The day Bambi shot back

It's deer season.

I’m conflicted about that. I have no quarrel with anyone who wants to get up before breakfast and go tromping in the woods when it makes much more sense to stay inside where it’s warm. That’s what you like to do, go for it.

And I try to understand that some people hunt deer because they enjoy eating venison and it stretches their food budget. I prefer my meat cut up and packaged at the grocery store.

I am not a vegetarian; I do eat meat and I know that cows, chickens, pigs and turkeys all meet the same fate so they can end up on my plate. It’s just that those deer are so beautiful. I love to see them. Yes I’ve seen some pretty cows, and lambs are as cute as they are delicious, but there’s the fact that we raise them to be consumed. Deer are just minding their own business, living in the woods, doing their deer thing. It somehow doesn’t seem right to shoot them.

On the other hand, I’m not fond of venison. And as handsome as I think elk are, I really like the taste of elk and don’t feel as sorry for them.

Like I said, it’s confusing.

I’ve heard the argument that deer destroy gardens. So do some vandalizing children, but we don’t shoot them.

I’ve also heard the theory that if we don’t thin out the deer population they’ll get sick and will all starve to death. I used that theory once on a cat-hating bird-loving acquaintance. If we don’t let the cats catch the occasional bird, then all the birds will starve to death and then where would we be? It flew over his head like a cat was after it.

It’s a puzzling situation. But there’s one aspect of the whole thing that gives me a little comfort. I recall writing once about a deer who shot back at the hunter. I’m a sucker for poetic justice.

As I remember it, a deer hunter did not set out that morning specifically to get a deer, but was out early for another reason and found he had a little extra time, his license was with him and so was his gun. So he decided to seize the moment. He saw a deer, aimed and shot.

For some reason he was in his car, not his pickup truck, so he tossed the gun in the trunk, picked up the deer by his feet and tossed it in after the gun.

But the deer wasn’t dead. After being thrown into the trunk, it revived, began kicking, and kicked the gun, which discharged and hit the hunter in the thigh.

Somehow knowing that just adds a little fairness to the whole notion of deer hunting.

Truckin' down Memory Lane

I don’t know if there’s a Memory Lane in many towns. I’ve seen Shady Lanes in a couple of towns, and if that causes the Ames Brothers’ song, “The Naughty Lady of Shady Lane” to go coursing through your mind, then I’ve done my civic duty as a pest.

Memory Lane seems to be a popular place, but it’s full of potholes. I find myself stumbling down that well-traveled lane lately, and it really ticks me off that I recognize the landmarks on Memory Lane but I can’t remember squat about what I need to buy from the grocery store.

My cousin sent me an e-mail not long ago about some of the landmarks along Memory Lane.

Do you remember when —

All the girls had ugly gym uniforms? I do; I also remember that the day after I graduated from high school I burned mine. It felt good.

It took five minutes for the TV to warm up? Not only that, but the picture would occasionally flip upward rapidly and you had to turn a knob to make it hold still. And when you turned it off, there’d be a little round light in the center of the screen.

You'd reach into a muddy gutter for a penny? Ha! I still do! Those things add up.

You got your windshield cleaned, oil checked, and gas pumped, without asking — all for free, every time? And you didn't pay for air? And, you got trading stamps to boot? Yeah, and I remember when gas was 30 cents a gallon, but let’s don’t go there.

They threatened to keep kids back a grade if they failed. . . and they did? It didn’t seem to bother anyone’s self-esteem either. We were too busy learning grammar and spelling and punctuation, along with math and history and science.

Stuff from the store came without safety caps and hermetic seals because no one had yet tried to poison a perfect stranger? No one then had to suffer from lacerations caused by trying to open a blister pack to open a DVD or a CD, never mind they hadn’t been invented then. It almost takes a blowtorch to get past the cardboard, the plastic blister and then the cellophane wrapping.

Can you remember, candy cigarettes, wax Coke-shaped bottles with colored sugar water inside, big red wax lips, soda pop machines that dispensed glass bottles? I remember that the bottles cost a dime and you brought them back to collect a deposit.

Remember coffee shops with tableside jukeboxes? The coffee didn’t taste like a liquid candy bar and usually cost a nickel or a dime.

Blackjack, Clove and Teaberry chewing gum? None of it was sugarless.

P.F. Fliers? Or Keds. They didn’t cost three figures and were appropriate for all sports, or just running and jumping.

Captain Kangaroo and Howdy Dowdy? Did you know Captain Kangaroo (Bob Keeshan) was Howdy’s friend Clarabelle the Clown? Today much would be made about a male clown named Clarabelle.

45 RPM records? I still have some.

78 RPM records? Them too. They were my parents’.

Saturday morning cartoons weren't 30-minute commercials for action figures? Saturday morning cartoons were actually funny, not violent — Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck, Sylvester the Cat.

I must have ventured too far down Memory Lane. I was going to do something important, but now I can’t remember what.