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I got my first rifle when I was nine years old. It was a Christmas present from my parents. I had extensive firearm safety training in Colorado the year before. That training was on top of the training I received, every day from my parents, up to that point in my life.
The following fall, after shooting my rifle extensively through the winter, my mom decided it was time I learned to hunt. Now, I had hunted flies, bugs, and other nuisance vermin with a BB gun, but this was the real thing. We were going squirrel hunting. Mom was a bus driver for the school and dad worked 40+ hours a week at his new job. Mom had more energy after work, so she was the one to take me on my first hunt.
We got up before the dawn. We walked down to the wooded hill on the back of our property. We sat quietly till the light started to give shape to the trees and surrounding. Mom was hunting with her dad’s old single shot .22 caliber rifle. I was getting to use my new .22lr that I got for Christmas. Mom gave me a quick training lesson on the fine art of squirrel hunting. She explained that they see and hear very well. So, I needed to be very quiet. She also explained that she wanted them shot in the abdomen or the neck. I asked her why not the head and she said that she had been eating the brains for as long as she could remember. I nearly lost my breakfast. I wasn’t so sure that I wanted to squirrel hunt after that, but, that was what we were here to do, hunt squirrels.
We sat till the first squirrels started showing up. Mom said that I was to take the first shot. Finally a squirrel came into view in range. I aligned the iron sights on the treehopper. Mom said, "Remember, in the neck or body". I took aim on the body and squeezed the trigger. Instantly the tree rat fell from the branch it was sitting on. My first game animal was that squirrel. One of my fondest hunting memories had just taken place. I hunted squirrels for many years after that, taking them with neck shots. I ate some of those squirrels with my mom and brother, but we left the heads to her. We did not put up a fight.
I had hunted those tree rats for a long time. On December 1 1995, mom passed away. With her passing, I ended my squirrel hunting days. I could not bring myself to go in her absence. She had not been there with me for every hunt that I took squirrels, but she was there to enjoy them and now that had changed.
Three years after mom passed, my brother met a guy that he worked with and they became very good friends. He liked to hunt and fish. We got to meet his wife and child. They became regulars at our house on Friday and Saturday night. One night in the fall, Cathy asked if we liked small game to eat. We said that we had eaten, rabbit, squirrel, quail all our lives. She mentioned that it had been what seemed a lifetime since she had squirrel. I said that I had quit squirrel hunting because mom had died and that I wasn’t any longer interested in taking them. She said, "You know, the best part is the brain!" I nearly fainted. There could not be two people that ate that part. I told her that my brother and I would take her husband hunting.
I remember that hunt with my brother and newfound friends, but most of all, I remembered that first morning with mom. To this day, mom looks over my shoulder and quietly whispers in my ear, " Remember, in the neck!"