The squirrelly Mr. Morley

A few weeks ago, I went squirrel hunting with my friend Jesse. I've talked about him and his family in this column before. You'll probably remember him best for that time we took a pee in his family cornfield. His family owns a prime stretch of woodlands loaded with 10 times the squirrels of Dunn Meadow. It's about 30 minutes west of Evansville, and that's where we went one Saturday morning. \nWe loaded our gear into his car and drove the rural country roads, sipping black coffee while Jesse gave me the obligatory lesson on how to take my Ithaca 20-gauge shot gun and put a little distance between his neck and shoulders. I've actually been raised around guns my whole life, but let's face it -- the reason I'm still alive comes from the same mystical powers that kept Inspector Clouseau alive.\nWhen we pulled the Jeep Cherokee into a corn field, we got out and started walking over the uneven terrain. Jesse was nice and carried my gun for me. When I'm walking on uneven ground, my arms instinctively raise to shoulder height, and my palms become totally opened as though I'm a tightrope walker for Ringling Brothers. Finally we crept across an open field into the darkened shadows of woods filled with those glorious brown and gray rodential squirrels.\nWe started creeping ever so quietly. Jesse stepped over twigs, across fallen limbs, between noisy patches of leaves, just as sure as David Crockett did when he killed that bear when he was only three. Quiet is the name of the game. The squirrels can't be allowed to hear you coming, to hear you invade their territory, to be allowed to know the threat of their impending doom is creeping continually closer and closer.\nQuiet, however, is a new thing to me. It was hard enough not to talk, let alone go creeping around these big woods with every set of eyes the forest could muster peering at my olive green safari jacket and brown, medium-brimmed fedora. Then there was a tap on my shoulder. I looked at Jesse, and he looked at me. Then he pointed to my left at this tall moss-covered tree that had a live one starting to climb up the side. He handed me my gun, flipped off the safety and whispered, "Shoot it."\nI took careful aim at the cute and fuzzy-fur-covered creature starting to move faster up the side of the tree. I squeezed the trigger.\nJust a second earlier, that four-legged squirrel was still happy as can be climbing to the top of the tree, not knowing that as soon as I exerted enough force to pull back the trigger with my right index finger, there would be a loud boom coinciding with his life force exiting his body at more than 250 miles an hour as a circle six inches in diameter of little pellets found his vital organs.\nIt was almost God-like.\nIndiana is a state filled with outdoorsmen who take pride in their skills at various times of the year, taking their weapons of choice and venturing into the woods as did pioneers in the early days of our nation. Jesse made me one of those outdoorsmen that day and taught me the pleasure that comes at the end of a hunt pitting man against nature.\nIt was a thrill indeed. But as we cleaned one of the squirrels I killed that day, I threw up. And then it dawned on me. There are grocery stores selling chickens that probably taste just as good as those little furry friends running around in Dunn Meadow.