Showing posts with label Shenandoah Valley. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Shenandoah Valley. Show all posts
More Stories in WHEREVER IT PLEASES: RUSTLINGS.
Two more of my stories, "Doctor's Orders" and "For Rent by Owner," have been published in the anthology Wherever It Pleases: Rustlings.
2 March 2012: Feast of St. Angela of the Cross.
"The World Got Smaller" at Rocket Science.
"Watching the Space Race: The World Got Smaller" is up at Karina Fabian's blog, Rocket Science for the Rest of Us.
23 January 2012: Feast of St. Abakuh.
"Why All of the Sudden?" at Rocket Science.
"Watching the Space Race: Why All of the Sudden" is up over at Karina Fabian's blog, Rocket Science for the Rest of Us.
10 December 2011: Feast of St. Peter Duong.
"Watching the Space Race: Finally!" at Rocket Science.
"Watching the Space Race: Finally! America Enters the Race with Explorer" up over at Karina Fabian's blog, Rocket Science for the Rest of Us.
3 December 2011: Feast of St. Cassian of Tangier.
"A Pratfall to the Stars" on Rocket Science.
"A Pratfall to the Stars" is up over on Karina Fabian's blog, Rocket Science for the Rest of Us.
26 November 2011: Feast of St. Faustus.
"A Light in the October Sky" up at Rocket Science.
My post, "A Light in the October Sky," is up over at Karina Fabian's blog, Rocket Science for the Rest of Us.
24 November 2011: Feast of St. Joachim Ho.
"Carted Away" up at Dead Mule.
4 November 2011: Feast of St. Clarus.
"Dem funeral bells is breakin' up that old gang of mine."
One begins to suspect something temporal is afoot when one realizes that they know far more dead people than living.
Back in the garden, if I remember correctly, besides the Tree of Knowledge, there was also the Tree of Life. This one's fruit would grant eternal life (one wonders if this might be where the Norse picked up the idea of the apples that kept their gods young). If the first juvenile delinquents, (look, they couldn't have been more than a few months old--the Bible says nothing about either acne or teen-age angst) had gotten to that one, man's three score and ten would have been a lot longer. Me, I don't think I could stand the boredom.
With mortality, comes the crap-shoot, lottery, number coming up on the wheel, or draw of the card (notice how all of these seem to have something to do with losing money?) which determines check-out time. For some reporting in comes sooner than one would hope for (being more or less a believer in Christian charity, I won't discuss the other group). One who's stay was cut shorter than some of us would wish was Charley McDowell.
Charles Rice McDowell, Jr. managed something of a miracle in his time, he managed to be both a journalist AND a gentleman. He wrote for the Richmond Times-Dispatch (known to all of us who love it as the "Times-Disreputable"). I'm told that his political column was avidly read. Looking at an example--the way he wrote about the effect on people's lives of the wait for Richard Nixon's resignation, I can well see why. Column of 9 August 1974. Rather than speaking to its meaning for history or the interests of the political class and other elites as did most of his colleagues , he wrote about the people.
This view of the commonplace is what I remember most about him. I first met him while watching "Washington Week in Review" on the PBS station in DC, WETA. My wife and I watched that show right after "Wall Street Week with Louis Rukeyser." Neither of us had any money and we certainly weren't "movers and shakers" (rather, we tended to be the "moved and shaken"), but here was intelligent TV before the term "spin" had been invented.
Back in those days (1975-1990) PBS attempted to attract people of all stripes to their viewership by providing a forum for Left, Right, and the folks in the middle caught in the crossfire. "Washington Week in Review" was a round table discussion show in which the moderator, Paul Duke, (who displayed no bias) and four (I think) journalists talked about the week's happenings inside the beltway. Usually there was a hard Leftist, an equally hard Rightist, and a utility player who sided with one or the other. Sitting on the moderator's physical left was Charley McDowell. He tended to be the voice of Everyman, neither far Left nor far Right. In fact, he seemed to pretty much hug the center of the road. This, along with his Shenandoah accent (hey, you gotta like someone who sounds like you among all those TV voices that say, "Hi, I'm from nowhere."), made him a favorite with the wife and me.
Here's the paper's writeup about him: Charley McDowell.
Now, he's gone, at least from around these parts. But, maybe in a couple of years we'll get to see him again. I suspect (and fervently hope) the Lord don't mind the sweet tones of a Shenandoah accent.
7 November 2010: Feast of St. Ernest. Ensisheim Meteorite - first dated impact - hits wheat field in Alsace 1492, Royal Governor of Virginia offers emancipation to slaves who fight for British 1775, brigantine Mary Celeste sails from New York 1872, Jesus Garcia saves Nacozaride de Garcia in Sonora from burning dynamite train 1907, Suez Crisis 1956.
Back in the garden, if I remember correctly, besides the Tree of Knowledge, there was also the Tree of Life. This one's fruit would grant eternal life (one wonders if this might be where the Norse picked up the idea of the apples that kept their gods young). If the first juvenile delinquents, (look, they couldn't have been more than a few months old--the Bible says nothing about either acne or teen-age angst) had gotten to that one, man's three score and ten would have been a lot longer. Me, I don't think I could stand the boredom.
With mortality, comes the crap-shoot, lottery, number coming up on the wheel, or draw of the card (notice how all of these seem to have something to do with losing money?) which determines check-out time. For some reporting in comes sooner than one would hope for (being more or less a believer in Christian charity, I won't discuss the other group). One who's stay was cut shorter than some of us would wish was Charley McDowell.
Charles Rice McDowell, Jr. managed something of a miracle in his time, he managed to be both a journalist AND a gentleman. He wrote for the Richmond Times-Dispatch (known to all of us who love it as the "Times-Disreputable"). I'm told that his political column was avidly read. Looking at an example--the way he wrote about the effect on people's lives of the wait for Richard Nixon's resignation, I can well see why. Column of 9 August 1974. Rather than speaking to its meaning for history or the interests of the political class and other elites as did most of his colleagues , he wrote about the people.
This view of the commonplace is what I remember most about him. I first met him while watching "Washington Week in Review" on the PBS station in DC, WETA. My wife and I watched that show right after "Wall Street Week with Louis Rukeyser." Neither of us had any money and we certainly weren't "movers and shakers" (rather, we tended to be the "moved and shaken"), but here was intelligent TV before the term "spin" had been invented.
Back in those days (1975-1990) PBS attempted to attract people of all stripes to their viewership by providing a forum for Left, Right, and the folks in the middle caught in the crossfire. "Washington Week in Review" was a round table discussion show in which the moderator, Paul Duke, (who displayed no bias) and four (I think) journalists talked about the week's happenings inside the beltway. Usually there was a hard Leftist, an equally hard Rightist, and a utility player who sided with one or the other. Sitting on the moderator's physical left was Charley McDowell. He tended to be the voice of Everyman, neither far Left nor far Right. In fact, he seemed to pretty much hug the center of the road. This, along with his Shenandoah accent (hey, you gotta like someone who sounds like you among all those TV voices that say, "Hi, I'm from nowhere."), made him a favorite with the wife and me.
Here's the paper's writeup about him: Charley McDowell.
Now, he's gone, at least from around these parts. But, maybe in a couple of years we'll get to see him again. I suspect (and fervently hope) the Lord don't mind the sweet tones of a Shenandoah accent.
7 November 2010: Feast of St. Ernest. Ensisheim Meteorite - first dated impact - hits wheat field in Alsace 1492, Royal Governor of Virginia offers emancipation to slaves who fight for British 1775, brigantine Mary Celeste sails from New York 1872, Jesus Garcia saves Nacozaride de Garcia in Sonora from burning dynamite train 1907, Suez Crisis 1956.
From the wilds of beautiful Yohogania County.
I've been doing a bit of research on relations between the various British North American colonies, and the results are hilarious. About the beginning of the French and Indian War (AKA: Seven Years War to those lacking Texans), circa mid to late 1700s, a number of them were involved in a series of pier 6 brawls with each other occasionally to the point gunfire was exchanged. Most of the ill feeling was due to dueling charters and the fact that some British royals had the lifespan of a fruit fly or a Hollywood marriage.
Some of the causes of the merriment were:
1. Virginia operating under a grant from James I had all the lands from the Atlantic to the Pacific and from somewhere around the North Carolina border to the North Pole (generous guy, James).
2. Charles I granted Lord Baltimore everything from the Atlantic to the western end of the Potomac River and from the Potomac north to Latitude 40 for his Catholic colony.
3. William Penn's charter from Charles II granted him and his family the land west of the Delaware River to somewhere and from Latitude 40 to the New york border--wherever that was to end up (unlike his father, Charles didn't lose his head over the matter). There is the opinion that Penn apparently hired non-union surveyors because Pennsylvania's Latitude 40 happened to be 28 miles south of Maryland's Latitude 40. Revisionists on the other hand suggest that Penn's city of Philadelphia--already built at the time of the grant--awkwardly lying south of Maryland's Latitude 40 may have had something to do with the error in navigation (which is why one always puts the fence at least six inches in from the property line). This small discrepancy led to Cresap's War (1736-1738) between the Maryland and Pennsylvania militias. George II was forced to knock heads together and ordered a proper survey ("Paging Mr. Mason, Mr. Dixon. The Royal governors would like to speak to you about a job.").
4. At the same time, Connecticut claimed the Wyoming Valley in northeastern Pennsylvania (what would become the three counties around Wilkes-Barre--Scanton). That there were only two other colonies between the two halves of what might become the "Nutmeg State" seems to have slowed these enterprising Yankees not at all (shades of the Danzig Corridor--not to mention East and West Pakistan). Connecticut also claimed the Ohio county, Great Lakes, western New York, Michigan, Texas, and the Canadian Prairie provinces ("Worst case of MPD I've seen in all my years of practice.").
5. Adding to the fun, the Iroquois Confederation--suffering a bad bout of imperialism--and the various Indians of the Ohio country, Great Lakes, and southeastern Canada were on the edge of their very own version of a world war (though this didn't stop the Iroquois from spending their vacations in the Carolinas and eastern Tennessee visiting Rock City and beating up on the Cherokees and Catawbas--as it turns out, the Shenandoah Valley was their favorite freeway back and forth--"Look, Flitting Bird, I like North Carolina. It's the sitting in traffic four hours because some clown jacked-knifed a canoe that drives me nuts. And it's always between the Stucky's!").
6. And of course, to the north and west the wily French lurked waiting to flail good honest English men with baguettes and rosary beads.
Sometime in the future, I'll give Jacques' side of things and take a look at why American convenience stores tend to stock beer and occasionally questionable pre-made sandwiches rather than good wine and brie.
11 September 2010: Feast of St. Ambrose Edward Barlow. Battle of the Teutoburg Forest 9 AD, Battle of Stirling Bridge 1297, Battle of Brandywine 1777, Mountain Meadows Massacre 1857, September 11, 2001--need I say more?
Some of the causes of the merriment were:
1. Virginia operating under a grant from James I had all the lands from the Atlantic to the Pacific and from somewhere around the North Carolina border to the North Pole (generous guy, James).
2. Charles I granted Lord Baltimore everything from the Atlantic to the western end of the Potomac River and from the Potomac north to Latitude 40 for his Catholic colony.
3. William Penn's charter from Charles II granted him and his family the land west of the Delaware River to somewhere and from Latitude 40 to the New york border--wherever that was to end up (unlike his father, Charles didn't lose his head over the matter). There is the opinion that Penn apparently hired non-union surveyors because Pennsylvania's Latitude 40 happened to be 28 miles south of Maryland's Latitude 40. Revisionists on the other hand suggest that Penn's city of Philadelphia--already built at the time of the grant--awkwardly lying south of Maryland's Latitude 40 may have had something to do with the error in navigation (which is why one always puts the fence at least six inches in from the property line). This small discrepancy led to Cresap's War (1736-1738) between the Maryland and Pennsylvania militias. George II was forced to knock heads together and ordered a proper survey ("Paging Mr. Mason, Mr. Dixon. The Royal governors would like to speak to you about a job.").
4. At the same time, Connecticut claimed the Wyoming Valley in northeastern Pennsylvania (what would become the three counties around Wilkes-Barre--Scanton). That there were only two other colonies between the two halves of what might become the "Nutmeg State" seems to have slowed these enterprising Yankees not at all (shades of the Danzig Corridor--not to mention East and West Pakistan). Connecticut also claimed the Ohio county, Great Lakes, western New York, Michigan, Texas, and the Canadian Prairie provinces ("Worst case of MPD I've seen in all my years of practice.").
5. Adding to the fun, the Iroquois Confederation--suffering a bad bout of imperialism--and the various Indians of the Ohio country, Great Lakes, and southeastern Canada were on the edge of their very own version of a world war (though this didn't stop the Iroquois from spending their vacations in the Carolinas and eastern Tennessee visiting Rock City and beating up on the Cherokees and Catawbas--as it turns out, the Shenandoah Valley was their favorite freeway back and forth--"Look, Flitting Bird, I like North Carolina. It's the sitting in traffic four hours because some clown jacked-knifed a canoe that drives me nuts. And it's always between the Stucky's!").
6. And of course, to the north and west the wily French lurked waiting to flail good honest English men with baguettes and rosary beads.
Sometime in the future, I'll give Jacques' side of things and take a look at why American convenience stores tend to stock beer and occasionally questionable pre-made sandwiches rather than good wine and brie.
11 September 2010: Feast of St. Ambrose Edward Barlow. Battle of the Teutoburg Forest 9 AD, Battle of Stirling Bridge 1297, Battle of Brandywine 1777, Mountain Meadows Massacre 1857, September 11, 2001--need I say more?
Please ignore the frozen St. Bernard, it's spring!
Well, we seemed to have received a misdirected shipment of snow intended for our friends to the north. As proof I point to the address on the packing list inside the delivery. It plainly reads, "Calgary, Alberta." Apparently somebody at the originating point screwed up the postal code. I must admit to being a bit surprised, usually that concern is noted for getting it right. Of course, I suppose it's possible circumstances way beyond my ability to understand came into play.
Speaking of play, it's THAT time of year again. Spring training begins next Tuesday! No more will I have to listen to games from last year as I write [more on this below], the new season is starting up. Maybe this year the Orioles will go all the way (for further thoughts along these lines, see the musical "Damn Yankees").
A guy named Austin Gisriel has written a good book entitled Safe at Home: A Season in the Valley. [Note to FTC: Bought it myself boys, so go peddle your papers.] It follows the New Market Rebels through a season of Valley league baseball. The book is a good read for the light it throws on minor league baseball, the Shenandoah Valley, and life in small town Virginia. You can find a better writeup on it here: http://www.rebelsbaseball.biz/html/safe_at_home/index.html
and buy it here: http://www.rebelsbaseball.biz/html/safe_at_home/buy.html .
Earlier I spoke of listening to ballgames while writing (which may explain my often disconnected flow of thought). The web is a very fine thing for the ball fan. You have your choice of watching or listening to major league games for a (what I consider reasonable) price, or listening to minor league games from all over the country for free.
I keep a MLB subscription year round [Note to FTC: It's on my personal plastic, guys. See above snide remark.]. This lets me watch or listen to any games played in the regular season. As I tend to follow the Orioles, Rangers, and Blue Jays and occasionally look at the Diamondbacks, Padres, and Nationals (thinking about the last one, admit it--who would really turn away from a train wreck?), I can't remember how the games went, so they're new to me each time. MLB can be found at: http://mlb.mlb.com/index.jsp (look under "Audio & Video").
In the minor leagues, a lot of teams have feeds so you can listen to live radio broadcasts of the games. Most also have archived games that you can listen to anytime you wish. The minor league games I tend to listen to are those of the Valley League, The Washington Wild Things (Washington, Pennsylvania), and the Salem Red Sox, Virginia farm team of the Boston Red Sox. The joy of this, besides hearing good baseball (and people who talk like me), is it's free! I'll give the links below.
Valley League: http://www.valleyleaguebaseball.com/landing/index (Click on "Valley League Baseball Listen Live." For the archive, click "Click here to listen to archived broadcasts" under the blue letters saying, "Stretch Internet." The site will ask to download a couple of programs so your computer can run the games. They're harmless.)
The Washington Wild Things: http://www.washingtonwildthings.com/ . The games are found on the MSA Sports Network under "Archived College Broadcasts (don't ask me why, the Wild Things are professional)" at: http://www.msasportsnetwork.com/main_calendar.asp?region=1&m=5-2009&d=22
Salem Red Sox: http://web.minorleaguebaseball.com/index.jsp?sid=t414
Someone writing in Baseball Digest http://www.baseballdigest.com/ remarked that on opening day of spring training, every team is in first place. A rather reassuring thought.
20 February 2010: Feast of St. Wulfric of Haselbury. Orkney and Shetland given to Scotland by Norway as dowry payment 1472; U.S. Post Office Department established 1792; Lt. Edward "Butch" O'Hare USN becomes first U.S. ace of World War II 1942; Col. John Glenn USMC becomes first American to orbit the Earth aboard Project Mercury's "Friendship 7" 1962.
Speaking of play, it's THAT time of year again. Spring training begins next Tuesday! No more will I have to listen to games from last year as I write [more on this below], the new season is starting up. Maybe this year the Orioles will go all the way (for further thoughts along these lines, see the musical "Damn Yankees").
A guy named Austin Gisriel has written a good book entitled Safe at Home: A Season in the Valley. [Note to FTC: Bought it myself boys, so go peddle your papers.] It follows the New Market Rebels through a season of Valley league baseball. The book is a good read for the light it throws on minor league baseball, the Shenandoah Valley, and life in small town Virginia. You can find a better writeup on it here: http://www.rebelsbaseball.biz/html/safe_at_home/index.html
and buy it here: http://www.rebelsbaseball.biz/html/safe_at_home/buy.html .
Earlier I spoke of listening to ballgames while writing (which may explain my often disconnected flow of thought). The web is a very fine thing for the ball fan. You have your choice of watching or listening to major league games for a (what I consider reasonable) price, or listening to minor league games from all over the country for free.
I keep a MLB subscription year round [Note to FTC: It's on my personal plastic, guys. See above snide remark.]. This lets me watch or listen to any games played in the regular season. As I tend to follow the Orioles, Rangers, and Blue Jays and occasionally look at the Diamondbacks, Padres, and Nationals (thinking about the last one, admit it--who would really turn away from a train wreck?), I can't remember how the games went, so they're new to me each time. MLB can be found at: http://mlb.mlb.com/index.jsp (look under "Audio & Video").
In the minor leagues, a lot of teams have feeds so you can listen to live radio broadcasts of the games. Most also have archived games that you can listen to anytime you wish. The minor league games I tend to listen to are those of the Valley League, The Washington Wild Things (Washington, Pennsylvania), and the Salem Red Sox, Virginia farm team of the Boston Red Sox. The joy of this, besides hearing good baseball (and people who talk like me), is it's free! I'll give the links below.
Valley League: http://www.valleyleaguebaseball.com/landing/index (Click on "Valley League Baseball Listen Live." For the archive, click "Click here to listen to archived broadcasts" under the blue letters saying, "Stretch Internet." The site will ask to download a couple of programs so your computer can run the games. They're harmless.)
The Washington Wild Things: http://www.washingtonwildthings.com/ . The games are found on the MSA Sports Network under "Archived College Broadcasts (don't ask me why, the Wild Things are professional)" at: http://www.msasportsnetwork.com/main_calendar.asp?region=1&m=5-2009&d=22
Salem Red Sox: http://web.minorleaguebaseball.com/index.jsp?sid=t414
Someone writing in Baseball Digest http://www.baseballdigest.com/ remarked that on opening day of spring training, every team is in first place. A rather reassuring thought.
20 February 2010: Feast of St. Wulfric of Haselbury. Orkney and Shetland given to Scotland by Norway as dowry payment 1472; U.S. Post Office Department established 1792; Lt. Edward "Butch" O'Hare USN becomes first U.S. ace of World War II 1942; Col. John Glenn USMC becomes first American to orbit the Earth aboard Project Mercury's "Friendship 7" 1962.
The desert and the story teller.
For the teller of stories, the desert is often the place of the other. A place outside the world of settled man where strange and dangerous things and men move just on the edge of perception. It is seen as a place where anything can happen because the laws of normality don't apply there. The desert is a dimension from which monsters and raiders come. This still holds true for story telling today. It is probably no accident Stephen King set a large part of The Stand in the desert or that Michael Crichton placed the "Wildfire" lab in The Andromeda Strain there. Hollywood loves it as a setting. It's close, spooky, timeless, and relatively cheap in which to shoot a movie.
The thing that really hits you about the desert is the silence. It's not just quiet, sometimes, when there's no wind or flies, sound hasn't been invented yet. This affects people in different ways. Some try to be as quiet as possible. As if the least sound they make is deafening and may lead some doom down upon them. Others go the other direction. They try to fill up the silence all by themselves. They sing, talk, and make music much louder than is their wont when in civilization (or what passes for such). They seem to fear that the silence will suck away the sounds, so they must supply a surplus to even it out.
The desert blasts not only objects, but people also. It sometimes seems that anyone who lives alone long enough in the high desert ends up either a saint or a mass murderer.
For the writer, the desert is always there waiting. It would be terrible to waste it.
Buck Fever: The Deer Hunting Tradition in Pennsylvania. Mike Sajna. Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1990.
Late November is special to me. Three major events in my life collide at that point in this month: my birthday, Thanksgiving, and deer season west of Blue Ridge. The week of Thanksgiving meant I would get to miss school for a week, much to the shared relief of both student and teachers (back before school administrators were under the impression that children belonged to them, it was sufficient that my mom sent in a note saying I wouldn't be in school the next week). Season opened in Virginia's Rockbridge and Augusta Counties the Saturday morning before Thanksgiving. So my daddy and I loaded the truck when he got home Friday afternoon and, after dinner with my mom, the two of us would head southwest. We'd get to the camp about 22:00 [10:00 pm] and be unloaded and in bed by 23:30 [11:30 am]. Ah, to sleep (like that was going to happen with deer season opening at daybreak). During the rest of the dark hours, the rest of the family, in-laws, and outlaws straggled into camp making sure to be in time for breakfast. Then, gray in the eastern sky, we headed for our spots on the mountain where we'd take that six, eight, or--can it be?--the thirty point buck.
Mike Sajna writes about one deer season at his family's deer camp in Warren County on Pennsylvania's Allegheny High Plateau. We meet the various members of his own platoon of the "pumpkin army." The hunters depicted are recognizable to everyone who has hunted with good hunters as opposed to the game hogs, drunks, and hunting slobs one hears about all too often. The Yoopers they ain't.
The reader also learns that deer hunting was destroyed in Pennsylvania by market hunting in the 19th century. How a group of hunters got together and started the state's first conservation organization, the Pennsylvania State Sportsmen's Association, which led in turn to the Pennsylvania Game Commission in 1895. Sajna tells of John MacFarlane Phillips who, horrified at the thought that he had killed the last deer in the state, set out to put the matter right. And put the matter right he did. Through his and his fellow hunters efforts, deer were successfully reintroduced to the state's woods. Upon his death at 92 in 1953, The Pittsburgh Sun-Telegraph called him the "Grand Old Man of Conservation."
Best, Sajna limns the relationship between he and his father as hunters, men, and father and son.
Buck Fever is not a book only for hunters; it will show the non-hunter what goes on in and around a proper deer camp. This is a book that works on many levels as Sajna blends the several interrelated story lines in such a way that each compliments the others and builds a strong and enjoyable whole.
24 November 2009: Feast of St. Andrew Dung-Lac & companions, publication of Charles Darwin's On the Origin of Species 1859, my birthday (you win some, you lose some).
The thing that really hits you about the desert is the silence. It's not just quiet, sometimes, when there's no wind or flies, sound hasn't been invented yet. This affects people in different ways. Some try to be as quiet as possible. As if the least sound they make is deafening and may lead some doom down upon them. Others go the other direction. They try to fill up the silence all by themselves. They sing, talk, and make music much louder than is their wont when in civilization (or what passes for such). They seem to fear that the silence will suck away the sounds, so they must supply a surplus to even it out.
The desert blasts not only objects, but people also. It sometimes seems that anyone who lives alone long enough in the high desert ends up either a saint or a mass murderer.
For the writer, the desert is always there waiting. It would be terrible to waste it.
Review (Note to FTC: I bought this dang book myself!)
Buck Fever: The Deer Hunting Tradition in Pennsylvania. Mike Sajna. Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1990.
Late November is special to me. Three major events in my life collide at that point in this month: my birthday, Thanksgiving, and deer season west of Blue Ridge. The week of Thanksgiving meant I would get to miss school for a week, much to the shared relief of both student and teachers (back before school administrators were under the impression that children belonged to them, it was sufficient that my mom sent in a note saying I wouldn't be in school the next week). Season opened in Virginia's Rockbridge and Augusta Counties the Saturday morning before Thanksgiving. So my daddy and I loaded the truck when he got home Friday afternoon and, after dinner with my mom, the two of us would head southwest. We'd get to the camp about 22:00 [10:00 pm] and be unloaded and in bed by 23:30 [11:30 am]. Ah, to sleep (like that was going to happen with deer season opening at daybreak). During the rest of the dark hours, the rest of the family, in-laws, and outlaws straggled into camp making sure to be in time for breakfast. Then, gray in the eastern sky, we headed for our spots on the mountain where we'd take that six, eight, or--can it be?--the thirty point buck.
Mike Sajna writes about one deer season at his family's deer camp in Warren County on Pennsylvania's Allegheny High Plateau. We meet the various members of his own platoon of the "pumpkin army." The hunters depicted are recognizable to everyone who has hunted with good hunters as opposed to the game hogs, drunks, and hunting slobs one hears about all too often. The Yoopers they ain't.
The reader also learns that deer hunting was destroyed in Pennsylvania by market hunting in the 19th century. How a group of hunters got together and started the state's first conservation organization, the Pennsylvania State Sportsmen's Association, which led in turn to the Pennsylvania Game Commission in 1895. Sajna tells of John MacFarlane Phillips who, horrified at the thought that he had killed the last deer in the state, set out to put the matter right. And put the matter right he did. Through his and his fellow hunters efforts, deer were successfully reintroduced to the state's woods. Upon his death at 92 in 1953, The Pittsburgh Sun-Telegraph called him the "Grand Old Man of Conservation."
Best, Sajna limns the relationship between he and his father as hunters, men, and father and son.
Buck Fever is not a book only for hunters; it will show the non-hunter what goes on in and around a proper deer camp. This is a book that works on many levels as Sajna blends the several interrelated story lines in such a way that each compliments the others and builds a strong and enjoyable whole.
24 November 2009: Feast of St. Andrew Dung-Lac & companions, publication of Charles Darwin's On the Origin of Species 1859, my birthday (you win some, you lose some).
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