Category: Well I thought it was funny!
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This is a typical whitetail buck. You can see how
he is clearly trying to look cool for the ladies.
We live way out in the middle of no place. The fact that I sort of shoot guns for a living makes that pertinent. One of the fringe benefits is copious wildlife.
Some of that is not so cool. I wage an ongoing war of extermination against the water moccasins that breed like venomous scaly bunnies in the lake that passes for our backyard. I’m barely holding my own on that front. The deer, however, are kind of neat.
My wife hates them because they eat her flowers. I think of our local deer herd as handy shelf-stable protein should Putin follow through on his oft-repeated threat to nuke the planet. For now, however, they’re a bit like pets.
I can identify many of the locals. One doe is missing half of her left ear, no doubt secondary to some unfortunate encounter with a dog in her wayward youth. She birthed twins last year, both of which are little button bucks today. The females tend to be homebodies, while the bucks always wander.
One afternoon I glanced out my bathroom window to see an enormous 10-point who was obviously enraptured with a small, young doe. She was, for her part, having none of it. He chased her around like an idiot trying to look cool while she trotted hither and yon in search of a safe space. I called my wife’s attention to the apparent age discrepancy, and she declared that he was “The Harvey Weinstein of deer.”
Anyway, the point is that women reliably disengage a man’s higher-order brain functions. Anyone who feels otherwise has clearly never met an actual human. Guys who might be respected political leaders or captains of industry can be rendered intellectually incompetent by a strategic glance from an attractive woman. It’s really a bit like a superpower.
This is a typical whitetail doe. She clearly wants nothing to do with guys.
It’s Timeless, It’s Irresistible, and It’s Everywhere…
I sat huddled comfortably at the base of a big elm tree alongside my dad. I was tucked down behind the portable blind my mom had sewed for us out of sharpened dowels and camouflage cloth. My skinny teenaged mitts gripped my Browning Auto-5 12-gauge in a death rictus while my trigger finger hovered over the safety. Above 60 yards distant, a big turkey gobbler slowly ambled our way.
My dad is a master at this. He had been tormenting this poor guy for half an hour, yelping a few hen calls while interspersing the occasional gobble. In his capable hands, a Lynch’s box call conjured a sort of irresistible jealousy in the randy bird. This gobbler heard girls whooping it up with some other guy, and he was on the prowl for a hot date.
Dad waited until the moment was perfect and popped out a quick yelp. This was more than the big guy could stand. He broke into a trot headed our way with love on his mind. Dad tapped me on the thigh. It was time.
I let the beast get within about 25 yards before I pivoted up onto my knees and raised the 32-inch barrel of my shotgun above the edge of the blind. For a pregnant moment, our eyes met. Up close, wild turkeys are incredibly ugly. The look on his face said, “Oh, crap.” The look on mine said, “You’re dinner.”
And indeed, he was. I don’t recall if this particular bird was served on Thanksgiving, Easter or Christmas. However, after my mom had her way with him in the kitchen, he was some epically good eating. It was always a bit of a competition among us three brothers to see who would be the first to find a piece of lead shot in our meal. All three of us turned out pretty well. Imagine what we might have accomplished had it not been for all that childhood lead exposure.
Wild turkeys are just crazy ugly. However, you haven’t lived
until you have had one properly prepared for holiday dinner.
Stupid on a Whole New Level
We’ve not even begun to discuss the simply breathtaking antics of the human male. These same primal drives that bought my turkey buddy a face full of #4 shot have caused men to break bones, abdicate thrones, and, in extreme cases, suffer violent, gory death. John Hinkley shot President Reagan in a doomed effort to impress Jodie Foster, an actress he had never met.
The real shame of it is, as near as I can tell, women really don’t care. Like that harried doe outside my bathroom window, for the most part, they just cannot be bothered with our foolishness. I have chased my wife for 40 years, and I still don’t have a clue. Perhaps someday I’ll figure out how to impress girls, or like all those other guys, I’ll just die trying …
Categories
Touche I believe!
Particularly in a military environment, the shower is for getting clean,
not socializing. Unsplash photo—photographer One Beauty.
Private Daniels was just not cut out to be a soldier. A wheeled vehicle mechanic, she was forever in trouble. She stole money from her roommate and then attacked the young lady with a shoe brush for reporting her. At the time of this incident she was already being put out of the Army for writing bad checks.
Private Daniels’ boyfriend was a local civilian whom she had met in a bar. I have no idea what he did or where he came from. She had invited him up to her room in the barracks, and he was stupid enough to accept.
CW2 Johansen was one of my Warrant Officers. A former NCO before attending the Warrant Officer course and flight training, Bill was an old school soldier. This fateful evening he was the Battalion Staff Duty Officer. Part of his responsibility involved circling through the barracks, the hangars and the motor pools to ensure everything was quiet and secure. Most officers, myself included, did a fairly cursory job of this. We weren’t at war, and the possibility that the Russians might try to infiltrate our truck park seemed low. Not so Bill Johansen. He checked everything quite thoroughly.
It was wintertime and well below freezing. Bill linked up with the CQ (Charge of Quarters) of the female barracks for a quick walk-through. (Barracks were segregated by gender back then.) The CQ was a junior enlisted soldier whose duty it was to mind the front desk to the barracks all night. As it was a female-only facility, the CQ served as Bill’s escort as he did his walk-through. On the second floor, as they strolled past the communal latrine, they heard jungle noises.
Bill dispatched the CQ to investigate. The CQ duly reported that Private Daniels and her boyfriend were enjoying a cozy shower together. Bill Johansen was having none of that.
Bill was a pretty intimidating guy. He snatched up Private Daniels’ terrified boyfriend and frog marched him, dripping and naked, down to the CQ desk. The poor kid asked if he could go back to Private Daniels’ room to retrieve his clothes, but Bill refused. He felt this to be a teachable moment.
It’s all fun and games until you’re running wet and naked through the snow.
Unsplash photo—photographer Abdullah Ali.
The boyfriend was soaking wet. Bill had the CQ fetch whatever clothing was available in the latrine for the guy to use to cover himself. The CQ returned with Private Daniels’ see-through pink negligee.
Imagine if you will a 19-year-old wet, terrified man shivering in an office wearing nothing but a woman’s sexy transparent nightgown. With this as a foundation, Bill went to work. He started the conversation by postulating how long he thought the kid would go to jail for molesting government property.
Bill explained that Private Daniels belonged to the government, and that the penalties for illicit showering with GIs were severe. By the time he got done the unfortunate young man was expecting fifteen to twenty years hard labor at Fort Leavenworth. At that critical moment Bill placed a phone call. When he returned to the holding area the damp naked man was nowhere to be found.
The kid had crawled out the window. It was 26 degrees out, and Private Daniels’ date was both soaked and barefoot. Additionally, ours was an absolutely enormous Army post. It was literally miles to the nearest gate. Bill sighed and rang up the MPs. He asked them to be on the lookout for a desperate, shivering, wet naked man trying to escape and evade off post. They dispatched a squad car and found the poor miserable guy in short order.
The MPs gave the kid a ride to his apartment off post and donated an Army blanket to the cause. Though I can’t be sure, I rather suspect the sordid events of the evening put a damper on the blossoming relationship between Private Daniels and her now exceptionally clean boyfriend.
Bill briefed me up on the situation the following day. I didn’t have the heart to castigate Private Daniels. She was already well on her way to becoming a civilian. Sharing a communal shower with a civilian in the female barracks wasn’t going to substantially accelerate that process.
I don’t know exactly what I expected work to be like when I chose to become an Army officer. I hoped for travel and adventure, to be sure, but I never expected stuff like that. As for Bill Johansen, he felt good about himself. He could rest easy in the knowledge that absolutely all of the Battalion property was indeed secure.