FROM THE EDITOR.

Hurting has been a part of my family for as long as I can remember. My ale relatives never tire of stories involving points and spreads, mating seasons and feeding patterns, deer stands and duck blinds. Come September, camouflage will flood my mother's laundry room, and the freezer will begin to fill up with harvested meat.

Many families all over the state share in this tradition; hunting has been around long before Europeans set foot on Mississippi soil, and it has stuck around. But boy, things have changed. I have vivid memories of my mother talking about that "filthy shack" without running water or electricity that she wouldn't dare set foot inside. The hunting camp was never a place I wanted to go, even though my dad asked on several occasions if I didn't want to be a hunter too. I went once, dove hunting, which takes place in the hottest part of September, and according to my memory, we must have walked a hundred miles to get where we were going and once we got there, I had to go retrieve the fallen birds! Talk about fun for a six-year-old girl, and I was even somewhat of a tomboy. After that day, hunting was for the boys, and that was just fine with me.

Since then, my dad and brothers have become members of a different kind of hunting club-one with not only air conditioning and running water, but also a big kitchen, leather sofas, and comfortable beds! "What happened? Are we lost? This can't possibly be the hunting lodge!" I remember thinking to myself the first time I went. But it was, and I wasn't even the only female present! As time has passed, my fourteen-year-old sister, whose favorite activities include cheerleading and painting her toenails, spends time at the lodge; she even had her birthday party there a couple of years ago.

The day I knew hunting in my family had changed for good came in the fall of last year. I was visiting my parents one Sunday afternoon, when my dad brought me the photograph above: my baby sister had killed a deer. I couldn't believe it; girls don't hunt! But they do, and she isn't the only one. I guess I always knew that women really did hunt, but just none that I knew, and not at the camps that I had heard my mother reference.

As hunting has changed from a men-only sport to a family pastime, the lodges have changed into women and kid-friendly hang outs, No longer do dad and the boys trek off to an unknown, undesirable locale to escape, but entire families are journeying into these natural settings to relax and spend time together. I have learned, contrary to my childhood misconceptions, that the men in my life simply enjoy the outdoors, and hunting is their way to commune with nature, to fellowship with one another, and to escape the pressure and the busyness of everyday life. Sitting in a tree at daybreak in the Mississippi autumn observing God's Creation--doesn't that sound like an excellent cure for stress?

Brenda Ware Jones examines three such havens for relaxation in "Changing the Face of the Hunting Lodge" on page 46. If the words "hunting camp" conjure up images of crude structures devoid of any charm or cleanliness, prepare to be pleasantly surprised by the warm and elegant places that host hunters and their families across the Magnolia State.

If your family participates in this hunting tradition and you find yourself wondering what to do with all the meat in your freezer, we can help! We have compiled a collection of fabulous wild game recipes, and helpful menu tips so you'll know what to serve with venison, duck, quail, and dove dishes in "Flavor of the Wild" on page 53.

As I close this note to you, our readers, I am thinking about all the things in this issue that revolve around change: the changing hunting lodges; "Changing Spaces," our annual look at renovations; a new and better Museum of Natural Science; autumn, which signals change like no other season. One change in our state's landscape of people especially saddens me, and that is the passing of Eudora Welty. She has been with me in my studies of literature since I first read "A Worn Path" in junior high school. As one of our state's finest writers, she captured us as a people in a way that has familiarized the world with Mississippians. I am thankful for her books, her photographs, and for her long and fruitful life. Miss Welty, may you rest in peace; your stories will keep you alive among your people and your people alive for the rest of the world.

Jennifer Ellis West