"The Old Shooting House"
There’s a place along southbound I-65 just south of Stockton, Alabama where, if you look hard enough over your right shoulder, you can make out a dilapidated shooting house in the middle of the northern inside edge of a long forgotten foodplot. Many years obviously have passed since the shooting house or the foodplot over which it stands guard were the subject of anyone’s great attention. The structure itself is an elevated box blind with rectangular windows on three sides. Tattered strips of mesh flap out of the window openings the way a child wiggles his fingers beneath the bottom of a door. Years of baking heat and drenching rains have weathered the rust red exterior of the box blind, and much of the paint and wood has chipped or rotted away.
The box, which once quietly perched atop four posts, now leans back on two broken stilts the way one might look up at the heavens. The old field beneath the shooting house is overgrown with weeds, shrubbery and young saplings. Running parallel to a power easement, it looks to be about 200 yards deep by 100 yards wide, and was likely once a magnificent hunting spot. The Mobile River runs just north of the field, and the surrounding terrain is rich with dark, moist soil. A stand of 20 year old pines delineates the perimeters of the foodplot. Younger, more spindly pines have slowly begun sneaking up on the old shooting house, and will shortly enclose it completely in a green-needled bear hug.
I first noticed the old shooting house about four years ago on my way home from a hunting trip near Monroeville. Since then, I have made it a habit to crane my neck and look over my right shoulder to check on my old friend whenever I have begun my descent down the high bridge that spans the Mobile River. And each time I have been relieved to find the broken down old box blind faithfully at its post.
I have often wondered who owns the property where this field is located and who hunted there.
In my mind’s eye, I envision a young father and his little girl sitting side by side on the bench in the shooting house keeping watch over the lush green field beneath them. I smile at the quiet thought of the talks they must have shared while waiting for the deer to stream into the foodplot, and the excitement on the little girl’s face and the pride in the young father’s heart after she took her first deer.
Or maybe the old shooting house played host to a young man who excitedly raced home from school on winter afternoons to hunt over the greenfield before dark. I picture the young man sitting anxiously through the last few classes of the day waiting for the final bell to ring so he could take his seat in Nature’s classroom. I can see him sitting there carving his girlfriend’s initials into the bench beside him with an old pocketknife as the big one steps out from the treeline.
Perhaps the old shooting house was the focal point of a deep family tradition shared by an old man and his loving grandson. I listen closely for the words of wisdom the old man passed down to the young boy as they strolled quietly along the river bank on their way to the shooting house as the young boy looked up to his grandfather. It was his grandfather who taught him how to hunt, how to read the animals’ sign, and how to respectfully render the harvested beast. No doubt, times spent together in the shooting house helped that young boy become a man.
The old shooting house is safely visible for only a couple seconds. After that, you must return your attention to the roadway in front of you. But while it is only visible to me for a few seconds once or twice every year, the specter of the old shooting house and all it represents stays with me year round. I like to think it was built and utilized in a simpler time – a time before ATVs, laser range finders, and digital scouting cameras. I will, in all likelihood, never have real answers to my curiosities. But I think I much prefer my own answers whenever I see the old shooting house. And I bet if I ever got the nerve to sneak onto that property and climb up the ladder into the back of that box blind, I’d find some rusty old thirty-aught-six casings on the floor and some not quite completed initials carved in the bench.
(c) Roger Guilian 2005
The box, which once quietly perched atop four posts, now leans back on two broken stilts the way one might look up at the heavens. The old field beneath the shooting house is overgrown with weeds, shrubbery and young saplings. Running parallel to a power easement, it looks to be about 200 yards deep by 100 yards wide, and was likely once a magnificent hunting spot. The Mobile River runs just north of the field, and the surrounding terrain is rich with dark, moist soil. A stand of 20 year old pines delineates the perimeters of the foodplot. Younger, more spindly pines have slowly begun sneaking up on the old shooting house, and will shortly enclose it completely in a green-needled bear hug.
I first noticed the old shooting house about four years ago on my way home from a hunting trip near Monroeville. Since then, I have made it a habit to crane my neck and look over my right shoulder to check on my old friend whenever I have begun my descent down the high bridge that spans the Mobile River. And each time I have been relieved to find the broken down old box blind faithfully at its post.
I have often wondered who owns the property where this field is located and who hunted there.
In my mind’s eye, I envision a young father and his little girl sitting side by side on the bench in the shooting house keeping watch over the lush green field beneath them. I smile at the quiet thought of the talks they must have shared while waiting for the deer to stream into the foodplot, and the excitement on the little girl’s face and the pride in the young father’s heart after she took her first deer.
Or maybe the old shooting house played host to a young man who excitedly raced home from school on winter afternoons to hunt over the greenfield before dark. I picture the young man sitting anxiously through the last few classes of the day waiting for the final bell to ring so he could take his seat in Nature’s classroom. I can see him sitting there carving his girlfriend’s initials into the bench beside him with an old pocketknife as the big one steps out from the treeline.
Perhaps the old shooting house was the focal point of a deep family tradition shared by an old man and his loving grandson. I listen closely for the words of wisdom the old man passed down to the young boy as they strolled quietly along the river bank on their way to the shooting house as the young boy looked up to his grandfather. It was his grandfather who taught him how to hunt, how to read the animals’ sign, and how to respectfully render the harvested beast. No doubt, times spent together in the shooting house helped that young boy become a man.
The old shooting house is safely visible for only a couple seconds. After that, you must return your attention to the roadway in front of you. But while it is only visible to me for a few seconds once or twice every year, the specter of the old shooting house and all it represents stays with me year round. I like to think it was built and utilized in a simpler time – a time before ATVs, laser range finders, and digital scouting cameras. I will, in all likelihood, never have real answers to my curiosities. But I think I much prefer my own answers whenever I see the old shooting house. And I bet if I ever got the nerve to sneak onto that property and climb up the ladder into the back of that box blind, I’d find some rusty old thirty-aught-six casings on the floor and some not quite completed initials carved in the bench.
(c) Roger Guilian 2005
posted by Days Afield Host | 6:05 AM
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