RUDY MARTIN, NATURAL-BORN PROUD

A young African American from Monterey and his younger brother go on their first deer hunt with their minister father and his friends.  The setting is 1950s northern California, in country where, from the right height, one can see Mt. Shasta in one direction, Mt. Lassen in the other.  It is a region of small, insular towns, and although it is a familiar hunting ground for the Reverend and his motley buddies, not everyone there welcomes black hunters or can avoid the inclination to harass them.  But father and son both are proud, and among the lessons young Satch learns is the sometime advantage of wit and spine.  Over several days in the wilderness, the young brothers are further initiated not only to the right practices of the hunt and camp but to the ribald talk, needling banter, camp tales, and occasional aggravation of sundry friends.

S.R. "Rudy" Martin was a founding faculty member of Evergreen State College in Olympia, where he taught American Studies and was an administrator until retiring in 1998.  His memoir, On The Move: A Black Family's Western Saga, was published in 2009.