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10 pounds down 32 pounds to go!

Saturday, November 15, 2008

cautionary tale

I grabbed matt's ugly ass orange fleece as Charlene and I were leaving to search for balsams yesterday. I'm not a mainer but it's a habit and I was shocked that Charlene didn't have a stitch of orange on or in her car. She was worried about bears and I'm worried about hunters. Matt has officially banned me from wearing brown, white, basically any color that any dumbass with a gun could possibly think was a deer. I'm not even allowed to carry a plastic hannaford bag because they're either white or brown, I had to find the one blue one. A long time ago he told me a story of a woman who was in her back yard with white mittens and was shot because someone thought she was a deer. I always remember that story and today it was in the paper. That was twenty years ago and the anniversary is today. It's pretty hard to read but I wasn't here twenty years ago and I didn't have to live it. I feel terribly for both parties, I really do. A family lost their wife and mother and a hunter took a human life, whether he's able to admit it or not.

The article says that hunting is safer now and blah blah blah but I think a lot of what the victim's husband said of 1988 is still true today. Hunters think that their right to hunt is all that matters and that anyone who objects is against hunting and against guns and is a liberal communist pussy. Really, there are t-shirts. They noted a housing boom as a cause of the accident. Personally, I think if you're going out somewhere with a gun you have a responsibility to know where the fuck you are (and have, you know, permission) and what you're shooting at and if you show up somewhere and there are houses maybe you should re-think your plan. Recreational land users in Maine drive me fucking crazy. They really think they can take their guns and their atv's and their snowmobiles anywhere they want to and it's just fine. Dig up our road, trash a blueberry field, shoot a homeowner...I don't think most of them are aware of consequences because for so long everything was just paper company land or unorganized land and now it's owned by individuals and Roxanne and they're unable to deal.

There is a distinct inability to adapt here, to accept change. Which is bullshit because it's damn hard to live here. I sometimes wonder if the populous survives on sheer stubornness. There is a complete inability to accept change. If you work for the paper mill and the paper mill shuts down...no one moves. They all just stay there and starve and say gee things were better when the paper mill was here...I do not understand. I do not understand because I am an outsider and I'm sure that Kevin Woods is right when he says it would have made a difference if the hunter had killed a local woman. If it was a Mrs. Baldacci that was shot, or anyone named Beal it would have been a different story.

I am genuinely scared when I'm out in the woods because Matt is scared for me. He's a hunter and he knows a lot of hunters and if he thinks most of them will shoot anything that moves I trust him. I can't wait for November to be over and the fear of being shot in my own yard gone (well, lessened anyway). I hate wearing orange and wondering weather my burgundy sweater is going to get me killed, it's no different than victims in rape cases being criticized for their clothes. I don't think it's my responsibility to keep morons from shooting me but I don't want to die for it so I wear the orange...and I make Charlene wear the orange too. I told her bears are afraid of orange so everyone wins.

2 comments:

Sugarcrook said...

I've never understood hunting. It's one thing if you're hunting to legitimately put food on the table, but hunting for the sport of it just seems silly.

Once you factor in the cost of the firearm, license, all the gear, time spent going out to try to find the damn animal - assuming you even kill one - you're paying like $20/lb.

Amy said...

yes, the legitimate hunters are the ones they get for poaching