Kakahead

Every year around this time, it’s the same thing.
Idiots with weapons go traipsing about in the woods and
fields, looking to kill anything that even remotely resembles
a deer.  Before the season opens, these dimwits seem
intrigued with the fact that 1.5 billion candle power
spotlights will actually light up a field and blind a bambi
or two that are trying to graze in peace.  I’m sick up and
fed with this.  I want my yard back.

We live in a semi-rural area, and the deer do quite well
here.  It’s not at all uncommon to see tracks in the back of
our five acre plot where Mama, Papa, and Baby Deer have been
moving around.  Very nice, ya know??  Deer are our friends,
except of course when they’re trying to dive into our car as
we book down the expressway.  Been there.  Done that.  Not
good.

Don’t get me wrong, I love to eat venison.  Yummy stuff,
youbetcha.  I smear it in my hair with gravy and noodles.
Maybe a little mashed potatoes on my eyebrows.  A pea or two
in my belly button.  Now that’s a party!!  But I just don’t
have it in me to kill them anymore.  I am a WUSSY.  Got one
when I was 14, and I haven’t hunted since then.

Yeah, yeah, I know we need hunters, or deer will
overpopulate.  No natural predators in these parts.  We
exterminated all of them long ago.  Just to make sure, we
also stole most of their habitat.  That oughta fix ‘em.  Dang
those wolves and cougars anyhow.  What rights do they have,
just because they were here first??

I know first hand about this vanishing habitat stuff.  We moved to
Wisconsin from Long Island, New York when I was twelve years
old.  While I was growing up, there were lots of woods in our
neighborhood.  Pretty cool place to live.  Long Island isn’t
like that anymore.  Sure, they still have the trees, but
most of the forests were flattened by dozers years ago.

The same is happening in Michigan.  Big sadness for me.
Everybody wants a house in the woods, and so many are being
built that the woods are beginning to vanish.  And with the
woods goes the habitat, so the predators don’t have a chance.
But deer (and other critters) have learned to adapt to this
and are eating people’s gardens for dessert.

Again, I don’t have a problem with hunting, per se.
It’s the idiots I have trouble with.  Have to give my Dad
credit.  When he started us hunting in Upstate New York all
those years ago, he was a stickler for safety and for clean
kills.  In between hunts, he made darn sure we were good
enough shots to hit what we aimed at.  His philosophy was
quite simple, really:  don’t shoot till you can get a clean
shot, and DON’T SHOOT TILL YOU KNOW WHAT IT IS.

Pretty silly, huh??  I remember reading a story in the paper
years ago about a “hunter” who called 911 to report a person’s head
stuck in a window with a bullet hole in it.  Police
investigation revealed a mannequin, and the “bullet hole” was
a price tag.  Boy, we got one sharp “hunter” there!

Something infests the brains of all too many who march
out into the hunt.  My grumpy old neighbor, who would shoo the
kids off his land each summer, figured it’s ok to put his
boot tracks all over mine come November.  Oh, and those
stupid shiners I mentioned earlier.  It’s illegal for them to
shine near residences.  They don’t care.  And then, there’s
the happy mixture of weapons and alcohol and other drugs.
Now there’s a healthy combination!  And in the Podunks of the
Northwoods, you even get the stores that cater to these
simpletons.  I have actually seen with my own eyeball things
a big flashy-light sign on a convenience store: “BEER, WINE,
AMMO.”

Y * E * A * H !!!   Makes me proud to be an American!!

Ok, ok.  I’ll get off the soapbox.  If I stay on it too
long, I just start thinking of weird things “hunters” should
do with soap.  Something other than washing.  Ok.  I admit
it:  yes Rebecca (or Robert) there really ARE real hunters.
They know what they’re doing, only shoot when the odds are
great for a kill, and actually understand that they should
not shoot each other.  They even hunt legally!  They ask
permission before they hunt on my land!  They hunt because
they enjoy Nature, and that includes a deep respect for it.
They eat what they kill.

Thankfully, our son-in-law is a prime example of a responsible hunter. Just aren’t nearly enough of those around.

I want my yard back.  Can you tell?