I was laying in my open sleeping bag. The night was cool and crisp but not cold....refreshing is the right word. The coals and embers from the evening meal fire were low and warm, but cast little light. My little campsite was next to a deep draw that fell off and went down deeply between the very high foot hills to a green, green valley far below.

The stars above were like a roof, with no moon they shown brightly. Way down in the valley I could hear a dog singing in the night...his rousing barks were low but sharp and long, carried on the clear air. Far off but somehow touching me warmly.

I lay there knowing that this and the many times like it were some of the best times of my life. It's not just restful, but somehow healing for me. My forefathers in Europe were hill people, and certainly the call of the wild is deeply ingrained in my psych. Fate and career forced me to be a city dweller many times, but it was never my choice.

All predators have their eyes in the front of their heads...all prey on the sides. Man is a predator.  Whether he likes it, or admits it or not, doesn't change it. The hunter is part of the birthright of every human. There are those that would have us and the rest of the world believe that some how that's wrong. You can not legislate nature...pass all the laws you want against rain...it isn't going to stop. Make the hunter somehow a politically wrong individual. That won't stop nature. Because the hunter is part of the birthright of every individual.

Mayhaps I'm just not too bright. But I have difficulty with those that say abortion is personal choice, that sexual orientation is personal choice, but hunting must be stopped it can no longer be tolerated as personal choice. I have a problem with those that indicate that the Second Amendment must be limited sharply for the benefit of all...when I know the First Amendment and how it's interpreted today is much more dangerous...don't believe that? Where do you think these kids learned to make bombs?  The major network news on three major channels described how the bombs at Littleton were manufactured. All described how the bombs at the World's Trade Center were made and of what, and the one that blew up the Federal Building. .

I hear so much about how these three areas don't really influence people...kids. Again I'm confused, some one better call Buick, Ford, Budweiser and Coke-a-Cola and a bunch others...they are spending multimillions ever year on videos, movies etc. trying to influence people...even though they call them commercials. Tell all these major and minor companies that communications ... visual and speech, don't influence people. But of course this is non-dangerous communication. The dangerous type doesn’t influence like that, maybe I just don’t understand.

It's obvious I don't...because my children experienced the death of deer and other animals. Saw the blood, and saw the animals die..even ate their flesh. How horrible of me to do that to them. I wonder why my kids never got an insane desire when they saw one of my guns.  A desire to shoot up their school or kill someone. Gee I always thought it was because they respected death, understood it, realized as humans we have authority over the animal kingdom ... but not over other humans. How terrible a Father I was to train them that the life of humans is sacrosanct...and that animals are food. Also that to waste an animal is sinful, to be causing pain needlessly to any living thing is cruel and subhuman behavior. That to harvest an animal quickly and cleanly is more than ethical, it's a law of nature.

How terrible that deep in the recesses of their minds now resides the knowledge that death and blood are real...and a firearm pointed at a human can bring about that kind of death they have seen in animals...and because of their training, now that thought is truly horrible for them, not a fantasy like a violent movie or video. And that they would never act out the death of a human...because they know reality! My, my what a terrible Father I've been. One daughter is a midline exec for a major statistical gathering corporation, the other is an underwriter of mortgages....I’ve failed...

As I shift in my sleeping bag, thinking on all this, the mortgage writer speaks to me....

"Dad, you hear that dog? Isn't it neat?'

Before I can answer the other daughter turns in her sleeping bag..

"Hey you guys...we have to be up before sunup..it's opening day tomorrow remember? Lets cut the chatter and go to sleep."

Yup...their eyes are on the front of their heads....and their hearts are loving and warm..One in her spare time runs a shelter for abandoned dogs and cats...the other cries over the poor and gives to the homeless...

"I don’t understand......Oh Lord, where did I go wrong?"