The Unwelcome Hunter

Friday

Whale Abuse
from stephaniepiro.com/moby_dick_ll.htm

As bad luck would have it, there was a guy at breakfast that morning at the motel who was determined to talk to everybody in the dining room. When we walked in, he was holding some poor guy hostage, telling him all about his travels across the country. Evidently, he and his son were going from place to place hunting whatever game was in season. In great detail, he boasted about all of the animals they had shot and how he had bashed in the head of a baby whale. I never did hear the reason for the apparent whale abuse, although I’m sure that Captain Ahab would have approved. I hoped that he wasn’t thinking of hunting in the Guadalupes, which would be illegal. When he set his sights on us, I exchanged some words with him out of politeness, but Mary Ann was so repulsed that she kept on reading some brochure aloud to me with increasing volume to drown out the sound of his voice. It would have seemed polite by contrast if Mary Ann had given in enough to at least shoot him a dirty look. But she continued with the cold pretense that he didn’t exist, and I glanced back and forth at the two of them nervously without interfering with her tactics. He finally got the hint and made an uneasy exit.

T. Roosevelt and J. Muir
in Yosemite
from historicmariposaandyosemite.com

This encounter made me think of the incident between John Muir and President Teddy Roosevelt. In his early days, Roosevelt loved nothing better than to wander about in the wilderness shooting quadrupeds. Later in life the pressing responsibilities of the Presidency made him desire to be a hunter again all the more; it probably reminded him of his youth. As Roosevelt was carrying on about hunting during their private 3-day hike through Yosemite, Muir boldly said to the President, “When are you going to get over this infantile need to kill animals?” Where was John Muir when we needed him? He would have given our hunter/whale basher a good tongue-lashing. Although the President took it on the chin out of respect for John Muir, I’m afraid that our hunter guy would have shot Muir for such an insult. Luckily, we never saw him again. Don’t get me wrong—I have nothing against killing animals. I just prefer that it be for the purpose of obtaining your next meal. This guy was eating waffles.

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