Duck Hunting

sadness

Jan 13, 2014

Duck Hunting in a small boat in the Frigid Waters is not safe.

Within the last two weeks there have been three people killed in the waters of Buzzard's Bay or it's estuaries. Two were at Westport, MA. They were found floating, boat capsized. Another was a sophomore at Brown who was in a kayak in Fairhaven. All of these men were duck hunting.

find references here and here.

There is a great place of open dunes and I like to romp through there at times. Being a Vermont boy (part-time) as a kid, and used to very cold temperatures (where the car doesn't ever blow warm air even when you've run it for an hour) I am used to cold. I remember very many years ago I went to this place in January and I had no idea about rabbit or duck hunting. So I'm up there at this place stomping through the dunes, it's a place where a lot of people go on occasion. Not so much in January, or so I thought. So I'm there, meditating, and I'm suddenly hearing these dogs. Dog in the dunes. Howling dogs in the dunes. There approaching me from the other side of the giant hedge of pricker-bushes. That jarred me from my meditation.

As I Remember, it was probably very windy in the Winter in the dunes by the ocean, actually by Buzzard's bay. When it's blustery you can get to a place down below the dunes, and nestled within the scruff pine, and be out of the wind. This was the kind of place that I had ended up at on my venture. I probably had plopped down for just a small break on my hike (I'm not sure, probably I would have kept moving). I am not even sure if it was windy, though at the ocean it usually is.

I don't remember day's details. I do remember lifting up my head and looking over through the pricker-bushes, the scruff pine trees, and the poison ivy vines that don't have any leaves on them but are still not good to be near or to touch.

Sand. Sand everywhere, rolling down as you tromp through it (this is a beach, this is a dune. If the place were in New Jersey it would be full of housing and wealthy people haunts. It it were Chatham there would be a bunch of bars and drinkers yumming it up on their tony decks, reading Mass State House news, and living off of their state and union pensions (and kick backs probably ,but I fictionalize). But, no, it's the South Coast. It's a place where people understand the value of ducks. And they understand the very real dangers of the ocean (three people dead in Buzzard's Bay in less than a week!).

This is the part of the world that was totally obliterated by the huge and unexpected hurricane of 1938, the one that destroyed many towns through unexpected flooding, rolled right into town like the mighty hand of G_d: fear, retribution, dead people washing along in the tide, rolling over with the waves.

Imagine the first responders having to go and retrieve bodies. Imagine the logistics of figuring out who all the dead people are. That storm hit fast and without warning! Hundreds were reported dead. Perhaps thousands because some seaside hamlets were completely destroyed. If the ocean had washed away all of the hidden squatters (it was the height of the depression), who were scrapping by off grid , how would authorities be able to account for them? I suppose finding bodies is one way to take a count of the dead. But the missing? If the bodies are never found? Who can count them then?

So there I was on my meditative tromp through the dunes. I heard the dogs. They were howling. I was revealling in the solitude, hidden from the world, as if in a silent place apart. I'm not causing any problems. Slowly I start to hear the dogs. They were barking and causing a fuss. They were approaching me from a wierd direction (I am not sure the were on any of the paths). It was cold and windy and I must have been bundled in my hat and hood becuase it was a wierd time of year.

And there are guys in duck clothes with full gear, with rifles. So suddenly I popped up and let myself be known. End of story. I amble off.

Remember to know when it's hunting season, duck season, whatever. And if you go out to sea during the cold gale you had better be dressed in a survival suit. Better yet: don't go kyacking when it's frigid cold in ocean. Maybe when it's as cold as it was on those days, maybe it's better to not have people out in small boats?

But, of course, that is just a load of crap. That 21 year old was going to do it, doesn't matter what you told him. A willful daredevil with a lust for adventure, what can you say to stop him from his daring do? From his need to be exceptional? You hear about it, kids go wondering off. They go off into a wilderness alone. Should you tell them not to?

If they meet the devil in the desert is it the devil of their own mind? Fallacies of thought? I met duck hunters and their beautiful Setters with the howls and the waggiling tails. Dogs like that are telling their master's that there is someone here. The duck hunters aren't looking for young men soul searching. It's was a frigging Saturday, by the way. They do their thing. I do my thing. Those things don't have to conflict. I should have known that it was duck season. I learned my lesson. No harm. Smart group of guys with awesome hounds (setters?)

And the stories of the three drowned duck hunters has got to be the saddest story in the world. Well, I admit to hyperbole. There are sadder stories.

Safty first: retrofit cabinet locks!

I am not detailing the other sad news story of this week. Parents remember that hope chests need retrofitting with childsafe locks! The sad story that I am not detailing for you will make you weep if you find it. Do you really need details? If you live in Massachusetts you have probably already heard this story.

Strength to everyone who knows these people. When unexpectedly sad things happen, that society had thoguht we had solved years ago, like retrofiting locks to be childsafe, don't we all want to spread the word to keep the kids safe! How do we do that without also spreading the sadness? I don't want to be accused of being a sadness monger. But I do think we can all be safty mavens! But sometimes things happen for which we have not prepared. Like a sudden storm.

The Hurricane of 1938

The Hurricane of 1938 was a major Historical event. It prepared New Englanders for what was to come when thousands of its children would die in the coming wars.

Always in Need of edit

In Wicked Need of an Edit

Political and Media Inanity

by Truck-u-later

How to Avoid New Jersey

How to avoid New Jersey: go to Washington DC via Mattamoras and Interstate 84!

If people go to jail for creating a poltically motivated traffic jam than so be it! Politics isn't about punishing the citizenry over BS from City Hall or the State House. Chris Christie: what other traffic jams in New Jersey were politically motivated?

sometimes they do the slowdown at the toll booths. It's better to not ride the Turnpike on those days. But it isn't a directive from the State House. Duval Patrick doesn't have his guys call up and tell the union tolltaker guys to slow it down.

I alway try to be respectful to the toll takers. They have a tough job: first line of defense for people driving on the highway inebriated. Some people treat them with disrespect. That just makes them know you for that. They remember yo when you go through everyday. Why not spread some goodwill? Is it there fault that the job that they had to take was tolltaker? I, mean, it's a bad job when the weather is bad.

Politically motivated traffic jams! I've written a lot about curruption and government. This is really new ground. Block the highway that everyone uses, people of all parties, all points of view, all ethnicities: people with a purpose and somewhere to go. People who want to visit your beautiful state and spend their money! It's just rediculous. Rediculous.

Well, so, that was the news this week. Politically motivated traffic jams in New Jersey. I knew that New Jersey traffic was screwed up but I never imagined it as anything more than contractor graft: the never ending construction zones that seem to happen everywhere. I can undrstand that because the money is going to working people who have a hard job: construction wokers. Ya, there are kickbacks. We are adults, aren't we? We know that this goes on. But to stop traffic because some politician doesn't support another one? And to send emails about it? Dumb. And these people want to run our country!

Republicans are loathed by so many. And once again when some of them are in power they prove themselves to be creeps.

 Truck-u-later is a
  guest columnist.

   where there used to be a song
  she still sung it in her heart
  even though the score
     called for silence
   a moment
  to remember
  she sung him in her heart
     throughout the pause
 where there used to be 
                   a song
                    it
            might seem to
   but it never really fades
                

4 Jan, 2014.

What is there to understand about
 time
 without that forward face
 of heart 
  like the buelles of love I
        grew for you?
 you broke me off

 I lay there on the floor 
                of the forest
 the sound of flies and bees 
                and pricker-bushes 
                  sticking you 
      screaming in
           pain
  
   But time?
  It just hangs in the air. 
It didn't even look at 
            the sky
       or the reflection
         of clouds
     on the screen  
      of the computer
    (refuge now safe
  at his lakeside
     hideout)

 Instead you
 wrote it's sad
 poems
 in the silence 
        of
     eternity.

 you try to hand your poems
                 to the wind
 They fly away
   some end up in the lake.
  some at the mountainside 
             parking lot
   
   Some get blown up all the way
             to the highest
               watchtower.

  were you
 thinking of me
 sitting here, cold
 and fearful you don't
      anymore . . . 
  and knowing
   and knowing.

When the march 
   is over
 the drummers
 return home
  exhausted
  

more from a newer fiction

what say ye oh milkman-popup sprite?

Milkman red devil popup :

"Merry Christmas!"

spontanious story inspired by spontanious behavior of someone else.

Midnight Texts are always interesting and can result in the truth being a blatent lie. Whatever that means. Maybe next time I'll pretend that I didn't have my phone, I won't answer the text.

I figured that someone who was texting at midnight was going to be friendly and that would be a good thing: wishing someone well at the end of the day. I'm here doing productive things at midnight, so that isn't such a horrible time to text me. In any case it's all good. I'd drive to edge of the fringe, that part were my world ends and that other one begins. but I can't go wondering those rambling alleyways and side street bar haunts, back door drinking coffee, smoking butts, kitchen in the weed, rats in the bread, midnight street and the frozen ice. snorting unknown pills. I don't do those things.

If I could have known to go and look for him that day in Brookline. He'd have been wonderously ambling towards the Blancette's Liquors. he'd be making happy eyes towards the women who push their strollers. He'd have had a fish sandwicdth at the orange sign sandwich shop. He'd have read all of the titles on all of the used books in the basement of the bookstore. Maybe he'd have phoned someone about the farmers market? Maybe he'd have had a piece of bachlava (or two). I'd have gone lickity split to get and bring him something? somewhere? somehow? Sanity? Xandu? Life long quest for God and Love? You could find it on Harvard Avenue, Brookline, or Beacon Street, College Corner. It might be there during petal fall in The Spring, while the smell of the ethnic food drifts along the sidewalks. The people might look to him with suspicion at first but realize quickly that the only one he mgiht be harming is himself. Can't he walk past a pastry shop window without wanting to sample just about all of them? Third trip to the counter and they are asking who is he here visiting?

Later he makes his train. He gets out some place only part way. Part way to where? Glittering lights! A woman in a doorway who he sees seeing him. He knows what she wants! (this is how it might work I don't know he only gives me glimpses of his lothario, the emboldened knight on the prowl nature that he sometimes displays)

He 'hey babys' her, which only works in dreams or when he is manic. He glows then. He must emit some pheremone. She wants him. He sticks his tonque down her troat. She doesn't turn away. (She was a he, a pro).

Next she is wanting money. He rips her out a twenty. Then he slips inside the doors of the glass factory.

   

 She sings her song of him
  with her every breath
 as he sings, too of her.
 all of this in silence.
        




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