We ate crow

As I am writing this story there are several crows eating scraps that we have thrown out for birds. They also clean up kernels of corn that the squirrels spit out after biting the heart out of the kernel. The crows do a good job of cleaning up after the other animals and birds have eaten. Sometimes the crows drive all of them away.

Not too many years ago, to see a crow in town would have been the exception, now it's the rule. Years ago there was a bounty on crows but you had to go to Logan to collect the bounty. We lived in Missouri Valley and on rare occasions would kill a crow but never collected a single bounty. Sometimes we would have several sets of crow feet around the house until my mother would throw them in the garbage.

Crows rank right up there with the wiliest of animals when it came to trying to kill them. It would at times seem like they knew if you were armed and almost seemed to know if it was a shotgun or a rifle you were using. They would always seem to stay just beyond range of a shotgun and if you had a rifle they would seldom let you get closer than a couple of hundred yards.

Missouri Valley was famous as the goose calling capital of the world. For many years the goose calling championship was held in Missouri Valley. So needless to say there were many hunters in the area and sometimes the only prey around was crows.

One year two of the local goose hunters decided to have a crow shoot-down. Each hunter would pick 15 more hunters and the team that killed the most crows would eat wild goose and the losing team would eat crow. The wild geese would come from freezers from both groups.

Since the leader of one group traded at the store I worked in he asked me to be on his team. He also ran a furniture store about one block from the Safeway where I worked. The hunt would start at dusk or about 5 p.m. and last until 8 p.m. We would then meet and cook the crow. The geese would already be in the ovens.

Our crew did really well. We killed 29 crows and easily won the contest. We would eat wild goose. The losers would eat crow. We lined up and went through the line like an Army mess. Some wild goose was put on my plate. It looked dark and dry. But I had not eaten too much wild goose so 1 did not think much more about it. The beans were excellent, the meat was palatable and not much more. I'm no drinker but did wash it down with a beer.

There was a lot of snickering going on and before long we realized that all the meat served was crow meat. We enjoyed the crow hunt. We won the shoot-down and we ate crow.

Many times in life I've lost and had to eat crow. This time I was a winner and I still ate crow.

For nearly 25 years, until his death in 2015, retired grocer Don Behm wrote a column for The Storm Lake Times, “Cracker Barrel.” Don’s everyman view of everyday life was a favorite of Times readers. This was first published on March 1, 1995.