Dinner the night before the wing bee is a BYOM barbeque.

BYOM = "Bring Your Own Meat".

The majority of the dozen or so people dining in this seasonally vacant house have brought meat from critters they have killed and butchered with their own hands. Pronghorn loins, elk steaks, moose rump, even wild bison. Last year someone brought bighorn sheep steaks for all to sample. I and one other biologist suffer minor razzing because we have store-bought beef steaks.

The fellow seasoning his pronghorn loins next to me at the dining room table is genuinely surprised when I explain I haven't killed anything recreationally since '95.

Sure I still hunt. I like the feel of that heavy rifle on my shoulder. The excitement of knowing I might shoot something today. Had a great deer hunt this year.

Just haven't had the urge to kill anything.

Killing almost thirty elk on Red Rim kinda took that away. Maybe for good.

The communal portion of the meal includes salad greens, baked potatoes, rolls and cookies. Drinks are also BYO, most opting for some form of alcoholic beverage.

I am surprised to find I am the only one present who knows what "cabbage" means (and no, it's not a vegetable).

I guess the shame falls upon us, for not passing such important knowledge on to the next generation. Certainly when I first joined the outfit, the previous generation made sure I knew not to buy cabbage when sent to town for "cabbage".

I notice my neighboring young biologist, who gave me grief about drinking foreign beer last year, has brought his own 6-pack of Harp this year.

Good stuff, Harp.

One of our newer members borrowed a bottle of his Irish beer, and then realized the caps don't twist off.

"Is there a bottle opener in this place?" he asks.

Head of the crew quickly grabs the magnetic church key off the refrigerator and hands it to the novice. Who promptly tries to use the pointy end to open his beer.

"No, no, the other end," explains the experienced bottle-opener.

"Ohhh, never mind."