I wish I could get guns off my plate

I wish I could get guns off my plate

Guns again are an issue—this time at the University Mall in South Burlington. Although, according to news reports, no one was hit directly by a bullet, the fact that guns were the first line of retaliation between feuding groups or individuals once again raises the question of what our culture believes about the value of human life.

Where did all the hot shots come from?

Where did all the hot shots come from?

Strange memories drive your mind, don’t they? My wife, Beth, has been going through items from my parents’ house in order to figure out what she might want to sell in her antique booth in Burlington. Today’s items are pictures that covered the walls of many rooms there. A good number of them are pictures of ducks and other game. They are usually groups of fowl setting their wings to land or flying over a blind, settling in a marsh, reminding me once again that my dad’s major sideline was hunting and our neighbor was a duck-stamp artist. When the duck, goose and pheasant seasons ended, Dad turned to trap and skeet. Guns ended up being year-round features in our house.

Commentary: There are guns, and there are guns

Commentary: There are guns, and there are guns

I grew up in a gun-club family. My father and his father-in-law were avid duck hunters, and our weekend ritual during duck season was to rise before dawn, eat breakfast with other hunters in the only café in the area open at four a.m., and then hie to my grampa’s camp on a lake that was formed like a figure eight.