Well, the deer were out and about earlier this morning

and that is always a good thing. 

Someone has managed to put me in touch with a couple of my old high school classmates and it's kind of scary because I'm an awful lot more different that most of them than I thought.

Most of the people I have been in touch with have lived very civilized lives. There's a couple retired teachers, social workers, a dairy farmer running a micro dairy and one guy that is a genetic engineer.

The cat seems to be pretty active today and if he decides to write a little I'm not going to edit him out.

Anyway, I can't think of any of the classmates I've met that have ever lived outside of civilized settings. It's weird.

On the other hand I have lived in places my classmates only get to see on the Discovery Channel. It makes for a case of 2 worlds colliding.

I once sent a summer living alongside a salmon stream which was beautiful and made for pretty good eating and I suppose they would think that's a wonderful thing because of the beauty.

What they fail to understand is that salmon streams draw bears like the moon draws water. This means that everywhere you go during the salmon runs you are armed.

I had no electricity or running water and that meant that every time nature called or you needed to haul water you'd grab either the 12 gauge pump or the .375 H&H. It was as simple as that.

Because of my choice in real estate and neighbors I would occasionally get visitors that wanted to watch the bears fish.

One chick from Idaho dropped by and she seemed to get it. I was making us lunch and she went to get water and grabbed the shotgun. She had grown up on a ranch and knew how to take care of herself.

Another hippie chick from Seattle got upset at the sight of the shotgun and I was kind and offered to put it away after I changed my shoes.

She asked me why I had to change my shoes first and was not pleased with my answer.

I told her that if I was going to put down my shotgun and have no protection that I wanted to make damned good and sure I could outrun her.

It took a few minutes for it to sink in and then she burst into tears and started crying that "You would let me get eaten by a bear while you ran off!"

I told her I was not Prince Charming and had no intention of wrestling an 1800 pound Brownie to save her skinny little stupid ass.

A lot of my life has been lived in far flung remote outposts and I've gotten to see the real world instead of the part that is covered in pavement and concrete. I've gotten to see nature as it truly is.

While most of them are sitting out a storm at home watching Jim Cantore on the Weather channel living on French toast (they make that out of all the bread, eggs and milk they buy up beforehand) I am generally in the middle of the weather.

For Sandy I was home. My preparations were simple. I bought a bottle of Jim Beam.  I'm always ready for bad weather.

Right now I see a lot of my former classmates seeming to be willing to trade their rights off for the perception of safety. I see things a lot differently. I don't want government issued safety. 

I'm smart enough to know it doesn't work. The government can pass all the laws it wants to but bears and criminals are not going to obey them.






To find out why the blog is pink just cut and paste this: http://piccoloshash.blogspot.com/2009/12/my-feminine-side-blog-stays-pink.html NO ANIMALS WERE HARMED IN THE WRITING OF TODAY'S ESSAY