Quote:
Originally Posted by skarlorn
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I saw a bee dying on the sidewalk of my neighborhood last week. I remarked to my friend that you don't see many bees anymore. In my childhood, the bees were there. I was worried more about being stung by the wasps. But the bees where everywhere. An africanized bee once stung the cartilage of my left ear while I was shooting a long-barreled 44 magnum down a sendera in the deserts north of Laredo. I did not resent that bee. I took an antihistamine wafer and slept in the back of a Suburban. Inside the camper, it smelled sweet like ball bearing grease. My Uncle woke me up. He said there was a family of deer down the sendera. I was groggy from the antihistamine. My brother and my cousin stood with me looking down the rough road cut through mesquite. There were three deer standing flank side to us, maybe 400 yards down the road. I took my Remington 30.06 and loaded two rounds. The deer were eating on corn. I dragged out the dessicated frame of an old chair that had been on the ranch maybe fifty years. Its bones were rusted and the back was patterned with bullet holes. I rested the stock of the rifle in my hand and set the back of my hand on the top of this chair. I peered through the scope at a young buck and took a breath to steady my aim and shot. The bullet passed through the deer and tangled up in its heart and ripped it to bloody bits. The deer died instantly and I butchered it that afternoon.
When I saw the bee dying on the sidewalk I thought of these moments in my life. I lamented the absence of bees. I worry that in fifty years, children will think bees are a rarity. When I was a child, there were toads and frogs all over the streets of Houston. They lived in the dank pools and in the shade under patios. They too are gone.
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I grew up in Utah. I miss the bees.
I like my sterile little corner. It's sad that the world is becoming sterile though.
We need frontiers. We need adversity. Life is sterile and sad without.
Luv u skarlorn.
04-19-2018, 10:20 PM
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