When I was a kid (around 1974) my dad, myself, my brother, uncle Bill, and grandfather were all riding in Gramps Ford Bronco down a dirt road heading back to Rufus Oregon. If you have ever been to Rufus you would know it sits in the Columbia river gorge about 3 hours east of Portland on highway 84 just West of the John Day Dam. The area south of Rufus and above the gorge is is best described as rolling wheat fields, beautiful golden color rolling along the hills as far as the eye could see. That's where we were that day, and it was cloudless blue sky hell hot weather as well. There did exist a gully off our left about 100 yards from the dirt road with a stand of trees in it. Kind of unusual in that area. My Uncle Bill suddenly told my Grandpa to stop! which he did. Bill produced a shotgun (not sure why he had one, wasn't hunting season) and took aim at something in that distant clump of trees and fired a shot. He ran towards the trees and the rest of us followed. When we got into the stand if trees we found this giant great horned owl flopping around. I was amazed by this giant beautiful bird and very upset that my uncle had shot it but I didn't say anything. It was beautiful, and bloody and flopping around on the ground. My uncle, in his rabid "kill any wildlife he wanted to look at up close" attitude, managed to get his boots tied up with the talons on this very frightened and upset bird as he smashed the skull of this great feathered predator with the heel of his boot. What I remember most after that is how big the owls eyes were after popping out of the smashed skull
My uncle Bill........he was a nice guy by all outward appearances but he hurt a lot of people who loved him in his life as a result of acute alcoholism (he died at the age of 59 several years ago).
He sure screwed that owl over that's for sure. None of us would have ever seen that bird stashed away in those trees but Bill had the eyes of a hawk. Someday I will write about the time he shot a Red Tail hawk out of a tree top with a single shot from a .22 cal from a distance of at least 300 yards. The guy really was a tormented soul.
