 © Anna Ostapiw
|
On Freedom, Headless Pigeons, and the Captain of the Yuengling Juggling
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© Anna Ostapiw
|
On Freedom, Headless Pigeons, and the Captain of the Yuengling Juggling
Team Click to read Click to |
On Freedom,
Headless Pigeons, and the Captain of the Yuengling Juggling Team
Jim Vance looks like someone you’d expect to see rappelling out of a pickup
truck with really, really big tires. He’s a solidly built guy. The words
"stocky" and "beefy" come to mind. In his olive green T-shirt he
reminded me of a miniature tank rolling along the grounds of the community park in Hegins,
Pennsylvania.
When I first saw Jim he was arguing, something he does well. He was balancing two twelve-ounce Yuenglings, the local beer, and a crushed empty in one hand. He used the other to smoke a cigarette and angrily gesticulate, adding emphasis to his arguments. It looked effortless. It was like being in the presence of a master, a Marcel Marceau of drunken soapbox oratory.
Jim was battling with an animal rights activist, a member of the Maryland-based Fund for Animals. They were duking it out, debating the merits and demerits of shooting pigeons for fun and sport. A crowd had gathered to watch. Like Vance, most of them were wearing battered baseball caps emblazoned with the names of heavy equipment manufacturers.
The animal rights people bristle when anyone refers to pigeon shooting as a "sport." But live bird-shoots have always been a part of American life. During the late 1800s John James Audubon and Alexander Wilson reported flocks of passenger pigeons containing more than two billion birds—flocks so vast that they took hours to pass one spot and darkened the skies. By 1914, the passenger pigeon was extinct, largely as a result of merciless hunting.
The practice of shooting pigeons for recreation reached a pinnacle of popularity in Schuylkill County, where Hegins is located. Local historians have written of the bootleggers, gamblers, and pigeon shooters who ruled the roost in this once thriving hotbed of coal mining. They recount the enthusiasm for "the sport that is unique to the anthracite region of Pennsylvania." Although anthracite coal mining fizzled out after reaching a peak in 1917, the pigeon shooters remain.
The Fred Coleman Memorial Shoot has been a fixture in Hegins every Labor Day since 1934. The shoot is named for a legendary pigeon shooter who flourished at the turn of the century. The Hegins event is the world’s largest live bird-shoot, and in 1985, animal rights activists began to set their sights on Hegins, turning it into a rallying point, something of a Wounded Knee for their burgeoning movement.
Hegins is a fairly typical slice of pro-gun, pro-hunting rural America. It’s the kind of place where you’ll see bumper stickers warning "They can have my gun when they pry it from my cold, dead fingers" or T-shirts exhorting you to "Kill ’em all, let God sort ’em out." One wit, speaking of Hegins, cracked wise about the unique difficulties of dealing with the kind of people who have major appliances on their front porches.
It’s easy to write Hegins off as just another hick backwater, replete with albino banjo pickers and bootleg stills. But the reality’s more complicated. Though somewhat insular, people who attend the shoots are generally rather friendly. A carnival atmosphere prevails, complete with cotton candy, fried chicken, and live entertainment. Many spectators don’t seem to care what’s happening on the shooting Welds.
Pigeon shooting is a deep-rooted tradition here. It has been since Civil War times. Shoot supporters aren’t about to give up their fun, or the fundraising dollars the event brings in for community projects. They view animal rights protesters as meddling outsiders with a suspiciously liberal bent. It all smacks of a threat to their liberty, as evidenced by the most popular pro-shoot T-shirt, which reads "It’s not about pigeons, it’s about freedom."
I came to Hegins as a journalist, not a defiler of freedoms. But this distinction didn’t seem to matter to Jim Vance. Later in the day, at the other end of the park, I came upon a mob. The same protester who’d squabbled with Vance was giving a statement to a Hegins Township police officer. Someone had torn the head off of a wounded pigeon. This type of incident is not uncommon at Hegins. A small faction of shoot supporters take great pleasure in spiting activists with such acts of cruelty. Other torments include setting birds on fire or squeezing them until blood oozes out.
Standing in this rabble, I spotted Vance, who appeared to have put away quite a few more Yuenglings. He and his drunken entourage were loudly boasting, "We killed that one, and we’ll kill any more we get our hands on." More police arrived. The mob was dispersed.
A few minutes later I saw Vance standing by a shooting Weld, trying to convince a shoot staffer to retrieve a wounded bird and turn it over to him. The Weld was off limits to anyone but shooters. Vance knew if he stepped onto it he’d be arrested.
A clump of animal rights activists stood by watching. Vance launched into a vile tirade, spewing forth obscenities that would bring a flush to the cheeks of even the crustiest miner. Then Vance saw the protesters, who were using video and still cameras to document as much of the day’s action as they could. He shifted his screed into high gear. I should have sensed danger when he bellowed, "I don’t want my picture pasted all over anti-socialist America!"
I stood about fifty feet away, furiously scribbling. Before I knew it Vance had invaded my personal space. If he’d gotten any closer I wouldn’t have respected myself the next morning. Vance’s posse was hot on his stumbling heels.
"What are you writing?" he smirked. The alcohol fumes were making me dizzy.
"I’m just making some notes."
"Notes about what?" He leered, wavering to and fro.
"I’m just writing about what’s going on out here. I’m a journalist."
"Is there anything about me in there?" Vance reached for the notebook. I flipped it shut and gripped it tightly, assuming that once he had it I’d never see it again. I looked around. Another crowd had formed, mostly pro-shoot people. There were several activists, mostly diminutive women, and no police in sight. I was on my own."
"You people come up here and write stories about us and you don’t even know what we’re doing here. This shoot raises money for the local community. Do you write about that? People come out here to have a good time. So what if they’re shooting pigeons? They’re just rats with wings. They shit all over the place, and they spread disease. I was in the Marines. I served my country. What have any of you people done for your country? Do you know how much pigeon shit they have to clean off the Vietnam Memorial down in Washington?"
Vance paused to glare at me.
"Where are you from?"
"Hummelstown . . . down near Harrisburg."
He pondered this for a moment.
"Yeah, I got some friends down there . . . If I don’t like what you write I might be gettin’ in touch with them."
A reel of Deliverance was unspooling in my head. Discretion seemed the better part of valor. Vance was the town loudmouth, all bark and no bite. But I wanted some information in case anything happened.
"I’ll tell you what. When I finish the article, I’ll send you a copy. You can check it out for yourself. See what you think of it."
Vance took a swig of beer.
"Fair enough."
"Give me your address." I flipped open the notebook.
He did.
"I’ll tell you what. Give me your phone number too, and then I can give you a call and talk when you’re sober."
Vance juggled his three cans of beer. Finding a full one, he drank from it, spilling half down the front of his shirt.
"I’m not drunk," he said, swaying back and forth. He gave me his number. We shook hands, and he and his boys lurched off into the sunset.
The crisis was over. I never saw Jim Vance again. Nor did I follow through on my promise to call him, though I’m still thinking of sending him a copy of this article. It’s the least I could do.
Profile
Today Bill seems to have more or less adjusted to the emotional rigors of the freelance writer’s life. His home and office are located at a point midway between Middletown and Hershey, Pennsylvania. On a good day, if the wind is right, you can walk to the end of the block and see the steam from the cooling towers of Three Mile Island and smell the sickly sweet smell of brewing Hershey’s chocolate. Perhaps it’s this threat of impending nuclear doom combined with a contact chocolate high that lends a strange warp to the stories in his collection-in-progress, Death by Sneezing.
—Wendy Deeley
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