By STEVE GILLILAND
Explore Kansas Outdoors
One of the perks of having had an interesting and memorable childhood full of interesting and memorable characters, is having a treasure chest full of stories at one’s disposal should all other inspiration elude me as I sit down to pen a weekly column. And with deer rifle season beginning in Kansas, here is a story full of those characters.
I’ve often mentioned that during our first several years of deer hunting my brother and I were part of a neighborhood group of landowners and farmers that often hunted deer together. We would converge on a property, “post” two or three guys along one edge, then walk through from the other side as a group and attempt to run the deer out past the “posters” for a shot.
We had some colorful and amusing individuals in our assembly. As in every group, we had Dave, the local cop who always shot straight, looked sharp and made no mistakes. Many deer were spotted from his kitchen window as we all sat around warming up with a hot drink. Someone (usually Dave) would spot a deer crossing the road, and coffee cups and chairs would fly as we headed for the trucks.
The Beck clan, brothers Don and Paul and most of Paul’s kids made up the bulk of the group. As I talked with my brother the other evening, he reminded me that the first advice I gave him when he began hunting with us was, “When the Becks start shootin’, just get on the ground!”
I remember standing beside Don one day in the woods when a big buck erupted from a brush pile in front of us. I was behind the pile and couldn’t see well enough for a shot, but Don emptied both barrels of his old double barrel at the fleeing buck. The buck danced away unscathed and the next day Don had a different gun.
His brother Paul (known to all of us as junior) had a live-in girl friend named Elaine. They were both pretty coarse and crude around the edges, and the best way I know to describe Paul is to compare him to Jackie Gleason’s character Ralph Kramden - always grousing and whining over something. Elaine hunted with us, too, and when they were dressed in hunting garb, the only way to tell them apart was that Elaine was the bigger one. Her favorite line, uttered often as we stood somewhere loitering and planning our assault was “I’m goin’ deer huntin’, you pansies!”
Of the Becks, Ralph, who was my age, was my favorite. He was a big, hairy guy (that earned him the nickname Wolf) who didn’t know his own strength. Turkey shoots were popular back in those days and sponsored by numerous organizations. For a fee you were given one shotgun shell and stood in a line in front of a row of paper targets. After everyone had shot, the targets were pulled down and the number of pellets was counted in each target. The winner was obviously the person putting the most pellets in their target and the prize was a turkey or a ham.
Ralph had an old single-shot 12-gauge shotgun that broke open to load. The mechanism that allowed it to hinge open had long since ceased to function, so to load it, he simply pulled the pin and the gun became two pieces. He’d load the shell, reinsert the pin and close the gun. It was worth going with him to turkey shoots just to watch. All other shooters up and down the firing line sporting expensive custom-built shotguns would sneer and snicker as he walked up and broke the battered old 12-gauge in half and loaded his shell. The reactions became quite different, though as he fired the old cannon and walked away with the turkey every time.
As with most childhood stories, everything has changed now. I moved to Kansas and have lost touch with most of the old hunting gaggle.
My brother and I and our families remain active deer hunters and trappers, I’d say in part because of those early experiences. Back then, we harvested few deer, but I learned respect for nature and for my elders. I learned hunter safety without a book or video to teach me. I also learned I’m glad that here in Kansas I can hunt deer with a rifle instead of a shotgun!
Continue to Explore Kansas Outdoors.
Steve can be contacted by email at [email protected].