Deer Hunting with the Baptists
I’ve been out here in the wilds of the Arkansas backcountry, tromping hills and woods, creekbeds and pastures, scaring up turkeys and deer, even the occasional armadillo and roadrunner. Vultures patrol everywhere, gleaning the dead. The woods are littered with washed carcasses, bleached skulls, scattered bones.
You might think this is a slice of Americana glimpsed through a lens from 1850. Hard men and tough women. And they are. Plenty of bad dentistry hereabouts. Lots of suspicious, distrustful looks. Life is lived closer to the dirt here and the dirt isn’t so much soil as it is chipped rock without much nutrient. Not many gardens to be seen. Not many orchards either. Homes here are small, patched and made to serve the purpose. Rusty sheet metal siding, rotted clapboard, plywood never painted. Some are nice enough, but you won’t find a large home or one on the Architectural Digest reject list. There’s no money here. Towns have 350, 402, 569 people, man, woman and child. The grocery store calls itself a ‘trading post’, more aptly, I guess. Churches outnumber bars a thousand to one. Actually, a thousand to none. You want a drink here, you drive to Oklahoma for 3.2 beer. That, or you make it yourself. I’m not here long enough to get Set-Up.
Religion and poverty usually go hand in hand. You got to believe in something and these folks aren’t playing Lotto. A sign on the highway read: I’M NOT RICH ENOUGH TO BE A REPUBLICAN. I doubt it meant he was a Democrat either.
Today I walked past a half dozen deer stands, structures up on stilts or in trees, near a field or a pond ten to twenty feet up, a small room with a view to kill. Salt blocks have been laid out all year so the deer come there. Opening day of season, free salt will carry a high price. These boys aren’t hunting for sport, I assume. I sure hope not. There’s nothing sporting about it. One I climbed had an office chair, swiveled and padded. I don’t have to wait a couple weeks to know they’ll have a scope on their rifle. Jesus provides.
Some of us forget that America isn’t mostly a suburb, that folks are living hand to mouth, that poverty exists and the living is hard. Some of us scream bloody murder that the middle class is under assault, that union jobs are suspect, that government jobs should all be eliminated, that our 401-K’s have been raided and lost.
But … it’s worth remembering that there are a lot of us who don’t get pensions, who don’t get to ‘retire’, who don’t have health care, who don’t live in fine houses with huge mortgages, who don’t drive new cars, who don’t use credit cards or cellphones or own computers. They live in Arkansas, in Louisiana, in Detroit, in upper Michigan or Maine or the South End or backwash anywhere. They don’t ask for much, but they don’t give a good goddamn about folks who overspent or didn’t save or never appreciated the Good Life when they had it. They’re fellow citizens and life is a lot harder for them in this Land of Plenty. It’s worth remembering next time we’re whining is all I’m saying.
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