The Misunderstanding - Both Audio and Text

Sitting in a restaurant, one early Wednesday morning, I overheard a couple guys discussing favorite things They’d done in their careers concerning shooting wild game, replete with little quips about the pride it always brings. “Sneaking near was quite a trick, but I got close enough to actually see the color of his eyes,” I heard one boast. I tried to find some clever way to drown their conversation, but all I’d got was coffee…(how I wished I’d ordered toast.) “Like shooting fish inside a barrel,” and, “never saw it coming,” “the easiest shot I ever got,” and, “what a thrill it was,” Joined the callous comments, and - what hadn’t made me sad back when I was younger, I would realize…now does! As a youth I’d downed my share of pheasants, ducks, and geese, and one day, with my Uncle Ed, I even killed a deer. But I’ve not held a rifle or a shotgun in my hands to hunt for game in close to thirty years…and now to hear People proudly gloating on the way they’d “made the shot” had me…more than ever…thinking poorly of myself. Today, I feel that birds are truly flying works of art, and look a whole lot better in the sky than on a shelf. Some will claim, in spots, the population of the deer gives cause to thin them down a bit, and granted…that might be - But I’m now so enchanted by their presence in this world…the one who volunteers to take their lives will not be me! The sight of deer out grazing in the woods, or in a field, evokes an aching memory where I clearly watch one fall - Then proudly pose for pictures of me holding up its head - then saw it off…to take it home, and hang it on my wall! Only minutes later, in response to mixed emotions, and in a terse and pithy tone that typically offends, I sneered, “I’ll bet you always use your very biggest guns! Then one replied, “Why, no……we use a telephoto lens!” The men were both photographers…and I’d misunderstood. I felt so very stupid, and I turned a little red. “Sorry, fellas,” I explained, “I thought you guys were hunters.” “I think that’s rather obvious,” the same young fella said. “But we know where you’re coming from,” the other guy would add. “We photograph the wildlife of the world, and always will. We only wish that there were more who thought like you and us, and chose to shoot - with cameras - what so many rush to kill.”