Call of the wild beckons, offering a welcome respite

The truck’s packed.

The coolers are in the pick-up bed along with my tent. It’s a big tent – watertight, wind-proof, and it even has a stove to keep me warm at night.

Note: The price of that tent still causes my wife to mutter things about me that are not overly charitable or even, on occasion, printable.

I have clothes, boots, coats, tools, knives, rifles, sleeping bags, and a hundred and one other things stuffed behind the front seat.

I’ve even stashed several pairs of reading glasses in various places throughout all that gear so that I might actually be able to find a pair in order to read the maps and compasses (plural because I tend to lose those, too) I’ve brought along.

I’ve spent the last six months in a gloriously futile effort to shed a few pounds. Three or four times a week on an exercise machine has shown me that what used to be easy (losing weight) is now an utterly hopeless task.

The upside of that drudgery, though, is that my heart rate and blood pressure have returned to numbers that don’t make my doctor’s eyes bulge like they did when he took the readings during my last physical. This’ll no doubt help during the next several days while I’m chasing mule deer all over Eastern Washington.

Other good things – especially these days:

No television. No political attack ads. No (so-called) debates. No polls. No spin. No pundits. No Foley or Hastert. No Pelosi or Reid. No Maria or Mike.

Plenty of hills to climb, though. Plenty of mountains to see. Lots of ground to walk. A few lakes and streams to cross. A raft of trees to rest under. Ridges everywhere, where I can sit and watch the sun rise and set.

Time. Lots of time. Time to slow down and catch my breath. Time to just stop and think. Time to shake the ugly demons of a very tough year from my brain. Time to just enjoy being outdoors and alone.

For those of you who do not hunt or for those of you who are opposed to hunting, I’m not sure I could ever explain, objectively and dispassionately, why I enjoy the sport. You either do or you don’t. There’s not much in between.

I can only say that, for as long as I can remember, I’ve always wanted to hunt. That feeling started when I was a boy. Someone put the feeling there and I responded. I’m told that I take after my maternal grandfather in this respect. He was a hunter, too.

For those of you who do hunt – ethically and safely – I don’t need to explain. You already know.

For those of you who are curious but undecided about hunting, I’d like to recommend a book. The title is “A Hunter’s Heart.” It’s a collection of essays edited by David Petersen and published by Henry Holt and Company of New York. In more than 30 years of hunting, it’s the best book on the subject I’ve come across.

Read it with an open mind and, even if you decide never to hunt, you may gain a perspective that’s something other than the slogan-shouting and name-calling that often passes for discourse between hunters and anti-hunters.

I’ll be taking it with me this year to re-read it for the third time. It’s that good.

By the time you read this, though, I’ll be out of the city and in the hills. I’ll probably need a shave and a shower. My clothes will be dirty and smell of wood smoke. My hands will have cuts on them and, in all likelihood, I’ll have an odd bruise or two here and there. Such come with the territory.

At 57 years of age and having hunted for the 30-plus years I’ve mentioned, I’ve reached a point where it actually doesn’t matter whether I ever take the rifle off of my shoulder. I just want to be out there.

Actually, the feeling is more than wanting to be out there. It’s more on the order of having to be out there.

It’s another thing about hunting that’s hard to explain. Again, you either feel it or you don’t.

Even though I’ve reached the stage where bringing a deer home doesn’t matter any more, should there be one that crosses my path, I will take advantage of the situation.

I am, after all, a hunter.

And the season is upon us.

Larry Simoneaux lives in Edmonds. Comments can be sent to larrysim@ att.net.