My hunting trip with John Kerry: A satirical story 

By Harold Hough
web posted August 9, 2004

I recently wrote an article questioning the hunting credentials of
presidential candidate John Kerry. Ho boy, did I catch it! While
most hunters agreed with me, I got an enraged phone call from
the Beacon Hill Rod and Gun Club. The gentleman had an upper
crust New England accent so polished that it made JFK sound
like someone from the Beverly Hillbillies.
"I think you did a great disservice to my friend Senator Kerry,"
He haughtily informed me. "The Senator is an avid sportsman
who hunts with us on a regular basis."

"How regular is regular?" I asked him. 

"He's been here at least four times this year alone."

"Hmmm, that's more times than he has been on the Senate floor
this year."

"That's not why I called you," he said testily. "The Senator has
asked me to invite you up to Boston to our club so you can go
hunting with him."

You could have floored me. After that article, I figured that they
wouldn't even let me carry a gun within a hundred miles of him.
Now he was actually inviting me to go out hunting with him.
Wow! I might have misjudged him. Maybe he is really a regular
guy. We quickly made the arrangements. The Beacon Hill Rod
and Gun Club was going to send out its private aircraft to pick
me up and I would get a whole day to spend hunting with Kerry.

Well, I have to admit that these hunters in Boston know how to
hunt. Hunting for me usually entails a couple of hours in a four
wheel drive truck and a washboard dirt road that disassembles
my vertebrae and mixes them up like a bag of Scrabble pieces.
Here I was flying at 30,000 feet in a Gulfstream, sipping a great
wine. Meanwhile a liveried servant was polishing my Remington
870 shotgun.

I was no less impressed with the club's grounds. This was no
dilapidated log cabin in a disheveled wood. The lodge looked
like it had been built with enough redwood timber to make a
national park. And the grounds - no disorder here. The leaves
had been picked up and the ground was smooth and weeded. I
bet the wildlife is shampooed and blow dried every week.
I was directed to the common room and told that the Senator
would join me presently. Boy, this was nothing like the Star
Junction Fish and Game Club I had belonged to back in
Pennsylvania. All they had there was a stuffed fish caught in the
Monongahela sometime in the last century. Here the room was
filled with stuffed heads of record setting moose, lions, Cape
Buffalo, and leopards. Okay, I figured, the only difference
between these guys and my friends back in Tucson is that they
can afford more expensive hunting trips.

"Magnificent, isn't it?" a patrician type said to me while I was
looking at a magnificent moose head over the fireplace. Money
oozed from his pores and was soaked up by the natural fiber in
the tailored clothes he wore. His was a body that probably never
knew polyester, or camouflage clothing unless his London tailor
made it. I also had a feeling that he didn't have a copy of Field
and Stream on his coffee table back at the mansion.

"It sure is," I said. "Who shot him?"

"I believe it was Jonathan Fitzhugh Cabot in the Montana
Territory in 1867."

"How about that lion over there?"

"That was donated by Sir Jefforey Winslow-Smyth, who shot
him in the Belgium Congo in 1903."

"And that Cape Buffalo?"

"Deneys Van Slyke in the Orange Free State in 1898."

"Haven't you shot anything more recently?"

"We have, but nothing like these. You see, we are a progressive
hunting club. We have a strict code of ethics that guides our
hunting."

I looked quizzically at him.

The gentleman drew his lanky body up to its full patrician height
and positioned his nose so he could look down at me. "We have
higher moral standards. We do not shoot endangered species."

"Okay, but I know that there are too many elephants in
Zimbabwe and South Africa. Why not hunt there?"

"We do not use improper firearms and ammunition at this club.
We must set standards for the majority of hunters who don't
have the education or intelligence we have," he said with a look
of moral superiority."

"Did you plan to shoot elephants with a 50 caliber machinegun?"

The gentleman seemed to shrink a little. Under that cashmere
blazer was someone who wanted to be a hunter, but was afraid
of what his friends and business associates would think if he was
politically incorrect. "You see," he confessed, "the only bullets
that are big enough to shoot an elephant are capable of
penetrating a policeman's bulletproof vest, and therefore in the
eyes of most club members unfit for sporting purposes.
Personally I would love to shoot an elephant, but the club wants
to maintain its standards of political progressiveness."

"I can see their concern," I said. "Next think you know,
neighborhood gangs will be shooting each other with custom
made, hand engraved, double barreled Holland & Holland 700
Nitro Expresses. Personally, I think its time for you to change
clubs. Out in Arizona, we don't." I could feel a flurry of
excitement behind me. I turned and there was Kerry entering the
room with a covey of lackeys darting hither and yon around him.

Kerry walked up to me and gave a firm handshake. "I'm so glad
to meet you. I hope the trip was comfortable."

"Yes, Senator Kerry, it was. It was nice of you to invite me."

"Of course it was. Now down to business," Kerry said without
looking at me. You know that what we are doing is important
and we don't want to make any mistakes?"

"I couldn't agree with you more," I said. It was good to hear him
talking about hunting safety.

"It is up to you if I become incapacitated or die," he said. Boy,
talk about pessimism. Is he that skittish about guns or did he
think I might be tempted to take a shot at him.

"I don't think you should worry that much," I said. "Your Secret
Service detail can take care of anything that happens."

"No. I mean Iraq."

"Well, there will probably be a few people over there cheering if
you die. But I wouldn't worry. I'm sure that the guerillas will be
happier hearing that Bush is dead."

"No," he said with a flash of haughty exasperation. "I mean what
will you do in Iraq then?"

"What. Are we going hunting there?"

"No." He was looking at me in a strange manner, sort of like
Lurch in the Addams Family. He seemed to change his mind,
"Forget it. What do you think about Roe vs. Wade?"

"I'm sorry, I'm haven't done much fishing, so I haven't used fish
eggs for bait," I said. "Nor do I own any waders." I could now
understand why his handlers try to keep him out of the public
eye. This guy flip-flops in mid-thought. One minute talking about
hunting in Iraq and then asking me about fishing.

Kerry looked at one of his aides questioningly. The aide
whispered into Kerry's ear. His face changed expressions,
something I thought you couldn't do after botox injections. "I'm
sorry Mr. Hough. I thought you were on my short list for vice
president."

I was relieved. I thought those were weird questions for
someone going hunting. Of course, asking a vice president his
opinion about fish eggs struck me as a bit weird too, but I guess
that was just Kerry's thoroughness. Maybe he wants to tax them.

Kerry waved his sycophants away with his hand and motioned
me over to a far corner of the room. "I was disturbed by your
article," he told me a tone that reminded me of a prep school
teacher lecturing a student caught with a Playboy. "I'm really a
skilled hunter. In fact, it was my great skill as a hunter that
allowed me to become a combat hero in Vietnam - you did
know I was in Vietnam, didn't you?"

I nodded in the affirmative. Why was I getting this feeling that
finding the unvarnished truth about Kerry's hunting abilities was
going to be more challenging than finding quail amongst a herd of
stampeding elephants? My eyes started to glaze over.
"But to prove to you that I'm a good hunter and a regular guy,
why don't us two veterans hunt bobwhite today."
My ears perked up. Bobwhite!

Truth be told, Kerry did know how to hunt in style. We had
three SUVs for transportation, two gun bearers, and a half a
dozen Purdy shotguns, any one of which was worth more than
my house. When we got to the field we were going to hunt, there
were at least three dozen beaters. At least, I though they were
beaters. They turned out to be the press corps.
 
I have to admit that Kerry was a good shot too. True, the
bobwhites were a little dazed when they were released from their
cages, but like a good sportsman, the Senator did wait for them
to take off before shooting them.

So, how was Kerry as a hunter? I have to admit that he knew
more than I thought. He was also willing to share his food, which
was brought out to the field by his servants. However, he has
been in the Senate a little too long and has taken the concept of
Senatorial privilege a bit too far. I don't mind retrieving a bird
that someone else shot, especially if I'm near it, but I'll be darned
if I ever bring them back in my mouth again.

Harold Hough is a hunter and shooter, who consults and writes
so he can pay for hunting licenses, ammunition, range fees, and
new firearms. His last book, Satellite Imagery for the Masses
came out in January. He can be reached at hjhough@aol.com.

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