Tag: hunting

  • My Guns, Part 2: My Blackbirds

    My Guns, Part 2: My Blackbirds

    I was both a city and country mouse, living between my father’s deep-Appalachian world of sharecroppers, hunters, and, yes, moonshine, and the bustling metropolis of Rogersville, Tennessee, population around 5,100. I grew up in a small, middle-class suburb on the edge of town, a place where people kept their grass cut and their children played…

  • My Guns, Part 1

    My Guns, Part 1

    I don’t remember Dad handing me my first rifle. I do remember killing my first rabbit. It was winter, I’d just turned nine, so, in Appalachian thought, I was two years late. It was time to kill something. But Dad hadn’t put pressure on me. We were walking through four inches of snow in a…