Today I took Casey fishing…that was a bust. All the fish must have been dead. So several hours after bashing the surface waters of the fish mausoleum with tethered slabs of shiny metal I took Casey driving though the back roads of the Pike National Forest. Roads that I heavily traveled as a teen. As a teen I drove a red Jeep with no top or doors. Clad in cutoff jeans, an unbuttoned flannel shirt and leather work boots, I buried the accelerator pedal with little regard to physics or the fact that this narrow windy gravel ribbon with a 200 foot drop looming to the left was a moderately traveled two way road. My mullet trailing behind in the dusty contrail, mirror aviator sunglasses reflecting the alarmed oncoming traffic as the Jeep pirouetted the corners to ZZ Top’s Sharp Dressed Man and Perl Necklace. At 47 my prefrontal cortex has grown up and is in tune with my sphincter muscles responding to information it didn’t get from that undeveloped chunk of 17 year old brain. What I noticed and pointed to Casey is the invasion of firearm enthusiast with a total lack of affection for the regional biota or console TVs. Entire football fields of blasted tree trunks and appliance corps, empty beer cans and rotting shotgun shells and bullet brass dotted the landscape. The shortage of ammunition is surely a result of the “dooms day conservatives” prejudice of trees and tube TVs. Motoring along I took a turn down a two track down into a valley. I pointed out to Casey the geologic disturbance and fluvial mass wasting precipitated by irresponsible off road vehicle use driven by men fearing erectile dysfunction. I can’t prove the boner part. Casey took to identifying the litter that dominated the trail side. I chimed in adding a comment or two about a soda can or truck mirror but bid out of trying to explain the spent condom and remnants of a backwoods meth lab. We returned to the main dirt road. I found it refreshing to see three guardians of our forest dressed in yellows and greens setting in their green type 6 brush truck strategically staged monitoring the approaching dry thunderstorm. I found it ironic that 19 of their type died the other day defending the very resource that the firearm and off road enthusiast are blasting straight to hell. It is of little wonder to me that forest management has become resource triage and I point this out to Casey in a parable of ecological stewardship. Inserting my own version of anti-mineral exploration and pro endangered species act propaganda; I sneak a peak out of the corner of my eye hoping that in the absence of a pre frontal cortex his mind will be swayed in the direction of responsible conservation. A Ford Crew Cab Diesel F-250 4x4 is not nearly a nimble vehicle as a Jeep CJ. I tried and tried again to hang my back bumper over the edge and pitch rocks over the ledge with my spinning rear tires but my rectal sphincter eyes the drop off and I let up on the accelerator. I remember the 17 year old boy I was…I was a good and inexperienced driver…I shot a lot of guns…I hoped and prayed in vain to get laid every time I met a girl…and I had an immense appreciation for the natural things (which is why I never was lucky with the girls I suppose). I remember less pop up shooting ranges, less litter, trails were much less rutted and eroded and I caught fish in that stupid lake.
Posted on: Thu, 04 Jul 2013 02:26:45 +0000
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