I would really like to just write about adventure and the grand philosophy of the Natural Outdoors; but I can’t because I keep running into the drunks. Of all the fools I have encountered in the field the drunks seem to be the most plentiful. I can pick any day of the year and find at least one idiot hunting or fishing. They are real neighborly too and always offer to share their drink with you. Of course none of this is malicious but more negligent and irresponsible. If there is trash around, you can bet they did it just for starters but it gets a lot worse.
Drunk boaters and fishermen constantly trash out the shoreline of the beautiful Toledo Bend Lake.
Now I come from an Italian family and growing up with my parents in Arkansas meant a libation was meant for a celebration of life and not a deadening of the mind on a constant basis. Daddy taught us there is beer in the fridge if you want one but the keys to the car and the guns were off limits. That was pretty simple to understand and suddenly the mystique of drinking lost its glamour and interest. I never smoked as I was an athlete, I had good coaches and something far greater, a Sensei who was a Cherokee Medicine Man. Native Americans don’t do well with Alcohol and I was taught that. Grand Master Lou Ellison told me the reason he didn’t drink was because he would probably like it. I listened.
My parents Smoked and Drank quiet a bit, I didn’t it was simple as that. I know it is a personal decision but not always the right one. My hero writer Robert Ruark was a true genius, he drank and passed away in his late 40s. My father only lived to age 62 and I’m 63 at this writing; I think about this daily.
This brings me up to what everyone will lay on me as a prude. No, I have a beer now and then and have nothing against it if you add the responsibility factor. Somehow, in the field, I find a lot of those who don’t. In my 32 years of Law Enforcement with several years as a Game Warden and now as a Hunter Education Instructor and Outdoor Writer, I have and will encounter more alcohol related incidents.
Two come to mind but there are many others. I was kicked off an evangelistic outdoor website as the individuals could not handle the facts that the hunting incident was not an act of God. The evidence revealed the father came back to the truck just before dark and started drinking. His son walked out of the woods wearing Hunter Orange. The father shot and killed him and later related he thought he was a deer. In the dark mind you. I opined and correctly so the incident was an act of negligent homicide, an incident brought on by bad judgement due to being under the influence of alcohol. This caused a firestorm of accusations from the faithful that all this was the will of God. Most level headed individuals will see it my way including the law. I don’t think it was the will of God, but that of the other guy in the bottle.
As you can see Hunter Orange is still visible after shooting hours, I rest my case your honor.
I was approached by a grieving father of a hunting incident victim as he heard I had investigated such things and he wanted some answers. As it turned out there were several in a Duck Blind, some were standing up and some were sitting down to shoot. This is dangerous and this was the cause as a sitting hunter swung across and shot the standing victim. This was explained to the father. My next question was, “Were they drinking?” The answer was chilling. “Well of course, doesn’t everyone in the duck blind?” I blame the father as he taught the son how to hunt, and condoned drinking and hunting, either by proxy or direct example. In the end he just didn’t get it.
Drunk drivers don’t get it either. In law enforcement I have processed and seen processed thousands of them. I never saw one that would admit he or she was drunk. So I decided to see what it felt like to be under the influence completely. The NCO Club was right across the street from the MP Station at William O. Darby Casern in Nuremberg Germany. My Army buddies including the Chaplin decided to celebrate so I had an idea I wanted to test the Intoxilizer at the Station. We did that from time to time to train the MPs and I volunteered. I had a steak and drank 4 liter mugs of German Beer. I have been drunk before but that was a masterpiece. I was well supervised so there was no worry. Try as I did I could not blow legally drunk on the machine the BAT was .003 both times. The legal limit was .100 and is now .080 so the results were I could legally get in a car and drive. The MPs took us all home a good thing.
I processed many .300 and one woman that blew a .400 finally I asked a doctor and found out that habitual alcoholics were always a little drunk and it didn’t take much to register a high score. I don’t know about you but I don’t want to be like that.
We had a rule in the Army that worked but some seemed to never get the idea of responsibility. If you were going out on the town and you had to work the next day, get at least 8 hours of sleep before reporting for duty. Never the less many soldiers were brought into the MP Station in the morning and blew drunk on duty on the intoxilizer, some just don’t know when to quit and go home.
To make the point very clear about Drinking and Hunting. This is your head on 45-70 any questions?
Its not the gun’s fault, it is the hand that wields it sometimes being fueled by an alcoholic beverage. Education is the answer but as a hunter education instructor I find this topic in the manual seldom emphasized; not with this instructor…Pass it on.