Movies often provided the plot line for backyard play when growing up. Westerns and war movies were the most popular for my group of friends. They offered lots of room for heroism and daring escapades. None of that Peter Pan pirate stuff for us. We wanted meaningful action, John Wayne and Steve McQueen kind of man stuff. Rio Bravo had a long run for us. Then along came The Longest Day and The Great Escape.

We lived adventure every day of the summer, safe and secure enough on our suburban streets to imagine confronting death by bullet without the least hesitation.

Then there was the year that we saw Alfred Hitchcock’s film, The Birds. For me and my friends it was more than a plot line to act out, it was a call for concern – a warning to heed. A clear and present danger was lurking in every tree and it was upon us to take action. Cattle rustlers and bank robbers could wait. Now there was serious business that must be attended to before things progressed to an unfortunate outcome. We could not let the birds win.

A few blocks from our house was a large open field of undeveloped land, mostly bushes and a few trees. One day a few of us headed there to battle. The toy guns were left back at the ranch; this called for more powerful weaponry. We armed ourselves with pockets full of stones suitable for throwing. We were going to get some birds.

Hunting was not one of my family’s pastimes. We were more the gatherer type. So this was something of a break from tradition for me. But the movie was fresh in our minds. We were disturbed by the way those birds broke through windows and roofs, attacking people like Kamikaze pilots. So we moved ahead with confidence in our mission, ready to attack any winged enemy that should appear.

The bird was sitting on a low level branch about 10 feet ahead. I remember, it seemed to be watching me. We all became very quiet. I stopped, put a stone in my hand, reached my arm back and let it fly like the bullet I imagined it to be.

Baseball was not my sport. Nor were any throwing the ball kind of games. Rocks and stones into the river were the extent of my experience with hurling objects at targets. And I was not very good.

For a second, or two seconds, nothing moved except that stone. I watched it. My friends watched it. The bird watched it. Until it hit that bird square in the chest and both fell to the ground.

Before that moment, I was haunted by the thought of birds attacking me. Since that moment, I have been haunted by the memory of me attacking a bird.

I don’t remember what happened next. We guys probably all stood around the dead bird and looked at it, each contemplating in our own way what had just happened. For me the memory stops when the bird fell from the branch. That is all the further I need to go, because from that moment, life took on a different understanding.

Questions flew around me on fast wings, looking for some place to land but finding nothing. Why didn’t the bird fly away? Why did it stay there and seem to look at me with such interest? Why did I ever want to throw that stone?

It is the reason my arsenal of toy guns never became an arsenal of real guns. It is the reason I have never owned a gun, or wanted to own a weapon of any sort. It is the reason I never went hunting again, for birds or anything. It is the reason I became a conscientious objector and refused to participate in military service. It is the reason I have never intentionally harmed another animal. It is the reason I value life the way I do.

There are moments of childhood that stay with us into adulthood. They pivot us left or right. They are the roads taken, and the roads not taken. They are the moments that push us here or there and get us to here. They move clouds and bring clarity that never loses its sharpness.

I don’t think I have ever told anyone the bird story. But I always knew that at some time I would have to. Even when the draft board was interrogating me about my religious beliefs, trying to figure out if I deserved an exemption from being forced to war, I kept the story to myself. Maybe I wasn’t sure what the story revealed about me. Maybe I felt some vulnerability, some point of weakness or embarrassment.

So now it is out there. A step taken 50 years ago that started me on the journey to now. Things lurk within us all. Important things. Things that will never be shared, but perhaps should at some point be acknowledged. Things that shape us and build us into the people we become. When known, they begin to explain a life in unexpected ways.

Still to this day I am so sorry I was responsible for killing that bird. A small regret, perhaps. One blemish among many that hover around an imperfect life.

But if that blemish was not there, what then?

(John Gfroerer of Concord owns a video production company based at the Capitol Center for the Arts.)