Excerpt from Chapter 6

Dad got into his homemade duck boat, which was powered by a twelve-foot pole. He methodically maneuvered through the stobs sitting out of the water, picking up the birds, careful not to tumble out of the boat. If he fell into the frigid water, it would be the end of the hunt and a miserable day for both of us. When we arrived back at the blind, we saw that the Wood Duck drake was beautiful. The colors were vivid, as though an artist had spilled his paints upon its head. I caressed his feathers, trying to place him in a natural position. My father already knew this bird was headed to the taxidermist, so that my memory of this moment could last a lifetime. That morning would prove to be the first of many mornings spent in a duck blind, and would fuel a passion for waterfowl hunting that would carry to the next generation.

Waterfowl hunting is different in many ways from other varieties. There has to be a con, if you will, a manipulation to lure the birds into range. The blind has to not only be positioned correctly, but camouflaged. Decoys must be laid with precision, depending on wind direction, as well as an opening to allow a landing area. Calling is, of course, the ultimate con. One has to be proficient at a variety of call techniques: the long call, the comeback call, feeding chuckle and lone hen call, which are all used at different times in flight to gain the birds’ trust. Once trust is gained and they are lured into shooting range the coup de grace takes place. Many might find this cruel and manipulative, and as I enter my fifth decade of life, I appreciate that sentiment more and more, not regretting the memories, but reprocessing in general the techniques involved in the hunt.

Sexual predators use the same techniques, as I was to discover many years later. It is called grooming. Cousin Pete had used this technique with well-honed precision. There was money in his family and the first “call” was his new car. We would take rides and he would let me explore the new gadgets, taking small jaunts, ten to thirty minutes at a time. This occurred off and on for months, the slow building of trust and refining of a relationship, the birth of a friend. In order for trust to develop and true friendship to occur between two people, the appropriate groundwork must be laid.

First, there must be the passage of time. In order to assess each other, there must be enough time allowed for the natural social instincts to fully develop. Unfortunately, when one is young and impressionable, far less time is required. Second, gift giving is another highly effective manipulation. The gifts exchanged do not have to necessarily be material items like comics or candy, though this too is common, but often come in the form of sharing past memories and complimentary or laudatory statements. The third key ingredient is the willingness to be there for the other, to offer help in difficult emotional times, a kind of quasi-altruism, or empathy if you will. Once trust is finally established, a very slow, yet deliberate discussion surrounding sexual topics may occur with an expression of shock that no discussion has previously occurred with the parents. Why, they will ask. If your parents really cared about you, they would have told you about sex. Sex happens, and every man wants to get the pretty girl and be the talk of the town. It started slowly, very slowly, discussions about genitalia, the penis, naked women, what they look like, what piques curiosity. Playboy magazines would be left in the glove compartment for me to peruse.