The best taxidermists must be hunters and anglers themselves first because, far more than preserving animal parts, they’re preserving memories. Their work helps us share favored stories with our friends, yes, but mostly they’re treasures kept just for us. More than an entry in a journal or a photograph on a wall, the best taxidermy is a permanent link to a day and a time in our own outdoors life, one we can prove to ourselves once existed.
Who we are changes every day. Hopefully we improve but, even so, we change. Some of our best memories are of the people we once were. The animals mounted on our walls were found by them, outlasted by them, shot or caught and brought home by them. Theirs were the first human hands to make contact with the critter, and so connect to nature’s circle in a way that included their own place within it.
Nature’s materials preserved through manmade techniques strengthen bonds that allow a day’s experience to continue. Whatever happens in the years after, a part of us will always be alive in the moments before that hunt’s conclusion.
A glance at a nicely-done mount can open a pipeline to a day we shared with a child who’s now grown, to a day we met a sunrise on the side of a nameless mountain far away, or forded a familiar creek on land we’ve hunted all our lives near home. At a glance we can hear the ripple of cold water or feel the bite of thin mountain air. At a glance we can see the look in a child’s eyes, full of wonder and accomplishment, feel the hug we got and remember the words that were said. We hear the words again. We feel what they mean. The memories are always alive within us.
The end of every adventure includes a certain amount of regret. Even as we savor the last light of a day, or drive more slowly toward home to delay, if only by moments, the time when a trip must end, there is the knowledge that what we have just enjoyed will never be again.
If we are lucky, we will have other adventures on other days, maybe even to the same places with the same people, but life is fickle and time uncaring. We end adventures with promises for the future, but the only thing we’re assured of is our memories of the past, and life attacks even that.
The memories that adorn our walls, rendered of nature’s most wonderful materials and preserved by the work of a skillful hand, bridge that gap. They hang there not for bragging, but for something else, a quality more difficult to define. They are the windlass that lifts memories by the bucketful. We have only to look, and to drink.
Kevin Tate is a freelance writer. Email [email protected].
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Quality, in-depth journalism is essential to a healthy community. The Dispatch brings you the most complete reporting and insightful commentary in the Golden Triangle, but we need your help to continue our efforts. In the past week, our reporters have posted 24 articles to cdispatch.com. Please consider subscribing to our website for only $2.30 per week to help support local journalism and our community.
