Early Morning Memories

Note: The piece below is from a collection of stories in development.

Ever notice how the best memories are often made in the still of the early morning, or the dusky dark of nightfall? Sure, we make memories all day and some of my happiest memories have been made when the sun was high in the sky. But the best memories are those memories that pick into your psyche and burry themselves behind your soft spots. Those are the memories you sit with on summer nights in the lawn chair outback just before the crickets start drowning out your thoughts. Those are the memories you drift off to when you’re waiting for the coffee to brew before the sun has even finished rising. Those memories are the best.

I’ve spent countless mornings hunting and fishing with my Dad. Deer hunting, duck hunting, pig hunting, pheasant hunting, dove hunting, elk hunting, and of course, bass, catfish, and striper fishing — together we’ve done it all. We’ve sat together in the still before the break of dawn. We’ve kept each other awake in the silence, and tried not to fall asleep. We’ve kept each other company when the ducks were flying, and when it felt like we might never see a duck again. We’ve shivered so hard we scared songbirds in nearby trees, and then laughed until we cried because we were just too cold, tired, committed and happy to do anything else. Most of all, we’ve made memories.

I started duck hunting with my Dad when I was around five, back when I was only old enough to tag along and not actually hunt. Mom never liked duck hunting; too cold, wet, and quiet for her. She stayed home most weekends Dad went hunting so he would take our yellow lab, Champ, and me in the motorhome and head to the duck blind for the weekend. The drive was boring. Usually I read road signs out loud or listened to the radio, sometime singing along. That’s how I learned about good country music and how to be a good road trip buddy. It’s amazing the things we learn as kids.

See, when I was a kid my Dad didn’t always play things like Barbies or board games with me. Sure, we did occasionally, and he was great at putting heads back on the Barbies I decapitated, but my best memories are of the times we spent together outside, hunting and camping. He talked a lot during these times and most of the time what he said was some sort of lesson — even if I didn’t know it then. Sometimes you just have to listen and later in life the pieces will fall into place.

Once when I was about ten I went with my Dad to his duck blind in Los Banos to help set out decoys before the rice fields were flooded. That’s how I learned about rice and farming. I never met my Grandpa but he was a farmer, so in our trip to set out the decoys I asked questions about the rice field, why it was flooded and why, and why, and why. Dad told me a little about farming and what he had learned from his Dad. It was all just talk to me then but looking back those memories of our conversation in the sunrise with the soundtrack of cattle moos and groans as we sat on the tailgate of Dad’s Dodge Dakota still stick out in my mind. If I think way back I can almost feel the crisp early fall breeze on my face and smell the cattle ranch in the distance.

When Dad was a kid his family moved from Oklahoma to California where the family picked cotton. There were cotton fields not far from the duck blind and whenever we passed them Dad always pointed saying, “that’s cotton, I used to pick that when I was a kid.” To which I begged to stop and pick some from the roadside to use in some craft or Barbie bed I would later sow. Secretly I just loved doing whatever my Dad did but it took me years to understand the meaning of what it really meant for him to share that story with me.

During this particular trip we spent hours cleaning the blind, “decorating” or, camouflaging it, and setting out hundreds of decoys in various patterns and splays. I worked half as hard as Dad, singing some Jewel song the whole time into the warm early fall breeze and daydreaming about the boy I had a crush on at school. As we ended our day Dad sent me to the far edge of our leased hunting property to set out the final decoys. In the summer, after the harvest, the fields were used as grazing land for local cattle before being flooded for duck hunters’ use. As I meandered slowly and lazily across the far edge of the field I saw something large on the ground that peaked my sick-of-duck-blind-decorating interest. I wandered over, unaware I would find the flattened carcasses of not one but two cattle: a heifer and her unborn-born calf, still partially inside the heifer.

I yelled for Dad, shocked and intrigued at my discovery. “DAD!” I yelled as screamed into the wind, my voice traveling far into the distance. He stopped loading truck and looked up. “What?” He called back, never one to panic or come running. I called him over, motioning with excited hands at the discovery and eager to hear his thoughts, “Come here!” I screeched.

It was the first time I had seen something so raw. The cattle seemed vulnerable even in death. Sure, we had killed many a deer or duck in our hunting trips but this was different. This was death in the elements, a death that couldn’t be helped. Death in the cattle lands of the West. Even at ten something sickening and deeply human sucked my interest in about the whole idea of the mother heifer and her cattle dying out there alone and I wanted real answers. Answers I could only get from Dad.