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ROD DAVIS: TOO HOT FOR SAN ANTONIO

It can now be announced: Rod Davis will join D Magazine as a senior editor in mid-March. Once upon a time, Rod was a writer for this magazine. He's also been the editor of the Texas Observer, an AP editor, and the executive editor of Cooking Light. He's an award-winning novelist. And, for the next few days, he's the travel editor for the San Antonio Express-News.

In that latter capacity, he wrote a short story for the paper about the time, as a boy, he was shot while hunting. The story pokes a little fun at the vice president, and for that reason, Rod's editors spiked it. We at the magazine look forward to spiking Rod's stories, too. Meantime, by way of introduction to the FrontBurner Nation, here's the story that was too hot for the Express-News:

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FORGET THE LAWYERS, SHOOT THE KID

BY ROD DAVIS

Although during two years in the Army I never came under enemy fire, I do know what it's like to be shot during a bird hunt. Although not by a vice president of the United States. So here's showing a little love for the wounded Austin lawyer and GOP fundraiser, Harry Whittington, and not much at all for his assailant, the aforementioned VP, Dick Cheney.

My own experience at being on the receiving end of a shotgun blast occurred on a dove hunt in a maize field near Athens, Ga., back in my mostly unarmed high school days. My late father, a veterinarian, was frequently invited on hunting trips, and as an Ohio farm boy turned Navy aviator in WWII (did I mention that the gun-toting veep steadfastly avoided military service?), Dad was comfortable around guns, and hunting. And the protocol concerning both.

Some of the hunting trips were to what were called "hunting preserves," a euphemism for phony setups in which the fields were stocked with caged, tame game. You paid by the kill, no limit. For quail hunters, a guide led the groups of hunters, frequently chauffered via Jeep like so many duffers in a golf cart, to a place where the coveys had been settled. The dog would sniff them out, they'd fly up, and--bam--you'd have to be a pretty bad shot to miss.

The worst was the duck hunting. The Georgia ducks had been more or less trained, or forced, to assemble at the top of a small hill, then walk down to the pond under a rope netting, and fly back up to the hilltop roost for their food. En route back--bam. Even as a 14-year-old, I knew this was not only the definition of unsporting, but full of all kind of cosmic wrongness.

My dad had the same feeling and we stopped going to these places. Since then, I’ve never respected anyone who did. Or does.

I was shot, though, in an open field on a regular kind of hunt. We had gone out on a cold autumn morning with a group of maybe 15 or more hunters from the University of Georgia and environs. Nothing unusual. We lined up, a safe distance apart, and began to walk the field to scare up the doves who had come in to feed. I was a pretty good shot with my .410 and very quickly began to fill my pouch.

The purpose of the hunt line, not entirely dissimilar to a frontal assault line in the military, was to make sure no one got ahead or behind and thus became an inadvertent target. I was moving forward, gun at port arms, looking at some incoming birds, when for some reason I happened to glance over my shoulder.

The hunter to my left was tracking a dove coming in between us. I was maybe 15 yards away, or less.

In an instant, I sensed what was coming my way. I think I heard another hunter yell something, but it was too late. I saw the barrel of the shotgun turn directly toward me. All I could do was double over instinctively in a protective crouch, pull the hood of my winter parka over my head, and hope the pellets wouldn’t find my face or other flesh.

Whittington never had that chance, nor the reflexes of a high school kid.

A split-second later, I felt the shot splatter against my hooded head and my torso, and then I collapsed backward. The coat had stopped the blast, given the distance, and except for being scared, I was okay.

What happened in the next few minutes is pretty much lost in my memory, although I know there was much scolding of the man who had shot me, whose name I never knew. Although it wasn't Cheney.

I hadn't thought of this in many years. Now, I even remember the sting of the pellets through my jacket.

On behalf of Mr. Whittington, thankfully now recovering well, and anyone else who is shot by a trigger-happy comrade--the very essence of pariah in the hunter’s code of conduct--I have this repressed comment:

You SHOT me, you freakin' moron!

Tim Rogers · February 20, 2006 08:48 AM