OUT SHOOTING SQUIRRELS [R, 3-9-23]

CHRIST IN WINTER: Reflections on Faith & Life for the Years of Winter—OUT SHOOTING SQUIRRELS [R, 3-9-23]

 

We have too much stuff. We try to get rid of stuff. So, when daughters ask me what I want for Christmas or my birthday, I ask for donations to food pantries or refugee relief and such. They are good about making those donations, but they still think they have not given me a gift unless they wrap something up. They know I’ll read anything that comes into the house, so the wrapped-up gifts are books.

Thus, I read Per Petterson’s Out Stealing Horses, a gift from daughter Katie Kennedy, the author.

It reminds me of going out shooting squirrels, with Don Survant.

Don’s family moved from St. Louis to the country near Oakland City when he was in 8^th grade. We rode the same school bus. He was only a semester ahead of me, so it was natural that we rode together and talked together. Well, I did most of the talking.

Don was quiet. Smart, but not much interested in books. He liked hands-on stuff. We spent a summer working together as construction helpers. Most importantly, he was a totally reliable friend. We did a lot of things together, including squirrel hunting. Once.

Gibson County was hunter-friendly but not really a hunting culture. Same as my family. Of my 13 aunts and uncles, and 35 cousins, only Uncle Ted, my mother’s oldest brother, ever hunted, and he did it mostly so that Aunt Nora would let him have a dog.

But when Don said, “We’re going out shooting squirrels,” I said “Sure.” I never wanted to be left out of anything. And I liked being with Don. He listened to my mutterings of teenage angst.

I didn’t think about what would happen if I actually shot a squirrel. I’m sure my mother would not have wanted to skin it and cook it.

I didn’t have a rifle, but Don showed up on our appointed hunting day with two. We went out into the woods. Don said we had to be quiet and patient. Neither was a natural quality for me. When I was with a friend, I wanted to talk. Turns out that I was a good shot, though. Aiming at branches. But we shot no squirrels. I don’t think the squirrels even took us seriously.

 

Don didn’t say anything, as usual, but it was clear that he cut our hunting day short because his best friend was not cut out to be a hunter. He never again said, “We’re going out shooting squirrels.”

As kids and teens, even as adults, friendship is mostly liking and doing the same things. Together. So it’s a disjoint, when you learn that a friend does not have the same interests, wants to do other things.

Except for each other, Don and I had very different tastes in people. I wanted to be with the cool kids, and date the pretty girls. That didn’t matter to Don at all. He chose a girl best described as “plain.” She came from a slightly disreputable family, at least her brothers. But Don saw qualities in her that did not show on the outside, just as he did with me. I was his best man when he married her. They kept their vows until they were “parted” by Don’s death, over 60 years later.

After high school and marriage, Don joined the air force. He was a jet engine mechanic. You want reliable people in a job like that. We lived many states apart, but we wrote letters, the way you communicated in those days. But we both got busy. The letters stopped. We lost touch.

Then the internet arrived. It was possible to connect with people again. Google found Don for me a couple of years before he died. It was a joy to learn that he was still my friend and still different from me.

Per Petterson’s characters didn’t really steal the horses. They just wanted to ride them. They took them back. The story is about the activities of two boys, how those activities define their friendship, and continue to impact their lives even though they lose touch with each other.

We spend our lives perfecting who we are. The conventional wisdom way of saying it is that as we age, we become more like ourselves. I think that Don and I both became ourselves, and that’s really what you want in a friend, even if you don’t steal any horses, even if you don’t shoot any squirrels.

John Robert McFarland