My Snipe Hunting Story: One of My Most Embarrassing Moments

Approximately 15 years ago, I moved from my home in Virginia to my husband's home in Georgia. He had just gotten out of the Navy and I was starting a very new life with very new people. One day my in-laws got it in their heads that they wanted to go camping. I had never been camping but always wanted to so I was all for it. They wanted to introduce me to the southern tradition of Snipe Hunting. They couldn't believe I had never been. They were all excited about it. "Snipe hunting is so much fun!" they said. It didn't sound fun to me - sitting in the woods, at night, at the bottom of a hill, holding open a bag while grown men ran "snipes" down the hill for us bag holders to catch. I'm pretty intuitive and I smelt something fishy right away. I voiced my doubts but they continued to try to convince me that this was real and even showed me pictures of snipes. I wasn't 100% sure I was being taken for a fool but I was doubtful of this whole snipe hunting tradition, still these were my new in-laws so I would appease them.

Well, the weekend of the camping trip arrived. That was the days of primitive camping, before our family bought modest rvs. We pitched our tents and visited neighboring campers. Soon we discovered one of our neighbors was planning on taking his kids snipe hunting too. I think he had three boys and one little girl. One of the boys was a friend. Their ages probably ranged from six to ten. My family and their family decided that it would be a hoot for us all to go together.

Darkness starts settling in and everyone decides it is time to go catch some snipes. I do not fail to notice how excited the veteran snipe hunters are compared to the rookie hunters. The boys were excited but not me and the little girl. She was trying to be brave like her brothers, but was obviously not thrilled about going into the dark woods. I was convinced at this point that it was all a hoax but didn't want to ruin the "fun." We head into the woods and it is decided, not by us rookies, that they will all go chase the snipes down while the kids and I stayed at the bottom by ourselves to "catch em" "Rattle the bags real loud" we were told. "They always run toward the rattling bags." I opt to hold the big snipe stick while the kids rattle the bags.

The other adults start climbing the hill, their flashlight getting farther and farther away. It is getting dark by now and the kids are starting to get scared. There is some light by the moon but not much and it appears that the flashlights have disappeared. Soon the kids start whining. The little girl is attached to my leg. I tried telling them that there was no such thing as snipes and that they were just fooling us but that didn't calm their fears in the least. They started crying louder. I start to yell that the kids were scared and to come back down. Then the little girl announces that she has to go "tee tee now!" I find a tree close by and stand with my back towards her blocking her view from the boys. We are actually making quite a bit of noise with the crying and my yelling and rattling bags. I see a flashlight and I think "It's about time" but when the flashlight gets close to me, I see a uniform attached to it. It is the Park Ranger, surely lured into the woods by so much noise in what should be a quiet campground. He shines the light in my face and asks my name. I tell him. You have to picture the scene. I am standing there with four kids squalling. There is a young girl squatted behind me with her pants down around her ankles and I am holding a big stick. I can't tell him any of their names. I do not know. I tried to explain to him what we were doing there and I was yelling loudly for the others to come back because the Park Ranger was there.

We eventually see the flashlights come back on in the woods and start making their way back to us. We were duly reprimanded for making so much noise after the designated quiet time and sent back to our campsites where I have to live this night down for more than 15 years, so far.