a snipe, in the first place. This is a test of one's credulity against the persuasive powers of more experienced people. Once the kid is ready to hunt snipe, he must then be convinced that holding a flashlight behind a propped-open gunny sack will work.
We all know that night-flying insects will fly toward a light. Is it really so much to ask that a night-flying bird would do the same?
Never mind that the snipe is not a nocturnal animal, however shadowy his existence. None of that matters.
What matters is that the kid will follow his elders to some remote, difficult, hopefully unknown spot, and wait there. He arrives just long enough before sundown so everyone else can make it back in time for dinner, and waits while total boreal darkness settles around.
It is a time that makes one confront one's basic fears.
Abandonment, solitude, disorientation, the threat of wild creeping beasts.
it is hoped, instructed and encouraged that the hunter will demonstrate courage and man his post all night.
This rarely happens, however.
The hunter may remain in good spirits for a time, especially if he's accustomed to hunting and outdoor activities. He may listen keenly for telltale wingbeats and whispering movements in the foliage. He may, if he has been raised to be spritual, invoke the assistance of greater beings.
The length of time this goes on is finite, because the life of a flashlight battery is finite.
As the kid realizes this, he begins to estimate the distance traveled and the difficulty of the way home, against the flicker of the bulb.
As anxiety increases, even the most dedicated instinctual hunter will eventually being to doubt the counsel he has been given. He will doubt the good sense of his heretofore trusted uncle. He will begin to doubt the dollar system, the infield-flyr rule and other things. He might even pray, sometime before he begins to utter the primitive wail of the lost.
Once faith has been crushed, all that remains is to get home. The sack is often abandoned in situ, but the flashlight is usually retained. In fact it may be the hunter's only hope.
What follows is a kind of crashing, excited, determined although not terribly well-organized rush home. Sticks are broken, thorns are discovered, swampy-areas are negotiated with haste.
Somewhere along the way, important truths bubble to the surface.
Self-reliance is discovered. One's sense of wonder and imagination may have to be contained. Simple ideas about trust and benevolence are examined closely.
Somewhere along the way, a familiar trail is found. Things improve. A certain amount of resentment may arise in the spot recently occupied by fear and unreasonable dread of the unknown.
By the time he walks in the front door, a revolution of sorts may well have occurred.
The accomplices are likely to be seated, enjoying beverages, in relaxed attitudes. There may even be a scrap of paper somewhere with chronological notations on it, and a few crumpled dollar bills at stake.
The ensuing burst of recrimination, distrust, and heresy is calmly overlooked, even goaded at the way one goads any hysterical case, for laughs.
Eventually the dust settles, apologies are made, toasts are raised and good feeling is restored. The only thing left to continue this grand cycle is the search for the next snipe hunter.