Chris and Larry Freshley, c. 1970s/1980s

As I walked out to feed the chickens this morning I could hear the familiar “Pop! Pop! Pop!” of duck hunters down by the bay. It sounded like they were just east of the Oysterville Meadow (or the “Little Meadow,” as it has always been called by my family.) I wondered if it was one of the “Freshley Boys” or, perhaps Lina’s husband Dave Cordray.

Of course, the Freshleys aren’t boys anymore and I’m not even sure they come “home” to hunt these days. I wonder if Larry has introduced his grandsons to this old Oysterville tradition. I hope so. The sound of those shotguns takes me back several generations – even back before I was born if that’s possible. I think of it as a genetic sound – one of those “imbedded in my DNA” things.

I don’t think my dad ever hunted. It probably wasn’t an important Rite of Autumn in Boston where he grew up. But, in Oysterville, my mother’s brothers hunted and I imagine their father and grandfather did too. Not for sport as much as for sustenance I would suspect. But it wasn’t a Big Deal – as in no one talked about it much.

Willard the Sportsman, 1920s

I vaguely remember my mother saying that her brother Edwin was the sports-minded one; not Willard. Yet I have a wonderful photograph of Willard as a teenager standing, rather languidly, with a rifle in one hand and what looks like a fishing rod in the other. Another one of those tell-tale photos that says “he wasn’t a sportsman; a writer, perhaps.”

Last year there were objections to the hunters along the bay. I was sorry about that. I‘m not sure whether it was the Bambi folks or the environmentalists who were concerned. Whoever they were, they hadn’t a clue about duck hunting (thought they were seeing or hearing rifles) and no regard for Peninsula or Oysterville traditions. Another case of come-here-because-you-‘love’-it-but-not-because-you-really-know-anything-about-it.

No doubt Dobby Wiegardt and his sons and grandsons were out this morning, as well. When I lived next door to him, I loved it that his duck blind was only a stone’s throw away, yet I couldn’t see him at all. Nyel, on the other hand, had no blind. He would hunker down in the tall grass or just walk out on the tide flats and take his chances. I can never remember him coming home empty-handed. And the nice part about that was that he cleaned them and cooked them, too!

I love autumn with its pop-pop-pops in the misty mornings!