Haylee Fonseca

Rogers

English 1A

Due: September 25^th, 2012

Do you want to Fly?  

            The clouds in the sky danced along in dark grey dresses ready to unleash all the secrets that they were holding in. The ground was damp like a usual fall morning, every step I took my boots settled into the empty rice field mud with leftover grain clinging to my boot as a hitch hiker on its way to a new place. That morning I got to pick out my outfit so of course, I was wearing my favorite tarnished red, flannel lined jacket; my favorite faded blue jeans that had holes in the knees because I was six and I believed that the easiest way to get around was crawling on all fours like a mustang free on its own; and my boots were on the wrong feet until my dad switched them. My dad and grandpa were talking on the dusty, chalk, clay dirt road coming up with a tactical way to approach the field to achieve the most yields of pheasants with both of their guns resting on their right shoulders. They are both Portuguese men with loud voices and the same tractor build, strong and powerful. With every word they spoke a different hand movement occurred to make sure each one of them get their point a crossed. Everything they were debating about was foreign to me because this is my first hunting experience and I was ready to go.

            Ten minutes later, my dad and grandpa agreed that my dad and I will walk along the toolie in crested ditch bank and my grandpa would be in the sticky field mud approximately twenty feet away. As we were walking, my dad was laying down his law of hunting. First law, never go in front of him. Second law, do not get distracted by other animals and chase them. Third law, always be ready and pay attention for someone to fire a gun. I was so excited that I was asking question after question to my dad and he finally replied, “Pooh bear, you’re going to wake up all the sleepin’ critters.” So I went silent and strutted like a shadow behind my dad, as he carried his shot gun, I carried my cat tail pressed firmly against my left shoulder with both hands.

            As we came to the corner in the field, up jumped a pheasant with long tail feathers, two guns were raised and fired BANG! BANG! And I hit the deck like pirate diving from a cannon ball. The first bird of the day had been won, retrieved by the dog, and slipped into my grandpa’s back pocket of his hunting vest. I peeled myself off the muddy earth. At this moment my dad realized that most of the birds were going to come from the left side of him and come from the base of the ditch in the dark crowded toolies. He looked at me and then he looked at the toolies, he looked at me then he looked at the toolies again, and came up with his master plan with a smile from ear to ear. The dogs could not go through the toolies because they were as thick as the hair on big foots back and there was no way to rip through them to walk but there was a way to scare them out.

            My dad nailed down in front of me as if he was getting ready to pray and asked me if I wanted to do something fun. I looked at him as if he asked a monkey if he wanted a banana. My dad replied to my facial expression, “Haylee, do you want fly?” and I told him, “No. Mom said, ‘I’m not allowed to fly off the swings anymore.’ I get hurt too much.” He shook his head and said with a smile, “Do you want to jump into the toolies and scare the birds? You’ll become a real hunter.” Of course I was stoked, my first hunting trip and I was already becoming a real hunter. My first thought was man, I’ve been out here for an hour and I’m a hunter, I must be good at this, and all my cousins are amateurs.

            As we were walking my dad found the perfect place where the dogs were pointing that there was a bird. My dad asked me, “Ready to fly?” and I nodded with a smile that could have made my Sunday school teacher show emotion. My dad reached under my arms and tossed my sixty pound body into the weeds. I was soaring through the air as a bird glides with the wind and I landed in the musty smell of rotting plant stems. My dad asked me, “You ok pooh bear?” and I ran up jumping around asking if I could do that again! He told me, “Let’s go down a little farther, and you can do it again.” As we were walking down the soggy bank my dad whispered, “Ready?” and I shouted with a smile on my face that he instantly forgave, “Yes sir!” He grabbed me by my sides and tossed me fifty feet in the air and I glided my body down with my jacket like a hand glider. I gracefully hit the toolies as a crop duster hit the gravel landing plane and up jumped two pheasants. BANG! BANG! Two shots, two birds, two happy men. My dad reached down and picked me up with one of his hands and said I did a great job at scaring the birds and that he was proud of me.

            As the day grew to fourteen hundred hours, I felt one of the clouds secrets hit my cheek. My dad swooped me up onto his broad shoulder and he crossed the terrain back to the faded grey ranch house. My grandpa was walking right beside us talking about the good ole days where we would get rain to flood the ditch and they would have to row the boat all the way down the drive way, right to the front step of the porch. My dad was grinning because he told this story every time it rained but I was laughing at my dad because he did the exact same thing when telling his high school football stories.

            As we made it to the house my dad set me down on the step so that we could take off our muddy boots and hung up our damp jackets on the nail beside the in house door and head inside of the house. We sat down on the 1960’s green leather couch and cuddled inside a warm afghan. We turned on the television hoping that the rabbit ears did not cut out because of the rain and leave us with the Spanish channel instead of the football game. By then, the rain started drowning the dirt clods in the rice field. We could hear the tin roof talking with every drop and we would have to compete for the attention in the room which was easy to do because we are a proud loud family. As my grandpa cooked my dad and I vibrant Portuguese beans and languesa lunch around the corner in the kitchen, my dad asked me if I had a good time. As the room filled up with the smell of lunch cooking, every breath I took would warm my soul a little bit more, his facial expression resembled a dog hoping for a treat. I replied to him, “Yes Daddy, can we go again?” His face lit up as if he won the lottery in approval. And he put his arm around my shoulder and said with a smile that could melt your heart, “Of course we can.”

            That day was the day I became a hunter and my dad knew he had a right hand hunting man. Our bond over the years has become more powerful with every step we take and every hunting trip we make. Hunting is not just a past time or a hobby, it’s a way to enjoy time together wall saving the environment from over population of certain species. Every time my father and I are together whether we are relaxing on the couch or rocking out to classic rock on the way to the ranch we always live it up and have a great time. I’m too old now to be thrown into the toolies but my dad always makes me feel like I can fly.