And Now We Shall Do Manly Things by Craig Heimbuch Read Free Book Online Page B

them. And in this world of twenty-four-hour grocery stores and health clubs, the idea of sharing my plans to take up arms and stalk animals didn’t seem like the right thing to do.
    Except for John.
    John is the husband of the best friend Rebecca has ever had. We’d met five years earlier, after our wives had met and become instant friends. After a few months of getting together with the kids or going out for coffee, wine, or dinner, the girls decided it was time for John and me to get to know each other.
    â€œI want you to meet Anne’s husband, John,” Rebecca told me one day.
    â€œWhy?”
    â€œBecause,” she said, “he’s nice and I think you two would get along.”
    â€œReally? What’s he do?”
    â€œHe’s some kind of engineer.”
    â€œWell, that’s a lot like being a writer.”
    â€œBut you guys have so much in common.”
    â€œLike what?”
    â€œHe likes sports and you like sports. You’ll have a lot to talk about.”
    She didn’t point out that John is a football fan and I’m a tennis fan, but in the strictest sense of the word, I guess she was right. It was a man date and there was no getting around it. It was lucky John and I did get along. Sure, he’s an engineer who grew up in a small town—or near it—in western Indiana. He’s an athlete and he drinks beer where I prefer gin, but we had things in common beyond the usual hobbies and interests; namely, we were married to very similar women. I decided I would first tell John about my idea to learn to hunt, but I realized there would be some obvious questions I would need to answer. For what would I be hunting? Where? When?
    I went to a used bookstore in a strip mall in our town and asked the woman behind the counter where they kept the books about hunting. She looked at me for a long moment. Was it disdain? Or was she searching her mental inventory? She pointed me in the direction of the sports books, a small shelf tucked away in a dusty corner. I got the sense that people who read about sports tend to buy their books new and keep them on their shelves because the selection was meager to say the least. There were books about football and rock climbing, a couple of rows dedicated to the martial arts, and a couple more about soccer. But in terms of the sports afield, there were very few titles; and a vast majority of those were about fishing.
    I tried another bookstore, one that sold new books, and the local public libraries. It seemed there was not a great demand for hunting books in the suburbs north of Cincinnati, so I turned to the Internet. I began with a search for “Ohio Hunting Rules” and came across the Ohio Department of Natural Resources site and a page devoted to hunting regulations. I once read an article about hunters in Germany. Being at least half and probably more German, I have over the years come to respect that country’s innate sense of rules and order. Getting a driver’s license in Germany takes years, and those caught committing moving violations on the autobahn aren’t just slapped with a ticket; they have their privileges removed. Mind you, not for something like causing a ten-car pileup or repeated offenses of driving under the influence of massive quantities of German beer, but moving violations like failing to yield in the left lane for cars attempting to pass. Knowing this, it’s no surprise to learn that hunting is taken pretty seriously over there. Getting a German hunter’s license requires two years of training, apprenticeship, and overcoming bureaucratic hurdles that would drive an American libertarian to the brink of insanity. As such, most Germans who hunt are of the upper class. They are the ones who can afford expensive game tags and memberships at state-regulated game preserves. The result is an orderly and safe community of hunters and conservationists, well-trained outdoorsmen who are capable