Girls That Do

“Don’t drink, smoke, or chew. Or date girls that do.”

That’s an axiom attributed to King Solomon, if I’m not much mistaken, and one that I have tried to abide by for the whole of my adult life. Between being well acquainted with the fairer sex and having been blessed with more wisdom than any man before or since, I figure Solomon ought to know. Having said that, there are exceptions to every rule, right? At the risk of being labeled a hypocrite, here are mine, hypothetically speaking, of course.

If there were nothing but longneck bottles in the bottom of the ice chest, you’d better believe I’d toss back a cold one after an early season doe drag. If you have ever dragged a whitetail doe any distance at all, then you know firsthand just how tricky it can be to get a good grip on those slick ears. Add in one of Mother Nature’s obstacles, something like a swollen creek crossing or an autumn afternoon featuring triple digit temperatures, maybe, and it sure wouldn’t take much peer pressure at all for me to pop a top once I finally got the old nanny home and hung.

I’d gratefully accept the offer of a cigarette to calm my jangled nerves if I ever got a shot at a 200″ whitetail. Especially if that buck was spooky and my shot was back. I’ve been hunting for close to 40 years, and I get every bit as shook up today when a spike buck steps out in front of me as I did the first time I climbed into a tree stand. I can’t imagine what kind of shape I’d be in if a monster non-typical wandered through. I’d cough and choke on that cigarette, I’m sure, but if I had to wait very long to take up the trail with a Boone and Crockett buck on the line, well, I’d smoke ’em if I had ’em.

If a dip of Copenhagen was what it took to keep me awake and alert on a daylight to dark sit in southern Saskatchewan, then go ahead and pass me a pinch. Just as long as that chaw in my cheek didn’t get in the way of me snugging up to the stock of my rifle, of course. And when I finally laid my frozen hands on one of those thick-tined, chocolate-racked Canadian bruisers, I’d thank the good Lord above for the stain on my smile and the worn out ring in the back pocket of my blue jeans.

And it honestly wouldn’t have mattered how much she drank or smoked or chewed, if I had met a girl whose daddy owned a half section of premium farmland in the heart of big buck country back when I was still a single man, I would have learned to love her. If that drinking, smoking, tobacco chewing farm girl was an only child and stood to inherit her daddy’s place after he passed, I would have poured her drinks and lit her cigarettes and rinsed out her spit cup. And I’d have done it all with a smile on my face.

So there they are, my exceptions to the rule and the caveats that would cause me to abandon my convictions. As much as I’d hate to open the door to one of those nasty habits, as much as it would pain me to sacrifice my time and my energy and my hard earned money to yet another addiction, not a one of those things could cost me more than the obsession that currently has me in its clutches – hunting whitetail deer.