Nature loved with gun In hand
During these crisp fall months,
the woods are full of musical
melodies: twittering birds, crunching
leaves, and the sweet staccato sound
of rifle shots.
Past readers of my column know
that nothing excites me more than •
rifles. After all, I carry around a
little pearl-handled pistol wherever I
go. When 1 carry it, I feel more
powerful.
That’s why I’ve taken up hunting.
I used to commune with nature in
the old-fashioned way. Walking in
the woods was a spiritual experi
ence. Friends called me a tree
hugger. I would walk beneath an
oak tree and feel a sense of kinship.
It seemed rude not to give a tree an
affectionate little pat as I passed
beneath its leafy boughs.
But no longer. Since I met some
hunters a few weeks ago, I’ve
realized that merely hugging a tree
isn’t enough to show my deep
appreciation of the outdoors.
They helped me realize that
nature just isn’t nature unless it’s
hanging on the wall with an ounce
of lead in it.
After all, what better way to
show your appreciation of the great
outdoors than to bring it into your
living room?
Of course, I’ve met some hunters
who haven’t quite reached this
profound depth of communion.
They don’t hunt to possess; they
actually hunt and use what they kill.
Some hunters actually have a fine
sense of ecological balance and a
sense of responsibility to them
selves, the environment, and to
fellow hunters.
However, these aren’t the hunters
that I’m attempting to emulate. The
hunters I truly admire are the wild,
he-man hunters who prove their
strength and virility by shooting
anything that moves, and then, upon
finding that it really was a deer and
not a human being, mount it on their
ueora cumoenana
Yeah, said Chuck,
warming.up. “Theshot
went right through his
butt, ricocheted against
a tree, and then hit him
in the head. He dropped
dead. ”
wall as a testament to their manli
ness.
People like that really turn me
on.
I met a few such hunters on a bus
a couple weeks ago as I journeyed
from city campus to my quaint,
deer-headless apartment.
One of these pimply but virile
young men sat on my left. The other
slightly less pimply but equally
virile man sat on my right.
They talked over me, and it was
all I could do to control myself
during their insightful discussion of
hunting.
For purposes of convenience, I
will call them Billy Bob and Chuck.
“So Chuck,” said Billy Bob, a
little tobacco juice drooling out of
the corners of his sensitive yet
strong hunter lips, “ya go out and
shoot anything this weekend?”
I felt my weak, feminine heart
stir at these words. I turned to the
man on my right with growing
interest.
“Yup,” said Chuck, borrowing
some snuff from Billy Bob. “I shot a
deer in the butt.” He laughed,
loosening a bit of the tobacco.
“In the butt!” cried Billy Bob. He
slapped his manly kneecaps.
“Yeah,” said Chuck, warming up.
“The shot went right through his
butt, ricocheted against a tree, and
then hit him in the head. He dropped
dead.”
Billy Bob offered Chuck some
more tobacco, and both of them
cackled in unison.
While I was offended that they
didn’t share any of their tobacco
with me, I instinctively knew it was
because I wasn’t worthy.
After all, how had I ever shown my
appreciation of nature? Simply by
hugging trees. These two fine
specimens of manhood showed it by
actually reaching out and grabbing it.
They made it their own. They
didn’t commune, they conquered.
I obviously had it all wrong.
Some of my inner disgust with
myself must have shown, because
Billy Bob turned and glanced at me.
“Hey,” he drawled, “did I ever
beat you up in high school?”
After glancing at his muscles, I
quickly assured him that he had not.
I got off the bus with shaking
knees, glad that I had become
enlightened. Fall was still in the air;
rifle sounds were all around me.
There was still time to go out and
get a Winchester repeater.
By the time you read this column,
I will have become a real woman.
I’ve talked to my landlord, and he
feels that a deer head is all my
apartment needs to make it a home.
No more pearl-handled pistol.
I’ve got me a Winchester
repeater.
Cumberland is a graduate student of
English and a Daily Nebraskan columnist.
Graduation brings next step
As the erui of the semester
approaches, I am filled with a
strange dread — a gut-wrenching
sensation in the pit of my stomach. 1
never imagined that graduation
would feel similar to heartburn.
It gives me the same feeling that I
would get if I were walking through
an unknown maze and the lights
suddenly went out.
Every step could get me hope
lessly lost.
But that’s nothing new, all of life
is like that — it could be the end of
a novel, the end of a movie, or the
last french fry left in the carton and
I’d hem and haw because I hate
endings.
I especially hate that something
may be the last.
Every looming ending amplifies
my apprehension and makes me
acutely aware that “something” is
about to alter forever and that
“something” else is about to begin.
I’m afraid to contemplate the
deed before it’s done. The
knowledge that every step must be
carefully placed terrifies me.
I mean I’ve stepped out blindly
many times before.
I began crying three months
before high school actually started
because I was certain that 1 was
going to forget my locker combina
tion, walk into the wrong classroom,
or emit strange noises that would
make everyone stare at me.
And when I moved away from
home for the first time to go to
college in Boulder, Colorado — in
my mind I failed classes, ran out of
money, and disappointed everyone
... two weeks before school even
started.
Moving to Nebraska was a leap
of faith. That fear was more justified
than any of the others. In Nebraska,
I had no home, no job, and no hopes
of going to school until I established
residency.
Besides that I’d been warned by
my father that once I moved from
Colorado to Nebraska I would be
labeled a traitor, and a bug-eater and
“an inbreeder”—-nothing terrified
me more.
In reality, each of those begin
nings — though not as glorious as I
would have liked them to be —
Chaka Johnson
Besides that Fd been
ivarned by my father
that once 1 moved from
Colorado to Nebraska I
would be labeled a
traitor, and a bug-eater
and “an inbreeder ”—
nothing terrified me
more.
didn’t end in death.
In high school, I managed to
make it through four years without
embarrassing myself too much —
well, OK, once ... but I won’t go
into that here.
In Boulder, I failed my classes,
ran out of money, and pretty much
disappointed everyone around me
— but at least nothing truly terrible
happened to me.
And in Nebraska, I found a
home, a job, and at present I’m
quickly approaching the end of my
undergraduate school career.
Much to my father’s chagrin,
Nebraska can probably be called the
home of my salvation — the only
place where I accomplished every
thing that I feared I would fail in.
It seems somehow that knowing
the endings won’t be so bad should
make it easier to keep moving
forward.
Though events sometimes turned
out as bad as I thought they would,
they seldom turned out worse.
At present, it is the endings that
I’m having a hard time with...
It’s the ending of late night antics
in the dorm with all of my Cather 5
friends.
It’s the ending of crazy late night
papers and early morning cram
sessions — which I hate, but at least
I’m very used to.
It’s the ending of group study
sessions with good friends in which
we don’t get anything accomplished,
but boy do we create some memo
ries.
It’s the ending of seeing my
friend Trevor wander onto campus
in the very early morning looking
like the hooded bandit.
It’s the ending of having Chris
call my dorm room at three in
the morning because he acciden
tally fell asleep on campus and
he wants someone to know that
now he’ll have to sleep in
Architecture Hall.
It’s the ending of having my
friend Dave say “Hey, feel my
muscles” — nevermind, scratch that,
he’ll probably keep that up.
It’s the ending of alternating
between stress days and lazy days
because I never figured out how to
budget my time appropriately.
It’s the ending of sharing a room
with my best friend Cindy and
keeping her up all night with my
snoring—guess what Cindy, I
faked it the whole time.
It’s the ending of getting away
with many things because hey, I’m a
college student and we’re expected
to do stupid things.
It’s the ending of using school as
an excuse to get money out of my
parents — Mom, really, tuition has
gone up to $500 a credit hour.
It’s the ending of the familiar
buffer I’ve surrounded myself with
and the beginning of something
new.
That great abyss is yawning open
like a widening chasm. It’s dark in
there and I can’t really see if I’m
going to step in anything.
I’m not sure if I should turn right
or left, the only thing that is certain
is that I must go forward.
There’s butterflies in my stomach
and I feel kind of queasy, but here
goes the next step.
Johnson is a senior criminal Justice
major and a Daily Nebraskan columnist
k • /XKi* ' } * “
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