Posts Tagged → youth
A Day for Mourning…Doves
Satiricist + pianist + comedian-ist + mathematician-ist + Harvard-ist from a long distant past when a degree from racist + fakist + indoctrinationist Harvard used to mean something Tom Lehrer died the other day. He was 97 years old, and apparently laughing and humor were good for him, gave him longevity. Or maybe long life was due to him not having kids. Or being married…
Tom Lehrer’s silly music was a fixture on a radio show I was fixated on as a kid, from age nine to probably nineteen, called the Doctor Demento Show. This very silly, often demented, and highly entertaining show was the audio version of Mad Magazine, also a fixture of my mis-spent youth. My youth happened at a time when kids did actually read things to entertain ourselves. There were no videos, no constant and endless television shows, or, the horror, mind-evaporating video games. Mad Magazine was low brow humor, and forcefully informed two generations of American boys about the man-eating birds, killer bees, and fake female breasts available for only ninety-nine cents.
Aside from being chock full of hilarious and acidly cruel parody, long before Hollywooders started taking themselves seriously, Mad Magazine also had ads for mail order “variety” stores. For a pittance, these stores would sell kids fake vomit that was sure to make your mom jump sky high when strategically placed on her mother’s Persian rug. Also sold were palm buzzers, whoopie cushions sure to embarrass your mother’s friends over for tea, and toothpicks soaked in nitroglycerin.
Toothpicks soaked in nitroglycerin, you ask?
Yes, America was once such a cool and free country that little kids could buy through the mail from demented strangers things soaked in genuine high explosive in order to terrorize family pets and grandpas smoking their pipes or cigars. These explosive toothpick slivers came in an innocuous, small, round steel tin, and their gist was for demented youngsters to slip one into the end of a cigarette, cigar, or the stem of grandpa’s pipe, and then sit back and mock the unfortunate recipient of the inevitable explosion. Just the touch of a match or lighter flame was needed to set them off. They were truly explosive.
For one summer I did indeed use these things against my dad and my Papa Morris, to my great mirth and to their unforgiving unhappiness. But I also received my just punishment one day as I was running around in our yard, as mindless summer-minded boys used to do, and damned if the mere friction of my leg movement did not set off that whole tin of explosive toothpicks in my pocket. The loud report sounded like a gunshot, and the immediate pain was real. So I dropped to the ground, yelling “I’m hit, I’m hit!”
Not until I realized not another soul was anywhere near me or our home or our twenty-five acres surrounded by unbroken farmland and forest did I begin to explore the perfectly round hole in my pants. I had not received friendly fire from a neighbor kid, nor had my dad finally tried to take me out. So the cause had to be closer to home, like what the hell was I carrying in my pocket.
My thigh skin was badly bruised, already discolored and puffed up from the injury. And then I found it, the bottom half of the steel tin. Lodged halfway through the fabric in the pocket of my dungarees, it had been driven with great force against my body. Its lid had also been blown off with great force, through the fabric of my dungarees, and was lying somewhere out on our “lawn” as war shrapnel.
For decades I kept that little tin bottom in a small cedar box where I kept other childhood keepsakes, like old stone Indian arrowheads and beads I found in the tilled fields around our home. This little round piece of non-descript light-blue metal symbolized to me all that a boyhood in America used to be or could be: Free, foolish, exploratory, mischievous, silly, dumb, and filled with painful and sometimes near-death learning experiences. In a word, awesome.
Poor kids today have no idea how much fun we kids of yesteryear had. Yes, we had the Doctor Demento radio show, Tom Lehrer songs, and the scandalously mature kid reading material, Mad Magazine. But we also had access to small amounts of explosives, and dirt bikes, and often firearms. And whatever we did that did not permanently maim or kill us made us stronger and more interested in chemistry than any kind of textbook or classroom experiment could achieve. (I once blew off my eyebrows and eyelashes, the huge fireball also leaving my face an unnatural and alarming red color. Upon arriving at home late for dinner, my mother merely tossed my plate of food in front of me, wordless and by then immune to frighteneing answers and smart enough to no longer ask what the hell happened to you).
So, back to Mad Magazine, its crazy ads, and the related Doctor Demento Show, described on complete bullsh*t weakipedia as “Barret Eugene Hansen (born April 2, 1941),[1] also known professionally as Dr. Demento, is an American radio broadcaster and record collector specializing in novelty songs, comedy, and unusual recordings from the dawn of the phonograph to present. Hansen created the Demento persona in 1970 while working at KPPC-FM in Pasadena, California.”
From 1971 until, yes, college, I listened to the Doctor Demento Show. As a kid this was done quietly at night with the crusty old 1960s radio in my bedroom, after my parents had declared “lights out.” In high school, I listened to the radio show along with one or two other misfits also disinclined to be serious about homework. We sat there in silence, occasionally laughing hysterically. In college, I was joined by even more misfits, but by then we also had beer, hard alcohol, and would sing along together to our favorite silly songs spun by Doctor Demento.
Songs like Fish Heads, and of course every single song by Tom Lehrer.
Tom Lehrer’s songs were a mainstay of every Doctor Demento show, and sometimes his funny lyrics were woven into a Mad Magazine article. Adults found his song about pollution poignant and timely, as everyone knew by then that just about every summer the Cuyahoga River would actually catch on fire because of the wild amounts of combustible pollution dumped into it by unchecked industry (note to today’s young people: Water is not supposed to burn). Whereas urbanites, already surrounded by pollution, warped by it, dying early from it, creating it, and imagining themselves immune to it, were much more entertained by Lehrer’s song Poisoning Pigeons in the Park.
Because who the hell doesn’t hate urban pigeons?
Tom Lehrer, comedian, humorist, satiricist, and core of the beloved Doctor Dementow Show
My Eighth Grade school portrait, alarmingly alike to Mad Magazine’s Alfred E. Neumann, of What, Me Worry? fame.
Primitive hunting techniques are more important than ever
In this day and age of popular stainless steel and plastic hunting rifles and Hubble telescope-sized rifle scopes, primitive hunting techniques and weapons are more important than ever. Something in the bad age of video games and instant gratification happened to the American character in the past thirty years or so, and so many young Americans have become lazy and even a bit heartless, as a result. Hunting culture has suffered from this, too. Really badly. Today’s focus seems to be predominantly on the kill, and much less on the process of the hunt.
Those curious about the distinction here should look up some neat videos from real hunters in the big woods of Vermont, Pennsylvania, and the Adirondacks.
Hunting should never be just about, or mostly about, killing an animal. Especially if the hunter wants to call it a trophy and put it up on his or her wall as a representation of his skill.
People trying to justify 300, 400 yard long range shots (or farther) on unsuspecting animals are not hunting, they are assassinating. Their wood craft often sucks, their field craft is limited to wearing camouflage, and their knowledge of the game animal is negligible. They are not really hunters, but rather shooters. Their high-tech guns, ammo, and rifle scopes are a crutch diminishing their need for good woodcraft, and it also results in a lack of appreciation for an actual hunt, and a lower value placed on the animal.
Culling oversized wild animal populations for the benefit of the environment is one thing, but hunting wild animals for pleasure and clean meat should be accomplished with skill. Age-old skills that everyone can respect. Hard-won wild animals taken with real skill under fair chase conditions are all trophies.
An unsuspecting big game animal assassinated at long range (or worse, inside a high fence, or over bait) requires very little hunting skill, and can never be said to be a trophy that is reflective of the hunter’s skill set. And yet isn’t this why so many hunters want big antlers and broad hides? They see these big animals as a reflection of their hunting prowess, of their manhood, their chest-thumping status within the outdoors community. As a result, America has developed a hunting culture driven by bigger-is-better trophies, at any cost, all too often achieved through long-range assassinations of unsuspecting wildlife, or over bait. Fair chase, which has always been at the heart of hunting, has been tossed away in favor of quick gratification and unfounded ego bragging rights.
The primary reason why primitive hunting weapons are so important today, is that someone has to keep the culture of hunting alive. What is a primitive hunting weapon? Pretty much any legal implement that requires the hunter to work hard to develop unique field craft/ wood craft skills, including the ability to penetrate within a fairly close range of the prey animal’s eyes, ears, and nose: Any bow (compound bow, stick bow, self bow, longbow, or other hand-held vertically limbed bow), spear, atl-atl, open-sighted black powder or centerfire rifle, any large bore handgun with or without a scope, should qualify. Flintlocks, percussion cap black powder muzzleloaders, and traditional bows are especially challenging to master and to harvest wild game with.
All of these primitive weapons require the hunter to actually hunt, to rely upon his woodcraft to carry him quietly and unseen across the landscape, and into a fair and close range of his prey animal. Animals taken with primitive weapons and techniques are earned in every way, and therefore they are fully appreciated.
Few experiences bother me more than watching some internet video of a fourteen year-old hunter running his hands over the antlers of a recently deceased buck, and listening to this inexperienced mere child discuss the finer aspects of this rack, its inches, its points, its relative size, and its (barf on my feet) trail camera name. Usually the child has shot the deer from an elevated box blind that conceals all of the hunter’s scent, sound, and movement. Whoever has taught these kids to hunt this way exclusively, and to then look at deer harvested this way as so many bragging rights, has done a huge disservice to these kids. These kids are going to grow up into poachers and baiters, always trying to prove how great of a “hunter” they are, and how studly and manly they are, at any cost. They will end up doing anything to score the next “record book” animal. These young kids who are being warped right now with this trophy nonsense are the future of America’s hunting culture, and what a crappy culture it will be if it is dominated by big egos and even bigger mouths armed with sniper rifles and no actual hunting skill.
Moms, dads, grandpas and uncles who are beginning to teach kids to hunt right now can do two simple things that will ensure their little student grows up into an ethical, responsible, high quality, law-abiding hunter: Make them use open sights on single-shot firearms and bows.
The skills that young hunters develop from having to rely on open sights and single shots (primitive weapons) will force them to achieve a high level of field craft, wood craft, and fair chase values. Developing skill requires a person to overcome challenges and adversity, often making mistakes along the way. And that results in better character.
Forcing kids to get close to their prey animal, and to take only carefully aimed shots with just open sights, will result in people who become really excellent hunters. Adults can always opt to add a scope to their rifle as their eyes age, but the lessons learned early on in concealment, controlling movement, playing wind direction, and instinctive shooting will keep the respectable art of hunting alive and well.
This Fall, get your little one started on a flintlock or old Fred Bear recurve bow from the get-go, for squirrels and deer, and watch as a true hunter is born.