OOOH YOU WASKLY WABBIT!

Back in the 1970's

two friends and I used to small game hunt each Saturday or Sunday morning.

We called it" little game hunting", unless we were going for woodchucks, then we called it "Jousting for Forest Charles."

One Sunday morning Nick, George and I went out along the tracks in Duanesburg. Before entering the woods we always stopped at the Duanesburg Diner for breakfast. This was always a dangerous thing because George would then have to relieve himself somewhere in the woods. George was and is infamous for his finicky bowels. Let's just say that if he went at the top of a hill you didn't want to be at the bottom! Visualize a lava flow.

At this time, I was hunting with a Remington 20 gauge pump shotgun that held five shots. We used to walk through the woods in a line on three different levels - the wooded hill top, the open grassy field and the brush along the drop to the tracks. I was in the middle, walking the field.

It was a bright spring morning about 7 a.m., the birds were chirping .....I heard Nick yell

"Rabbit!"

You actually pick up the motion before you see the animal. Out of the corner of my left eye I saw the movement, then focused on the rabbit busting ass into the field - zigging and zagging every which way.

Without even thinking my gun was up and I touched off the first shot. It missed and grass flew up just to the right of the critter, so he went left. Again I fired, a branch flew off of a scrub, and I heard George yell,"Two." More grass flying, "Three." Next just a clear miss,"Four." Finally , as Bugs disappeared into the treeline, I killed a white birch sapling,"Five."

I heard them laughing before they got to me. Nick and George were merciless with their jokes.

"Damn if that rabbit didn't look like he was doing the mambo! His little ass was going back and forth", Nick said.

George retorted with," He looked like O.J. running through the defense. I think he even stiff armed that tree."

I gave them the two word answer," F*&^% You!" Which only made them laugh more.

Later as we were walking back to the car George started laughing . The current rage was CB radios. He decided that an appropriate handle for me would be "5 Shot." Which it became!

Over the years the story has gotten larger. They now say I reloaded and after emptying the gun a second time I threw a grenade at the rabbit.

Nick says he still hears the rabbit laughing and then he tap dances and sings - "Ovature, curtain, lights, This is it! The night of nights! No more nurs'in, rehears'in of parts! We know every part by heart!.........." He does it best if he can exit a room. Then when finishing he'll take off an invisible hat and shake it above his head as he goes through the door saying,"You ain't seen nothin yet!"