As I sit and catch my breath, sweat boiling down, I rest my eyes for the hundredth time on the sun-splashed Smoky Valley to the south. Harvest is done; now is the time of the tumbleweed out here in the West.
On a windy day you'll see them bowling across a bare field or country road as if they were late for an important business appointment. At night, I wonder how many startled drivers have been scared so badly when one of these buffalo-sized bushes suddenly bolt in front of them that they crash and are killed. I wager more die in the West from tumbleweeds in the headlights than deer.
Along the fences, the tumbling weeds are halted when they impale themselves on the barbed wire. Some of the skeletal brown things look like crowns of thorns, crucified on the wire. Others are bunched together thick like a herd of buffalo huddled against a blizzard. Funny, but this most "Western" of American symbols is not even indigenous to the land. When America was moving west, we imported burlap from Russia. Tumbleweed seeds hitched a ride and the rest is history.
I was sitting here at the Antonino Cemetery last Saturday on the sunny side of the crucifixion statue. All was typically quiet and serene. Suddenly, there were several gunshots nearby. Then I heard a large number of vehicles stopping near the cemetery. This had never happened before so I assumed a funeral was in progress. When I looked up from behind the monument, I was surprised to see six or so white pickups parked on the highway and 12-15 men piling out, all dressed in orange hunting vests. Then it occurred that it was pheasant season. Almost from the moment the men and dogs hit the deck and fanned out over the field opposite, the gun fire commenced. The racket sounded like a pretty decent battle, in fact.
With the neighborhood now gone to hell, I got on my bike and left. I was surprised to see the majority of hunters sweeping the field like some military operation; several "sentries" lingered behind to nail any pheasant who might escape the trap. There was nothing "sporting" about any of this. The pheasants had less chance out there in that stubble field than if they had been caged in a coop. It looked like corporate hunting; or maybe custom harvesting is a better analogy, similar to several combines when they mow a wheat field. I passed a couple of the hunters; to me, they looked suspicious and menacing. I think this hunt had everything to do with killing every living thing in that field and nothing to do with "sport"; the feeling was less of men hunting than it was of a machine destroying. A few miles on, I spotted two men in a field hunting my way. Since I saw no dogs nor heard one gunshot in the five or so minutes it took me to pedal through the ear shed, I suppose the men were having no luck. And yet, judging from their friendly waves and smiles, my guess was that they were having a much better time than the "successful" corporate hunters.
A final note on pheasants: One of the most beautiful of all things, these "upland game birds" are also some of the dumbest fowl in all feathered creation. Their brain must be about the size of a sesame seed. I well remember how hard it was to avoid the poor things as they stood stupidly on the roads of central Illinois as I drove back home to Kansas twice a month in the 1960's. It was almost impossible to miss them. Point is: Not a very wary quarry to hunt.
A final note on this ever-so German burying ground: Two names, one stone, man and wife, never more.
Pfannenstiel (pr. Fannen-steel)
Scholastica
Dec. 29, 1896
Feb. 26, 1959
Fidelis
July 30, 1899
July 26, 1997
When the Dark Age meets the Info Age, the Info Age will always screw it up. Below is an actual press release from an incident that occurred here in western Kansas last week.
Semi collides with wagon pulled by oxen
COLBY -- A semi collided with a cart pulled by two Scottish Highland oxen driven by an 86-year-old Gem man 7 miles northwest of Colby on Thursday. The driver, Lon E. Sowers, was taken to Citizen's Medical Center in Colby and later flown to another hospital after the collision at 5:01 p.m. on Thomas County Road 27, said Tod Hileman, public resource officer for Kansas Highway Patrol Troop D. Sowers' condition and location could not be confirmed. The oxen, which Sowers has driven in several area parades, apparently were not badly injured, Hileman said. He said one of the animals fell down but got back to its feet, and the team was walked back to Sowers' farm. He said a trooper checked on the animals later and found them eating. According to a highway patrol report, Sowers was driving his cart north on Road 27 when the semi driven by Terry M. Wendell, 62, Colby, attempted to pass on the left. Sowers began to turn the cart left as the semi attempted to pass, and they collided. Some details of this incident were incorrectly reported in Friday's Hays Daily News.
Since my computer will not allow me to read just exactly what it is that was not reported in Friday's Hays Daily News, I can only speculate. Here are probably some of the facts reported incorrectly:
1) The ox cart was NOT driven by Theodoric of York, as earlier reported, but instead by Lon of Gem, son of Logar of Gem.
2) Lon of Gem was NOT treated by the local medieval barber as reported in the Hays newspaper earlier, nor were several dozen leaches applied, nor was Lon of Gem wrapped in wolf wort and moss and dunked in cold pond water for half an hour; Lon was in fact purified by white hot pokers for several hours until the demons in his wounds were finally driven out.
3) Although the oxen were indeed, not injured, the cart, made of sticks and mud and carrying a load of peat from the local bog was a total loss--it was later burned by a village shaman to remove evil rhythms and spirits embedded in the wood which may have contributed to the accident; the fire was also used to heat up the pokers used on Lon of Gem.
___________________________________________________________
Olive Oyl is Dead
Olive Oyl (below), the original anorexic, still can be heard on countless "Popeye" reruns but the voice itself passed to that great sound room in the sky long ago. Yes, that nagging, annoying voice we all learned to hate was finally shut up in 1988 when its owner, Marilyn Schreffler, died of liver cancer. Didn't we all love the cartoon but a thousand times didn't we also hope that this skinny cartoon broomstick would be killed by JUST ONE speeding train, JUST ONE sinking ship or even by Bluto's bone-crushing embraces, and NOT saved by that imbecile Popeye and his can of spinach? Instead, of a thousand and one perils she faced every week, seems the sauce finally claimed Ms. Oyl. Could it be that she was driven to drink because of her indecision on whether to choose between the weekly would-be rapist, Bluto, or the ugly, misshapen gnome, Popeye? Olive Oyl's voice was born in Wichita, Kansas, and attended Washburn University in Topeka. It won't be missed.
There are dumb people who are smart enough to realize they are dumb (construction sites, college campuses, assembly lines, taxi cabs, and 7-11s are filled with this category of folks).
There are dumb people who are too dumb to realize they are dumb (TV studios, prisons and episodes of "Cops" are filled with this latter group).
This pretty much accounts for 99% of humanity. But what of the others? The one-percenters? What about the "artists" of the world, those who write, paint, sculpt, compose, invent, sing, act, dance, perform, and those who "wing it" in a hundred other ways? These featherless bipeds who imagine they are artists and were born to create . . . are they not smart people, but too dumb to realize how dumb they are? If wealth and happiness are the measures, then I do not know any smart artists. . . .
Most of the 99 percenters say they admire the one-percenters. They see the glitz and bling, they hear the applause and shouts, they see the art shows and book signings, but they do not see the rest of the picture. How many of the 99 percenters would give up their steady paychecks, their paid vacations, their health coverage, and their retirement checks to become an independent trucker, so to speak? I can tell you straight: Very few. True artists pursue their passion even if the trail winds through a junk yard to a slice of cold pizza and a cardboard bed under a bridge. These people are convinced that their whirl on this mortal coil was meant for more than a lifetime of wage slaving in which the reward after thirty years of dog-like obedience is a gold watch, death from cancer two years after retirement and their name misspelled in the local obit.
I once came to a "T" in the road. One sign pointed to Freedom, Oklahoma; the other sign led to Protection, Kansas. And, as one true old artist, Bill Shakespeare, might have said, "therein lies the rub." Ninety-nine percent of humanity ditches freedom for protection; one-percent fore goes protection for freedom. Both groups make their choice. Some will know the slavery of protection all their lives; some will know freedom, but hardships, all of theirs. God Bless both groups; without the one, the world would stop spinning; without the other, this orbiting orb would be as gray and sterile as a rock in space.
___________________________________________
Art of the Day
There is a small "herd" of buffalo here--maybe 10 animals. Every time I see these buffalo, or others penned in, I have an overwhelming urge to see them unpenned. I find it sad that these most migratory of American mammals are confined by barbed wire to a few square feet of stubble and manure.
No other animal was more wedded to the prairie than the bison--even their deep brown color matches the soil. With an instinct to move born over tens of thousands of years, it must be maddening to the great beasts, even perplexing, to be confined thus. Humans denied freedom kill themselves or go nuts. And yet, most caged humans have committed some crime against the rest of us; the buffalo's only crime is merely existing.
Even though these past ten generations of bison here in Hays, Kansas, have never known a single day of freedom in their lives, the urge to move hundreds of miles each spring and fall must still beat heavy in their hearts. I have no doubt that if the gate was suddenly thrown open, these buffalo would begin drifting south within days, if not hours. Next spring, I'm sure we would see the same animals moving by here on their migration north.
Do not trouble me with small matters of money or logistics: Would it not be glorious to some day establish a Migratory National Park--a swath of prairie say 200 miles wide stretching from the Missouri in the north to the Rio Grande in the south, in which a herd one million buffalo strong could live and roam as intended? Think of those nature films of the Wildebeest migrations in Africa and how impressive they are with the bellowing roar of thousands and the clouds of dust roiling on the horizon. That's a scene we could have here too . . . again.
Sorry. Just dreaming with words.
