Hunting, for me, is about spending a good time alone, about reorienting myself to the world around me. But it’s also about communing with those we meet in the wider world, about conversations and connections with our fellow man.
An important part of that camaraderie was the check-in station, a part of the hunting culture that is, regrettably, dwindling in this age of digital and telephone tag-punching. The move toward easier harvest reporting was inevitable, I suppose. I can’t speak to the effects the move has had on the various wildlife departments’ budgets, but I can say that I sincerely miss the days of the traditional, in-person, drive-up-and-chat check-in station.
Whether our hunt was successful or not, every trip to the deer woods in my youth was wrapped up with a stop at Lee’s Texaco Station in Horntown, Oklahoma. There, hunters would lean against their truck beds, hands jammed into their pockets, lying about what they’d seen and admiring every buck that was brought in. When a bloody tailgate pulled up, the blaze-orange crowd would amble over to take a look and listen to the details of the hunt. I distinctly remember taking a moment to put my 13-year-old thoughts in order after killing my first buck, knowing the crowd at Lee’s would be waiting on my story.
I also remember living in mortal fear that I’d one day kill a buck big enough to mount. You see, in addition to counting points and weighing your deer, the good folks at Lee’s also pulled the bottom jaw out of every buck they checked in for aging purposes. Not understanding the mechanics of taxidermy, I had nightmares thinking that when I finally killed a wall hanger his majestic profile would be ruined thanks to a floppy lower lip.
The closest thing to the magic of a check-in station these days is a meat processor. I drive 30 minutes south and pass three different butcher shops to have my deer taken care of, just for the atmosphere at Miller’s Processing, just for a glimpse of that fleeting magic. There’s generally a line of pickups six or seven long at Miller’s when the deer are moving, allowing ample time to lie about what was seen and look longingly at what other hunters were lucky enough to harvest.
My first stop at Miller’s wasn’t particularly memorable, but my second definitely was. I’d driven down to pick up my processed deer, and what should’ve been a ten-minute transaction with Mrs. Miller turned into an hour-long conversation full of shared grief and faith and hope. I wrote her a check and hugged her neck, as thankful for the experience as I was for the meat.
See you soon, Mrs. Miller.
