To Hunt or Not to Hunt ?

Not. At least not for me. This is a big confession in my neck of the woods. I do not hunt. I do come from a hunting family and I guess that is why my neighbors have not shown up at my door with pitchforks to casually invite me to move away. I can speak the lingo. I will eat the meat. But, alas, I do not hunt. This was not always the case. I used to hunt with my dad. Mostly, he took me out road hunting  and saved the big hunts for the boys in the family. I did help him gut a deer once, though. I remember the heat and the smell. It can't have been all that bad, because I still wanted to hunt afterward. I turned twelve and signed up for the hunters safety course. My friend, Jane, and I were the only girls and it still tickles me, all these years later, that we out-shot every one of the boys when the time came. I passed the course with flying colors and I was, at last, a part of the club. I was invited to hunt with the boys - a real hunt with mountains and hiking and breakfast we picked up at the gas station and ate in a dark pick-up before sunrise. It was great.  We drove and we hiked and we drove and we hiked and then, there they were - deer, lots of them. They scattered the hillsides and the meadow in front of us, peacefully grazing through the morning hours. They were all does and at this time and in this place, does were not fair game, but we watched them for a while anyway. They were graceful and serene and big and powerful all at once. They were as beautiful as their surroundings. Dad handed me a rifle so that I could get a closer look through the scope. As I peered through the scope I realized a couple of things. First, I could so easily have lined up the perfect shot and taken that deer. Second, I didn't want to. I just couldn't see how I could appreciate the beauty of the moment or the strength of that animal more for having destroyed it. It was power I didn't need and didn't want and I was afraid that I would disappoint my dad if I told him. So I handed back the rifle and was quiet for the rest of the day, wondering if I would have the nerve to shoot should we find the elusive buck before sunset. I still wanted to be part of the club, but I was relieved when we went home empty handed.  When dad asked me if I wanted to go back out the next day, I worked up the courage to tell him the truth. I loved the hike and the hunt and spotting the deer, but I didn't think I could really shoot one. I think my dad had suspected as much from his tender-hearted girl because he smiled. He wasn't disappointed and I wasn't kicked out of the club. I was invited to go hunting again whenever I liked, but I never chose to. I was still a dead shot and my brother-in-law tried on a couple of occasions to get me to shoot at birds. I always gave the same response. "If you'll eat it for lunch, I'll shoot it." I knew he would never take me up on the deal. I didn't mind that my dad and my brothers still went hunting and I didn't mind when they brought a deer home and butchered it. We needed meat and they provided it and I didn't mind having venison for dinner. It just wasn't for me to pull the trigger, and that was OK.

I say was OK, because that was then and now things are different. In the neck of the woods where I now live, there are four distinct seasons: winter, mud, tourist and hunting. And hunting trumps them all. Men here get crazy. If they are not hunting, they are talking about hunting or planning the next hunt or finding new places on the wall for hunting trophies. If you see a group of young men at a wedding reception, huddled close and gleefully passing around pictures - have no fear. They are not "dirty" pictures of fallen women. They are pictures of fallen animals. You see, it is not so much about the meat here as it is the trophy. They all want to shoot the biggest elk, or deer or bear or moose or mountain lion and they want the trophy to hang on the wall and prove the story of the hunt to be true. The bigger the mounted  animal, the bigger the man in these parts. In the telling of the tale, I have heard men brag that they have "bested nature at it's own game." Isn't that only true if nature has a gun and is trying to shoot you? I have seen entire buildings erected to house hunting trophies, lit up like works of art in a private museum, and the wives of these men (many of them trophies themselves) have learned to use antlers in every facet of home decorating. Chandeliers and rocking chairs and lamps and coffee tables all made with antlers and there is never enough, even with stacks of elk horns behind the furniture and hides draped over every rail. It brings new meaning to the word "overkill".  The men all hate wolves here and though they claim concern for livestock, I think think the main concern is that every elk a wolf takes is one they won't. It is all about the tags and trust me,  there will never be enough tags. There is a blood lust about the sport in this area that is very ugly and unsporting. While none of them would ever admit to doing it, I have seen an entire antelope carcass, minus the head and the hide, tossed into a dumpster. This isn't hunting the way I grew up with it. This is something very different and more than a little bit disturbing. The respect for the animal is gone. The need, or even the desire, to provide for ones family is a non-issue. Unless, of course, your family of five really needs three freezers full of meat to feel secure. And as crazy as all this is, I am the nut here, because I chose not to take that shot. I still eat game, though. And while I will never completely understand the obsession these men have with hunting,  I am not suggesting we abolish the privilege anytime soon. There are men and women out there who know the kind of hunting I used to know. Men and women who respect the land and the animal they take.  But if you pose the question to me - to hunt or not to hunt - my answer will still be the same. It's just not for me. 

Rumpled in Spirit (or the incredibley rude techno-dude)

Are there any techno-geeks in your life? There are in mine. My oldest son is what you might call a computer geek. It's OK, he doesn't mind the term. He recognizes that it somehow suggests the staggering genius bubbling just under his calm exterior and references to his genius are always acceptable. My brother is a computer geek too. I don't know if he is bothered by the term, but anyone who puts his age on his yearly birthday cake in binary code should be used to hearing it by now. It is important to note here that both my son and my brother are soft-spoken, friendly and approachable people. Neither of them have a tendency to be harsh with even the very deserving, and I suspect that my son is secretly giddy when someone points to their computer and says, "Can you tell me how......?" (again - evidence of his intellectual superiority) The calm, gentlemanly manner of these two men left me totally unprepared for the man I met today. While I do believe I will change his name - he is not innocent and therefore, for the purposes of this blog, I will call him "Mr. Rude."

I met Mr. Rude in my son's school today. My son had been assigned to bring a collection of "favorites" for a kind of getting to know you show and tell. To my utter surprise and delight he announced that, not the computer, but his baby brother was his ultimate favorite thing. He then asked if I could bring his brother to school shortly before the appointed hour of "show and tell". His desire was to hide us out of site and then spring his unabashedly cute younger brother upon his classmates and his teacher. How could I resist? In my joy at hearing that anything in life trumped the computer, I would have dragged an aging elephant into the school, had my son asked for it. We arrived at school at the appointed hour and my eldest son ushered us down a few halls, explaining that he had the perfect place, near class, to hide us. He then led us swiftly to the "bat cave" of the district computer geeks.

This was an impressive room. Half of the walls were lined with various dinosaurs of the computer age. Some of them were actually running, others were obviously not, and some were only present as a collection of pieces and parts. It was like a museum exhibit, the line broken only by one very old microwave oven - proving, I suppose that a true computer "super hero" cares little for the quality of his food as long as he can eat without wandering far from the "nest". The counter along one wall held a line of newer computers and seemed to be more of a real work area. It was here that I met a delightful young man who shall remain nameless. This nameless soul, greeted me warmly, discovered my purpose in the bat cave and graciously allowed me to wait for the return of my son. As I stood in the corner nearest the door I took in the rest of the room. It consisted of a few roughly put together cubicles semi-covered in comic strips and family pictures. A tiny Buddha graced one cubicle wall and as I looked at it and considered the gentleman who had just introduced himself, I also took note of the giant server system filling a considerable area of floor to ceiling space. It seemed to me that this particular bat cave was reserved for the use of a few valiant individuals who safeguarded the district computer system like a small group of shepherds. Watchful and calm , gentle souls keeping a look-out over the flock. (a strange looking and strung out flock, but a flock nonetheless.) Then something went wrong.

Time has this habit of passing. And suddenly it seemed to be passing quite a lot. For my part, I didn't mind the wait. For the toddler in my arms, this was a different story. Not wanting to deliver a seriously crabby boy to his older brother, I cashed in on my only option and put said little brother on the floor. I assigned his sister, who had come along, to watch him closely and let him touch nothing while I watched them both from the doorway, and kept watch for the return of my son, whom the school seemed to have swallowed. Brother and sister behaved beautifully. I mean really beautifully. The only thing little brother even attempted to touch was the large "open " button at the base of the microwave, which he couldn't begin to push hard enough to actually open the microwave. As the pair moved behind the server I moved to maintain a view of both the children and the open doorway. Little brother was tickled at the sight of a phone and pointed and talked about it excitedly, but when big sister reminded him not to touch, he didn't even try. So awesome. Then something went wrong - again.

I had failed to notice a small, moustached man on the phone in one of the cubicles. I had also failed to consider that outsiders were never meant to be in the bat cave. What I did notice was what appeared to be a wiry and somewhat angry little walrus peering at me over the top of his iceberg of a cubicle. Apparently, and according to his word, the toddler whom I thought to be behaving admirably, was actually and inevitably about to pull that one magic cord that would send the entire district computer system crashing to the ground. I must have appeared far too ignorant to realize this, because this puffed up little man felt the need to explain it to me in very small words - repeatedly and with steam beginning to leak from his ears. I think he may have been hoping for a response, some little signal that my puny brain perceived his greatness. He didn't get one. It wasn't as though I had been rendered speechless. My mind was far from blank. In fact, it was near overflowing with words, though none of them seemed to be actually appropriate for use around children. I desperately wanted to ask Mr.Rude and his moustache why it is that women with children in tow, and particularly those who are full-time mothers are always supposed to be unintelligent. Did he really suppose that I was too dumb to recognize what was in front of my face and react with all the due caution required?

I wanted re-educate this man at high volume, but all I could muster in the face of my own anger was a terse, "fine- no problem." I then sent big sister out to a distant hall to play with her little brother, while I hovered in the doorway, fuming and waiting much less patiently for my son to arrive and take us all to friendlier locals.

Fortunately, we did re-unite with my son and his little brother was a huge hit in the classroom. It buoyed my spirits considerably and I found myself contemplating recent events as I trekked back out to my car. I had arrived at the school that afternoon full of good will and good feelings. I had spent the morning studying the life and work of Stephen Hawking and had viewed part of an online Q&A with a group of college students. Stephen Hawking, wheelchair-bound and speaking by means of a computer, had explained to them that a person can't afford to be disabled in spirit as well as in body. I also recalled the words of Anne Shirley, a fictional character who described herself as being considerably rumpled in spirit. I found myself thinking that I had allowed this fuzzy-faced, rude individual to rumple my spirit considerably and, honestly, he was not worth all that to-do. He had not been able to blot out the sunshine moments that followed our brief encounter and I certainly was not about to allow burning resentment to disable my spirit and handicap the rest of the day. Perhaps Mr. Rude is not all bad. I had intruded upon his sacred ground, after all, and was ready to concede some small fault. I was also ready to let go of what remained of my anger and move on to better things. After I blogged it all out of course. But, as the proud mother of one of the bat caves finest, what else could you expect me to do?

Standing In Line...Again.

So, I was standing in line today in the gas station waiting, somewhat patiently, to pay for the fuel in my car. The line was impressive. (Especially when you consider the price of gas.) It stretched down two isles and across the front of the store where there was, sadly, only one open register. I didn't notice that a merge sign had been erected anywhere, and yet we were all shuffling slowly forward, merging ourselves into one line without argument. Sipping slushy drinks in silence and awaiting our turn at the counter. No one made mention of the fact, though I am sure everyone must have noticed, that there were two other registers at the counter and a number of employees wandering the isles and trying their best to look busy and important and way too otherwise occupied to do anything of actual worth.

This is not an unusual phenomena. I cannot even count for you the number of times I have stood at the back of the line in the grocery store. Way back in line, where the register is a faint blur and the cool air coming off the dairy case at the back of the store is keeping you cool. The store is full of bustling employees and yet there are three of twelve registers open. What is the deal here? I often wonder to myself if the store owner might not have saved a bundle in construction costs by requesting that the contractor only build the three check-stands he actually planned to use. Maybe it is common, when building a grocery store and making your business plans, to develop a few delusions of grandeur and have frequent, vivid daydreams wherein the entire town has flocked to your grocery store in search of the weekly special and all fifteen lines are backed up to the coolers. I can see how, in the throws of such fantastic... well, fantasies the contractor would be hard pressed to convince you that three or four registers would more than suffice. "No!", you would shout, "I need more registers. Lots more. Infinite registers!" It sad that in the end all these registers do is provide variety to the four cashiers that actually work at your grocery store. That and irritate the paying customers. You know, the ones who have been standing in line for the last half hour.

Maybe it is the contractors who are to blame. If you figure parts and labor for twenty registers, verses four, you have to admit one bill looks way better for business than the other. And what contractor could resist adding a few extras here and there? Talking the owner into it should be a piece of cake. Look at him. Standing there, with dollar signs shining in his somewhat glazed over eyes and a vague smile on his face. You have to suspect he would let you build an endless number of check-stands. I have even contemplated that perhaps there is an unwritten rule among contractors that you must insist on building no fewer than ten registers - ever. That way, all the contractors benefit. Maybe it is a stipulation in the franchise contracts, placed there to appease the CEOs, who also spend a great deal of time daydreaming of riches. (They spend the rest of their time spending their riches, by the way.)

I don't know who is ultimately responsible, but I think that maybe next time I am standing in the back of the grocery store, watching my ice cream melt in the cart, I will form a protest. I can see it now. Men and women and children alike, raising our voices to chant "Open all the registers! Open all the registers!" I can see the managers calling both the available and seemingly busy checkers to the front of the store. I can see every light at the head of a register coming on as the lines shift and we move forward ,smiling, into the short, short lines.

Now who is suffering delusions of grandeur?