From the desk of Dan Price
I still recall the day. It was the first day of autumn. The grey squirrel was busy devouring a prize oval nut. The squirrel then scampered up the hickory tree, stopped — its eyes searching for a sound, a sound the squirrel had heard many times.
I raised the 28 gauge, nickel-plated shotgun, eyed my target and clicked on the trigger.
Suddenly the forest was quiet, the morning light glowed through the taller trees. I rushed to the base of the old hickory. I reached down, picked up the squirrel, stuck the little fella in my coat pocket and rushed out of the forest.
I reached my grandparents’ farmhouse and sat down, near the entrance to the back porch. I reached in the coat pocket, slowly pulled out my morning prize. I looked in the eyes of the grey squirrel — its body limp…its life gone. Its search for hickory nuts was over. Its ability to scamper through the forest — gone forever by a soon-to-be teenager, who had moved on from target shooting with a 22 rifle to a run through the forest and his first kill.
It was the last time I would raise a gun.
Somewhere down the road, the shotgun — a birthday gift from my Grandpa Bruce — disappeared at a gun show in Tucson, Arizona.
I will always remember that little squirrel. I left hunting behind, but that’s just me in a nutshell.
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