Michael A. Sawyers
Cumberland Times-News
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I know. I know. I’ve seen it too.
And it’s a wonder I haven’t gotten a letter, an e-mail or a phone call about it.
When you call up our webpage (www.times-news.com) and view any of my columns that deal with hunting, you will sometimes see alongside it an advertisement from a company that sells caps and T-shirts that have hunting related themes.
As I understand it, Ads by Google reads key words in an article and then reaches into the cyber bin and pulls out an advertisement from a company that sells related items.
In any event, the T-shirt and cap that is highlighted says “Shootin’ deers & drinkin’ beers.” Well now.
I can just hear some folks who see this juxtaposition and they are saying, “See. I told you so. There’s Sawyers and there’s what he stands for. Hunters are slobs who drink all day while they are trying to shoot an animal.”
Here’s what I think. The T-shirt company (www.huntingandfishingshop.com) knows it only has so much room on a shirt for pictures and words. They also know that size matters, that the letters in a word have to be of a certain proportion before they can be viewed and read at a distance.
So, I am thinking that the T-shirt people simply had to shorten the phrase in order to make it fit in a readable manner on the garment.
The actual phrase, I imagine, was, “SHOOTIN’ DEERS (in a fair chase manner, during legal hours and with acceptable equipment is a very appropriate thing to do) & DRINKIN’ BEERS (is also fine as long as it is done in moderation after hunting hours and with the knowledge that the imbiber will not be driving, using farm equipment or handling a battery-operated toothbrush).”
So now you can see that the intent of the rural fashion designers was good. It was just not possible to include all of the parenthetical language on a T-shirt, especially a medium or a small.
None of the people with whom I hunt consume anything stronger than a Mountain Dew during hunting hours. In fact, the swallowing of Mountain Dew is a statutory requirement in some counties of West Virginia, including along the Gilmer/Lewis counties line where I like to spend Thanksgiving week.
However, when the sun goes down and the campfire sparkles, we have been known to help the stockholders who invested in breweries and distilleries. And, most of us are too old to be anything but moderate when it comes to this endeavor.
Some of my bullet-and-bow comrades, though, are the type who would buy a deers-and-beers T-shirt and wear it proudly just to stick it to the ARF crowd. That acronym standing for Animal Righteous Folks. ARF is a sister organization to BRP2 (Bears Are People Too).
Hmmmm! It never crossed my mind until now, but ARF and BRP2 members could actually be the ones who will purchase the shootin’-deers-&-drinkin’-beers T-shirts and caps, in an attempt to spread a bad image of hunters.
That’s sneaky. But I imagine the cashiers at huntingandfishingshop.com could not give a muskrat’s posterior about where each $15.95 comes from.
You know what. I think I talked myself into buying one.
XL, please.
Contact Outdoor Editor Mike Sawyers at msawyers@times-news.com.
