This was a turning point in my life.

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By Stephen D. Lalonde

"We don't shoot meadowlarks," Grandpa spoke as we sat just below the crest of a knoll on the back of his ranch. I had the single-shot 22 across my knees just as he did with his 22 pump rifle. We were waiting to get a shot at one of the ground hogs that infested the field that stretched out before us. Ground hogs were fair game because of the damage they did to his fields.

I used to go out to watch him handle the gun, and listen to the rules for using it. Finally I was allowed to use one. Sure, it was only a single shot and used shorts at that. Yet I knew it was a test to see if I could prove myself ready for something bigger. Safety was the first consideration, but it went beyond that. I was going to learn the right way to use a gun. I would learn to pick my target responsibly.

Grandpa gently tapped me on the arm and pointed to a spot about thirty yards away. It was an invitation and I saw the ground hog about half way out of his hole. I slowly lifted the rifle to my shoulder with my trigger finger outside the guard, lined up the peep-sight on the ground hog, pressed the safety off with my trigger finger, then put my finger on the trigger and squeezed. The ground hog slumped and then fell back into the hole. It was a clean kill. I looked to Grandpa and he gave a simple nod as his eyes went back to scanning the field. It wasn't the first ground hog I had shot, and I didn't feel the churning that I did the first time I shot one. After all, these weren't cute little furry critters, but destructive animals that cost Grandpa time and money in the damage to the farm equipment when it dropped into one of their holes. Not to mention the damage they caused to the crops. Killing one wasn't supposed to make you happy, just satisfied that you did what needed to be done. And besides they had to number in the hundreds maybe even in the thousands just on his place. The surrounding ranchers had the same problem. Shooting them was necessary.

Grandpa and I started the long walk back to the house. We walked quietly with our gun barrels pointed at the ground through the field where he sometimes grew wheat and through the apple orchards that were the primary source of income for this ranch. We got back in time to wash up and sit down to the simple dinner magnificently prepared by Grandma. Mashed potatoes and gravy, roast beef, green beans with bacon bits, baked bread with butter and strawberry preserves, and apple pie with ice-cream on top.

I helped her clear the table and do the dishes while Grandpa went to change the ditches. I liked doing that too; moving the little dirt dams and placing new ones to channel the irrigation water to different rows of fruit trees. But I knew I was expected to stay and help with the dishes. That was okay too. Grandma whistled tunes I had never heard before and chatted grown-up like with me about this year's crop or about the neighbors new tractor and such.

After we finished the dishes and Grandpa got back, we went out in the small back yard surrounded by apple orchard and sat in the warm evening air with their old dog, Brownie. Grandma sipped on her tea. Finally, one of them- I don't remember which- said, "Time for bed," and I went to lay down on that giant soft mattress on the bed in the back room and fell immediately to sleep.

As I grew older I was given more privileges with the guns. By the time I was sixteen I was pretty much allowed to take any of the guns out to the back field to target shoot or to work on reducing the ground hog population. Occasionally I would take one of the shotguns out and toss cans into the air and shoot them.

In the late fall before my seventeenth birthday my family went out to the ranch for a weekend visit with Grandpa and Grandma. My three sisters, all younger than me, usually stayed in or around the house unless it was a beautiful summer day. This particular weekend was cloudy and cool. The daylight hours were short and snow seemed inevitable.  I decided to take the 410 shotgun out for a little while. It was a single shell, breach-loading antique, and it was easy to clean quickly. I grabbed an open box of shells, maybe a dozen rounds. I wasn't planning to stay out very long in the cold air.

I walked through the apple orchard on crackling leaves. The old apple trees were bare and jagged looking from constant pruning over the years of fruitful bearing. These trees were old and sooner or later the trees in this orchard would have to be replaced one by one with newer trees. But Grandpa was moving slower now and was planning to leave that for the next owner to do.

When I got to the empty chicken yard, this year's chickens were all arranged in neat rows in Grandma's freezer, I stopped to pick up several cans from the shop. There was always a box full of cans set aside for this purpose. I took the cans out into the middle of the field beyond the chicken yard. As I pushed the lever behind the hammer, the barrel of the gun dropped, opening the chamber. I slid a shell in and pulled the barrel up until the gun snapped shut. Picking up a can from the box, I pulled the hammer back until it clicked into the firing position, tossed the can high into the air, pulled the gun up to my shoulder, drew a bead and squeezed the trigger. The loud report was followed immediately by the rattle of the tin can as it was sent flying in a new direction. Too easy. Maybe clay pigeons and a launcher would make this more of a challenge, but we didn't have that.

I popped the gun open, replaced the spent shell with a fresh one and closed the gun. As I tossed the next can, out of the corner of my eye I saw a bird flying fast from the left across my safety range. Without a thought I put the bead on the bird, leading it just a little, and squeezed the trigger. Unlike the cans I had been shooting for so long, this target became motionless and dropped through the air to the ground. I was amazed, not that I had hit it, but that I had shot it with such instant abandon. My heart was beating noticeable faster and harder by this time. I didn't like the feeling.

I walked hesistantly over to the bird. It was a meadowlark… a meadow-lark. Suddenly I didn't want to shoot anymore.

I picked up the box of cans and hurried to the shop. I was walking quickly, wanting to run, toward the house wondering for the first time WHY we don't shoot meadowlarks, as though I might reason my way clear of the deed. Surely meadowlarks die every day. We all die sooner or later. It's inevitable.

As I approached the house I could see through the large picture window of the living room, Grandma holding a bowl below Grandpa's chin. My Dad was there too, and mom seemed to be escorting my sisters out of the room toward the kitchen. I ran in the back door past my sisters who were crying and my mother who was trying to calm them. But the look on her face told me that this was a bad situation. When I walked into the livingroom, dad told me to go out to the road and wait to signal the ambulance into the driveway. I paced the shoulder of the road, unable to stand still, choking back the tears. Time ceased to be.

The ambulance arrived and they loaded my Grandpa into it and drove away with siren blaring. My Dad put Grandma in our car and headed out after the ambulance. I went back into the house, sat on the couch and tried to make sense of it all. I tried to convince myself that there was no connection between that meadowlark and my Grandpa.

They both died that day.

Grandpa's funeral was the first I ever attended. I viewed him in the casket, and thoughout the whole service all I could think of was my Grandpa, sitting on the crest of the knoll on the back of his ranch quietly saying, "We don't shoot meadowlarks."

  So according to the ultrasound, I had a sliver. They measured it to be 1.7 centimeters and it was embedded in the nail bed of my right thumb.

It all started when I was moving a piece of a branch in the woodshop. It was pretty heavy and as I was setting it down it slipped from my fingers, hit the floor and bounced back up. Somehow it managed to gash my thumb across the end and along the nail. I spoke to it in no uncertain terms about how displeased I was and how much it hurt. I grabbed a paper towel in an attempt to keep the bleeding to a minimum and headed for the house.

When I got in the house and began sharing the experience with my wife. She was as excited as always to be of assistance, but did so anyway. We washed the wound and applied anesthetic. The cut was very open, but there was so much blood we couldn't tell for sure if it was completely cleaned out. We managed to get it bandaged with enough pressure to slow the bleeding. Through the rest of the day we changed bandages as needed and eventually the bleeding stopped.

After a few days it appeared that the wound was not beginning to heal and decided to go to urgent care. The nurse practitioner studied the wound and asked, "How did you do that?” and for the fourth time since coming to urgent care I explained what happened. She said we had to be sure there was no material left in the wound, so she arranged for an ultrasound of the thumb.

Even I could see on the monitor the clear straight line that didn't seem to belong there. They returned me to the examination room where I waited patiently for what must've been minutes. Eventually the nurse practitioner came in and said that there was a sliver measuring 1.7 cm that extended into the nail bed. It was more involved than they were prepared to deal with at urgent care and so an appointment was made with a hand specialist, Dr. Page.

The next day I went to the appointment with the doctor who determined that surgery was needed to remove the splinter. Surgery for a splinter? Seriously?

I told the doctor, "If you manage to get it out in one piece, I want it. It will be the most expensive piece of wood in my shop."

He replied, "It will be the most expensive piece of wood ever."

The next day (it has now been a week since the original injury) I reported to surgical center for my splinter. I figured that they would probably numb up the thumb, pull the splinter, and I could be on my way. Silly boy.

They took me back to a preparation room and to my amazement told me to put my clothes and personal belongings into this bag and put on the rear air-conditioned gown with the ridiculous tie strings that seem to serve very little purpose. For a splinter! When I had accomplished the assigned task, the nurse proceeded to start an IV. Did I mention that it is just a splinter? They injected something into the IV that made the world beautiful.

A splinter by the way.

They began to inject something else into the IV while explaining that I…

When I woke up, I looked at my arm to see that it was painted orange from the elbow to the end of my fingers and my thumb was now bandaged larger than my head. Did I point out to you that there was a splinter? Well apparently, even that was wrong. The doctor explained that ultrasound can give false readings from time to time. He did find some wood fragments well into the thumb, so the procedure was appropriate, but I didn't get a splinter to take home, and I was so prepared to frame it.

  The jar of jalapeno peppers still sits in the refrigerator as a memento to the evening of September 14, 1981 and my near brush with death. I was working at the time as a Field Executive with the local council of the Boy Scouts of America. The job description for a field executive is longer than a set of encyclopedias, just about as varied, and needs to all be done yesterday. Nobody that I knew then or since has had more than a vague idea of what the job really is, even those who are doing it. But whatever the job was, I was doing it for more than seventy hours a week.

  This particular two-day excursion had included helping to organize a new Cub Scout Pack in Colville, training the new leaders, and talking a real estate agency owner into being next year's District Chairman. That would make him supervisor over all of the Scouting units in Steven's District, which happened to cover all of Steven's County in Eastern Washington.

  Recruiting a District Chairman is nothing less than hiring your own boss, because once you recruit him, you become his indentured servant for the next year. The one bit of justice in the whole affair is that District Chairman is a volunteer position, that is "unpaid", and my position as District Executive was paid, which meant that I was making more than my boss, at least in regard to Scouting activities.

  The truth was that back at the Council Office I had another boss, the Council Scout Executive, who was paid much more than me, and who hired me and could fire me, and for whom I was to recruit my other boss. Very little of this is explained in the job description by the way.

  I had spent two days working with many fine people in Stevens District who were volunteering their time to help boys learn citizenship, build character, and develop physical and mental fitness in a program that camouflages all of that with crafts, games, and ceremonies.  I was on my way home to see my own two boys and my wife. Being a little short on funds, I had skipped dinner and planned to drive straight through, which would put me home about 7:00 P.M. Getting home so early would be a pleasant surprise for my family.

  I decided that I simply had to have something to munch on during the drive. I didn't know what I wanted for sure, but I stopped at a wide-spot-in-the-road country grocery store to find something. They had the usual potato chips, corn chips, and candy stuff, but I was in the mood for something a little more exotic. On a shelf next to some chips, were jars of pickles and pickled things. I saw a jar of peppers there that looked just like the ones I loved so much at a barbecue cafe a short distance from my home. I have since made careful inquiry to determine that the peppers at the barbecue are called pepperoncini. I will never forget that, I promise. The jar of peppers that I took to the checkout and purchased were called jalapenos, and I, not being a connoisseur of peppers, did not know the difference- YET.

  Even though my mouth was already watering in anticipation of mild pickled peppers, I took the time to start the car and get back on the road so as not to delay my anticipated arrival home. A mile or so down the road I decided I could stand it no more and, still driving, I opened the jar of peppers, took one out and replaced the lid. Holding the pepper by the stem, I popped the whole pepper in my mouth just as I usually did with those peppers at the cafe, pulled it off of the stem and began chomping away . . . for about three chomps. At that instant, I knew I was in big trouble.

  This was not that mild pickled taste I was expecting. This was battery acid at three hundred degrees Fahrenheit. Vision instantly blurred from the tears gushing from my eyes. I spit the mutilated pepper out the window, but it was too late. My own mouth was trying to drown me . . . and was succeeding. My diaphragm went into a massive spasm and now I was doubly deprived of the ability to breathe.

  I squinted into the rear view mirror to see the grill of a semi, which apparently was impatiently preparing to run over me. The road was two-lane with oncoming traffic, and no shoulder at all and the white edge-of-the-road line was painted directly under the white guardrail.

  I was driving a Council car, a nice new car, and I couldn't see or breathe. There was nowhere to go but up, and I was thinking that may not be far off. Especially since the semi was now blowing his horn to emphasize the necessity of moving on more quickly. 

  I made a desperate effort to take control of the situation. I grabbed the brand new package of Juicy Fruit gum off of the dash, and began stuffing sticks of gum into my mouth as fast as I could unwrap them. There was an electric sting on the fillings of some of my molars that let me know that I didn't get all of the foil off of the gum.

  I now had a mouth full of a golf-ball-sized wad of gum, which at least distracted some of the saliva that continued to pour from where ever saliva comes from. My diaphragm, on the other hand did not want to cooperate with the other breathing apparatus, and the brain was beginning to get desperate. So was the trucker behind me, and the rear view mirror was filled with truck grill so close I could see the flies that had met their end and I was sure I would soon join them. I could see all of that because I had now discovered that if I blinked very quickly I could produce an instant of clear vision before the tears blocked the view again.

  I began having visions of tabloid headlines announcing, "Man Killed by Vicious Pepper". Would my insurance company pay a death benefit when the cause of death is listed as self-administered pepper? And should I survive was there a clause for 'loss of tongue'? Does workman's comp cover jalapeno attacks? 

  The gum began helping, and for the first time since the fateful chomps I managed to get just a little bit of a breath. I could sneak just a little air before the ol’ diaphragm clamped it off. It was enough to stay conscious, but at the time I wasn't at all sure that was an asset. I was still half an hour away from home where there was water and bread and all the other possible remedies I was mentally listing. It was the first time in my life when bland sounded good.

  That half hour passed like gravel through an hourglass. When I finally did get home, it took several gallons of water and as many hours to relate the experiences of the evening to my family. My near death experience drew little sympathy and much laughter. It wasn't until a couple of days later that I could see the humor in it, but lest I forget the severity of careless consumption, those peppers shall remain in my refrigerator.