Rocky and Rambo Meet the Exterminator

Last night one of my girlfriends and I went out to face the USDA Deer Exterminators. We rode around the neighborhood checking the cull bait, making noise with air horns and genuinely bothering the sharpshooters.  We were Rocky and Rambo (not to be confused with Rocky and Bullwinkle). Defenders of the defenseless.  Protector of the Deer.  And we were not alone.  Right before dark, Atlanta FOX Channel 5 came out to do continuing coverage of the slaughter.  While they get almost no story right, they do take pictures and show that there is a very vocal and quite large constituency of people who dislike the process.   That's two night in a row that everyone in Atlanta got a chance to see something besides carjacking, burglary and drive-by shootings.  We had hoped for PETA but found out they only do naked celebrity events. Over the hill, white women with small dogs and air guns do not pull out the national news stations.  Earlier in the day I had stopped and talked with one of the young shooters and offered caramel cake as a peace offering but despite my friendly demeanor, the cute guy had declined my offer. I told him that I did not object to hunting and in fact half my family has Lyme disease.  He finally did smile.  The only negative was a run in with some talking heads who have their talking points down like seasoned veterans of politics.  You say "but the deer where not sick" and they say "yet" and at the same time.  Then they have to nerve to tell me  "that you don't have a right to be mad or upset now because you weren't vocal enough the last time there was a cull in the neighborhood". Since when can't a grown up learn more and become better informed and change their minds and more importantly "see the light".  I especially resent this talking point because it goes against everything I believe about maturity. I also used to like shoulder pads in my clothes and bell bottoms on my jeans.  And big hair.  Halter tops. Things change.  I grew up.  Earlier in the day I had received an email for a guy I have not seen in over l5 years. Not kissed in over 30.  He remembered me as the person I was then, the fun, strong person that I had been.  He told me about me.  All this has reminded me of who I am.  I am not the events that have happened to me in my life. I am not the lies I have been told, the betrayal I have felt or even the abandonment I have experienced.  If  I allow what has happened in my life to determine who I am, I will loose my true self and never be the person I am or really want to be.   I am Rocky.  I am Rambo.  I am a fighter.  Many of our deer will die during this cull, but less will die in the future because people do "see the light" and they have plenty of air horns at Walmart.

Dope a Deer, A Male or Female Deer Killer

Tonight the Board of my once quiet and peaceful neighborhood will have a meeting designed to tell the "Save the Deer" fans that we don't stand a chance in hell of convincing them to do just that.  I have been thinking of ways to ruin the so called "cull".   I am preparing black face and buying a large spot light.  I want to get a group to ride the golf course and yell and play loud music.  Soak the bait deer corn in gasoline.  Pepper spray?   Its like a re-con mission.  I wished I had watched more war movies with my Ex.  This was on his list of my failures and now I truly regret it.  My son in law, said I better add the orange vest to my shopping list,  but I prefer living close to the edge on this matter.  So if I go, I go, living dangerously.  If I chicken out, which is quite possible,  my next plan is to bait the deer in the opposite direction from the golf course.  This seems perfectly safe except for the mean deer killers who might turn me in and fine me for feeding.  It would be worth the $100 fine except they might fine me per site and that could add up.  I would be forced to eat sandwiches all month.  Either way,  I have spent half the day looking at Real Estate sites thinking of where I could move and how I could make money if I did.  My choices are limitless.  I could get another B & B.   Buy a store somewhere in foreclosure.  Marry a millionaire.  Become the Queen.  I didn't say they were rational ideas, just ideas.  I think I stand a better chance with the re-con mission than the millionaire or the Queen.   I just hope the black paint is really water based and comes off or I may have a future in Hip-Hop.  I have just received the email stating the kill will begin tomorrow.  What a waste and a sadness.   I hope Home Depot still has deer corn and spot lights.

Fighting the Deer Battle

Tonight I stood on a cold, windy corner in Jasper, Georgia, holding a sign that read "Don't Kill the Deer".  A few months ago, I read a book about some activist who took a stand in the 60s and paid dearly for their position.  I have often wondered if there were many issues on which I would willingly  take a stand . I find that when I think about it, there are many.  I believe I would die for my faith.  I know  I would die for my children, my grandchildren.  I would risk my life to save a friend.  I would take a stand for something I truly believed in, even if my position was not popular, or even likely to prevail.  But more and more, as I grow older, I realize that I will even take a position for something that I think is right, even just unfair, because more and more I realize, if not me, who then?  We live in a world where often just causes are not heralded.  Where over and over we see that right doesn't always prevail.  Where good doesn't trump evil.  But if we are to believe that humanity and all that it is and all that it means to be human, can not raise up against unkindness, ignorance,  and slaughter,  even if it is just of deer,  then what are we doing here, and why get up tomorrow.  This is not the fight of a lifetime, its not even the fight of this year because I know that this year will bring real difficulties to me and my family, but it is something that matters and its about standing up and making your voice heard, even if its just for deer.  So I stood up and I held my sign and I hope that everyone finds something that matters enough that when the time comes, you will hold up your sign. Lloyd Jones said "Those who try something and fail, are infinitely more successful than those who try nothing and succeed". 

Doe a Deer, A Female Deer

I listened in amusement to the news about the rich, polo playing man who adopted his young attractive girlfriend.  Everyone seems to think this is the first time they had ever heard of this happening.  But in Fairhope, Alabama, we had the same story almost 20 years ago.  At that time it was a very sick, rich old man who decided to adopt his much younger, very sexy, nurse, not long after he paid for her breast implants and face lift. He had wanted to marry her but when she refused, citing public outrage, so he just adopted her instead.   He got his back rubs and she got the house and all the money. People pretty much do what they want in life unless someone stops them from doing it. That  brings me to the sad news that my neighborhood association is once again culling - nice word for killing - our deer. Originally they stated this was humanitarian in nature because the deer were sickly due to being malnourished.  The only problem with that is the USDA report stated the deer were healthy and the doe were almost all pregnant and many with twins.  Now its the environment that is suffering because of the deer.  Meaning somebody wants hydrangeas in their front yard and the golfers are having their games ruined by the continuous grazing. So they will hire l0 rednecks with night vision goggles and spot lights to sit on the golf course at night in various locations, baited with deer corn,  where the poor, hungry pregnant doe and their yearlings will get in line for the buffet only to be shot.  Even in Alabama we don't kill and eat pregnant deer.  Everything else is on the table, literally.  So the deer will be eaten and the fetuses discarded and the garden club and the golfers will be happy. Not as much adoption going on up here in the mountains, but plenty of nasty business.

Autumn Has Come to the Spring Chicken and There's No Rooster in Sight

When I vacation with my brothers and sister, one of our favorite family films is "Folks".  It isn't the great acting or the scenery or anything of artistic value that draws our family to view this film over and over. Its the insanity of the old people in the movie.  My older siblings just die laughing when the old couple do something outrageous to themselves, their children or society in general.  I used to be mildly entertained about it but really thought much of it was kinda' stupid and exaggerated. Or at least I thought so until I became one of the old, insane people. Daily now I am reminded that a mind is a terrible thing to waste as I watch myself become an "insane, old lady".  I have to tell you about my cruise.  My 4 day 3 night cruise was not.  It was a 4 night cruise.  I came home on Friday not Thursday night as I expected.  I had to email my family, at almost a dollar a word, to keep them from worrying about where I was on Thursday evening.   Also I missed my first experience of being advertised and recognized as the main artist in a local art show here in Jasper on Friday evening because, instead I was still driving up I-75 at a hundred miles an hour trying to get home from Cape Canaveral, Florida.  I don't know anyone else who has ever managed to get on a ship and sail off into the sunset and not know when  they were coming home unless they were in the navy.  No, that's not true.  I now know another person because my roomy didn't know either and she had to let her husband know by email also.   Up until now I have always packed my clothes with the old  " Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday" approach.  Fortunately, on this trip I threw in an extra pair of drawers or I would have been washing panties in the sink.  I would be embarrassed by my craziness but if I am to become embarrassed by every "little" stupid thing I do, I will find myself embarrassed all the time. Instead I am going to tell all of you about it, laugh it off and choose to think how lucky I was to take a 3 night cruise and be gone for 4.