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When I was growing up, there was a ram in my living room. Okay, it wasn’t a whole ram, just a ram’s head hanging on the bricks that covered one wall in my living room above the tv. We put a bow on his head around the holidays, I probably named him Rammy (or something clever like that) and said hi to him as I passed on my way in and out of the front door. It was the most natural thing in the world.
On my way to the basement to play pool or find a game stored under the stairs, I would say hello to Carry the Caribou who was hanging out on the bulkhead in front of the stairwell and then would make my way down the steps, only to stop in my daddy’s den to say hello to 3 other friends:
- Mickey the Moose
- Deery the Deer and
- The unnamed pheasant ~ we’ll call her Phyllis (because I’m a little more clever now.)
As you might have guessed, my daddy was a proud hunter and loved displaying his local and international accomplishments around the house for us all to enjoy.
And we did.
They were part of my life, as much as anything, and I didn’t really think that having heads nailed to the wall was anything out of the ordinary until I was talking with my daughter the other day.
We were talking about moose ~ mooses ~ err.. whatever ~ and I started telling her about Mickey ~ wondering what happened to him since my father’s death. I started rattling off, in a rather excited manner, about all of my other deadhead friends who shared my house and my life.
There I was, chittering all my giddy details of where they lived in my house and how they came to be and all that, when I noticed her face. Her once interested face began to show signs of horror, shock, then horror again ~ as if I were describing a murder scene or the site of some macabre degenerate’s gruesome haunted basement.
That’s when I realized that my family, now, is not a hunting family. We don’t have animal heads hanging up on the walls and no smell of freshly made shotgun shells permeate through the den.
What was normal and natural to me is bizarre and alien to her.
It made me think of upbringings and cultures and how different we all are. Not good, not bad, just different.
It also made me wonder where they all are now, my friends. Hopefully, they are proudly displayed on some loving family’s wall with clever names from loving children.
Is there anything from your childhood that your kids would find completely bizarre? How does your culture differ from your kids? What items were on your walls growing up that you wonder where they are now?
Hummmm … my dad, uncles, and brothers have all been hunters at one time or another, but we didn’t have a head or horn to show for it. Any time I did happen to come across a nameless version of Rammy or Mickey it was always in the “natural setting” of someone’s vacation cabin or hunting lodge.
But here’s the funny thing. My middle daughter, Cate, has a growing collection of dead animal heads and bodies. To date we have one Mallard Duck, a Dear with one ear broken off (to be glued on at a later date), and a molting Pheasant. Where she acquired a taste for such things is anyone guess, since it isn’t a homegrown tradition. What’s more, I have grown attached to these nameless creatures and might just go about handing out monikers myself.
I would much prefer seeing these animals in their natural setting, but the funny thing is that it didn’t bother me seeing them on the wall, as a child.
That’s funny about your daughter, Barbara! Cora said something similar about her daughter too. Wild
I may be your story in reverse. I can’t imagine killing an animal for sport so what happened with my daughter? She has collected a stuffed baby deer, a stuffed deer head she found in a second hand store and skulls of all kinds displayed in her living room. Go figure.
Barbara said something similar about her daughter too! I wonder where one goes to collect such things. Ebay? Thrift store?
I always had trouble with animals being killed.
My dad and brothers hunted for food. Even as a child I didn’t like the idea of killing those animals and I really disliked eating them. Thank goodness my father was not a trophy hunter. The true beauty I saw in an animal was when it was alive.
However, the part that my mother rallied against was having rifles and shotguns in the house. Dad build a gun rack and installed it in an obscure place in the house, but mom really disliked having it. Dad worked away from home most of the time and the guns were never used in his absence. (We lived in the country so using a gun was not a big deal.)
However, I learned years later that mother’s dislike of the guns was the fact that any weapon one has can be taken away and used against the owner. I’m glad I never thought of that as a child when we had guns around!
For most of this life, I have been a vegetarian and have not had to kill any animal. I have great heart for Veterinarians who put our pets to sleep!
We had guns around too and I never thought of that as a child either. It’s funny how when kids are just used to how things are, they really don’t think about the issues beyond that. I suppose that’s the way it should be ~ keeping the world off their shoulders for a mite longer.
Putting animals to sleep is heartbreaking ~ it’s what steered me away from pursuing a career in that field…
Thanks for stopping by and sharing, Amy!