Oh Deer!

As I strolled around the clothing store Old Navy last week, a memory took me back nearly 50 years, clear as day.

Once upon a time, I had a boyfriend named Jim who celebrated Christmas. Each year for at least 3, I asked, “What do you want under your tree from me?” His answer was always the same: “A sweater with deer on it.” “Why?” I asked that first time. “Because I want to wear it,” he said, which essentially told me nothing.

I was surprised that this tough guy who rode a motorcycle would be drawn to this kind of sweater. What was the appeal? Was it… a macho move? holiday-themed apparel that he’d wear to his family’s Christmas gatherings? the start of ugly sweater phenomenon?

The question I wanted to figure out was twofold: Who would wear a knitted replica of an animal on his or her sweater...and why?

The answer may have been simple: a deer hunter, that’s who. Jim, his dad and all his buddies hunted deer. Traditionally they’d go to the mountains on multiple fall and winter weekends and return home animated, with stories galore, clearly having had a lot of fun. They spoke about the appearance and personality of the deer: their grace, resilience, reaction to fear, quick running time, and so on. I didn’t want to hear their strategies of hunting them and how delicious the fresh deer meat was.

When I asked Jim how he could care so much about deer and also hunt them, he said that it was necessary to prevent them from starvation and a long, painful death out in the wilderness, competing with large numbers of deer with limited food resources that could not sustain them all.

He was not talking my language, or I didn’t want to hear what I viewed as an “excuse” to have fun, when it took the life of something. I was a city girl, he was a mountain boy, and as you’d guess, our upbringings were very different. Spending time with each other’s families meant being exposed to a new world: Hunting deer was a big topic in his house, with décor including a stuffed deer head in the dining room, while Philadelphia problems and the political landscape were forever on the table at ours. I was pretty sure that my mom, who loved the mountains more than anything, would not be happy to know that her daughter’s boyfriend targeted beautiful deer and then put one on display.

One night, his mom invited me to join them for dinner. She said Jim told her I like meat…his family of 5 and I sat around the dining room table – I was facing that deer! I helped myself to a slice of meat, somewhat unnerved because it was quite dark and not what I was expecting. All eyes were on me when I took a bite…and then when I realized I was chewing on venison (deer meat)…I spit it out!  

That was in the 1970s…another lifetime ago. It wasn’t until my recent sighting of a sweater with deer that I wondered if I would still be shopping for one every year if we were still together. Would I have been OK with a stuffed dear head in our dining room? I highly doubt it.

When I got home from Old Navy, I asked David if it made sense to him that Jim would have wanted to wear a sweater with deer on it. He seemed to appreciate that doing so may have reflected his pride, like a badge of honor; high regard for the sport; a conquest of sorts; and endearment for the deer. All of these emotions could co-exist in this scenario.

I can finally put this question: Why did he want to wear a sweater with deer on it? to rest.

I didn’t understand the notion of sentiments co-existing when I was a teen, about deer or anything else for that matter. I also needed to evolve in my thinking to grasp the notion that perhaps hunting small numbers of deer is OK as an effective strategy in wildlife management.

We’ve had deer in the woods behind my house for many years, and I often think about how they survive. I hope they are OK back there, not only for their sake but for mine, because catching a glimpse of them always brings me peace.

The funny thing is that in all this time of seeing the deer, I hadn’t once thought about Jim and his sweaters until my walk around Old Navy.