Things you wished you knew before---why James is so devoted to primitive
tools. I sneaked up on his place when he and Denise went off to entwine
themselves in a quilting bee---marvelous opportunity that left him
bereft of all firewood cutting tools except a jacknife and coping
saw---his stout insistence that they are good enough for cutting
firewood is just sour grapes..
I've been keeping an eye on them., next to go is that old colonial
fowling piece. However, being the compassionate neocon that I am, I
will leave him a copy of this e-mail, so he can cobble up a bow and some
arrows to take the place of his colonial shotgun. If he goes hungry now
and then, it's good for him, but we don't want him to starve to death,
do we? There's a downside of course, we'll have to listen to some of
his raptures about his bow and arrow being better than an Uzi for deer
hunting.
I learned longbow and arrow-makihg from Luna Leopold, Aldo Leopold's
son, in the catacombs beneath a Catholic church in Madison, Wisconsin
when I was around ten years old. The crafty old Priest figured he could
troll for converts among the unbelievers if he threw out
attractive-enough bait. Didn't work, by age ten I knew religion was a
priestly swindle practiced upon a weak-minded, gullible populace. But
have to give him credit for trying to improve the odds.