Idle thoughts from a hunter whose only hit was with a BB gun

 Idle thoughts while sitting in an orange folding chair, concealed by camouflage webbing while holding my Remington 30.06 (that’s Thirty Ought Six) rifle during Opening Day of the 2021 deer season:

1) Why do you feel that your car runs smoother right after getting an oil change?

2) Why did a Notre Dame football fan get so upset with me on Facebook when all I did was suggest that people should not be 100 percent rah-rah for football? Boxing, too. I was simply implying we should take into consideration all the lifelong brain injuries that playing either sport have caused. I was not trying to hurt his feelings by cluing him in that football is an artificial Homo sapiens contrivance no different than the creation of imaginary things between the earlobes like Santa Claus, the Tooth Fairy or the Easter Bunny. Sheesh! Sometimes people get so touchy.

3) “There is no greater violence than to deny the dreams of our children.”

 An interesting quote from Nobel Peace Prize winner Kailash Satyarthi for people who balk at the cost of reversing climate change.

  4) I’d like to be the first to say that I feel comfortable knowing the billions of dollars in spending that will occur to repair America’s  aging infrastructure will be administered by the Secretary of Transportation, Pete Buttigieg, our former “Mayor Pete.”

   5) Would it help if restaurants replace the word ‘server’ with another job description that reflects the humanity of those who bring us our food? “Server” is too much like “servant.”

  6) What if the movie “The Truman Show” is, in fact, reality for all of us and we are being watched and judged and scrutinized by some omnipotent being who takes notes? Would knowing this change our behavior? Come to think of it …

  7)   Due to arthritis, I will close out my 15-year life as a deer hunter never having shot a single deer. But was the intent to kill there? I — and by way of extension “you” — will never know for sure. The only animal I have ever shot was a swallow that flew past me in my backyard in 1962 while I was holding my Daisy BB gun slung low like “The Rifleman.” Then I pulled the trigger. Feathers. So how will the Mr. Omnipotent Being score me?

   8)  Here is a million dollar idea for a smart restaurateur:  Pre-opened crab legs. How many diners would appreciate it if those tough legs were already sliced open all the way down? 

9) This Thanksgiving 2021, I am thankful for Heather Cox Richardson, an American historian and professor of history at Boston College, whose column illuminates the day’s news events — often by putting them into historical context.   

10). I want to blame all of mankind’s atrocities committed over the last 100,000 years to human emotions that fly out of control at the drop of a hat.  The source of our worst emotions, like fear and anger, come from a little part of the brain called the amygdala. It’s the prefrontal cortex — the seat of higher thought — that ought to counter-balance these primitive feelings. Operative word — “ought.”

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