The Genesis of Empty Cases
And why you should not Google "Richard Mann"
Crisp, cold and windless, my breath hung about me like a spirit unsure where it should go. The colors of the autumn hardwoods were nearing Einstein brilliance, and I lost myself in the medley of greens, yellows and reds. The thin ridge stopped at the edge of a grownup field, under a stand of hickory, just above the creek. I stood motionless, listening and looking for a good seat.
Why are all the good stumps for sitting never in the right spot, and why are the right spots always devoid of makeshift chairs?
I gave up and knelt on one knee, rifle butt on the ground but still listening. Listening for the rustle of a leaf or for the drop of a hickory nut. After scanning my surroundings, I looked down, and there, inches from my knee, was an old 20-gauge shotgun hull. This was not a real surprise; the spot I was in had been my mom’s favorite place to hunt. She used to bring me here, her with her shotgun and me with my 22, looking for squirrels. I never liked hunting with a shotgun. I wanted to know exactly where my bullet would go and wanted to know that if I missed it was due to an error on my part as opposed to the squirrel’s luck at being swallowed by a hole in the pattern.
Mom always thought I’d be a lawyer or an astronaut. I doubt she ever imagined her time in the woods with me would be the training that prepared me for what I now do. She always bragged about chasing coon dogs when she was pregnant with me. Coon hunters used to take their dogs hunting when they were carrying a litter. They called it marking the pups. I guess, in a way I had been marked.
Most likely that old and empty 20 gauge shell was from mom’s Model 12. I’m sure she was standing right here when a big fat grey squirrel slipped out on a limb and started barking. If mom’s shotgun had a hole in its pattern she must have known right where it was. I’ll bet this 20 gauge hull hit the ground about the time a squirrel did. It probably led to squirrel gravy and biscuits that I ate for breakfast one morning.
Almost lost in recollection, I was startled as my eye caught movement. A squirrel was running along a downed limb just 30 yards away. I shouldered the rifle and when the squirrel stopped to look at me, the scope’s reticle found his head. The safety was off and there was slight pressure was on the trigger. I didn’t shoot.
I lowered the rifle, looked at the squirrel looking at me, and said—out loud— “I’ll leave you for another time, for another hunter.” The squirrel didn’t say anything back to me, he just continued down the limb looking for breakfast. I looked back at the empty case on the forest floor and started to pick it up. But then, I thought, nope, I’ll leave you right here. Sitting on a shelf your story is not as good.
Later that evening I was on the porch sitting in the sun doing mostly nothing. My son came out with his rifle and said, “I’m going squirrel hunting. Where you think I should go?”
The answer seemed obvious, “Go out past the creek, walk up to your left on the ridge where it flattens out under some hickory trees near an old grown up field.”
It seemed like perfect advice—just like Mom would have given me.
Empty cases are always full of stories and memories.
EPILOGUE
More than two decades ago when I decided I was going to make a website and start a blog, I thought it obvious to use the address richardmann.com. As my luck would have it, that web address was already being used by a famous porn star. I could have used a different domain suffix like .net, but I did not want to risk the possibility of someone stumbling into some explicit excitement they were not ready for and with all the family watching.
The story above is true and is how I settled on Empty-Cases. Every empty cartridge case or shotgun hull has a story, so it seemed like a logical name for a blog dealing with stories about guns and hunting. And I’d not have to worry about someone accidentally falling into a pile of naked bodies and lust.
When I started writing I began receiving invitations to hunts and shooting events, and I got to shoot a lot of cool guns—like Finn Aagaard’s 375—and hunt and kill a lot of critters. I could not afford taxidermy, so to remember the events I kept the empty cases I’d fired as trophies, wrote the details on them with a Sharpie, and proudly stood them on the mantle. Eventually my wife made me a shadow box for many of them. Empty Cases was the perfect name for a portal to my writing.
Sometime during the last two decades richardmann.com was acquired by a relator, but if you Google “Richard Mann” you’re still going to find the porn star.(Apparently he’s still going strong after more than two decades.) Thanks to Field & Stream, my name will pop up as the fourth result, and my empty-cases.com website is the fifth return. Unfortunately, this Substack will not show up by virtue of a Google search for “Richard Mann.”
Now you know how Empty Cases came to be and why Goggling “Richard Mann” is not a good idea if you expect to be rewarded with gun and hunting content and do not want to have to delete your search history.
Great story!