One by one, the vehicles pull up on the long grass under the shade trees by a clubhouse that no one has been inside of for years.
Tailgates fall open.
Boys, buckets, dogs, men, and shotgun cases spill out. It's 91 degrees on the first Saturday in September and the stands of corn and sunflowers out in the fields look to be melting in the heat mirage. But the men are smiling. The hunting year has begun. We are 15 minutes into legal shooting on the opening day of dove season in the tidewater country of Virginia.