Re RATTLESNAKE BUDDY:COLLOQUY, CHALLENGES AND SOLIDARITY
"Hunter Gray" <[email protected]>
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Thanks very much indeed, Alice, for the good words. (Attached) You're a fine poet and writer in your own good right. And we have a number of very creative people on these discussion lists. Hobo Spiders are, as I understand it, immigrants from a European ship that docked at Seattle well over a century ago. That may be the derivation of "Hobo." In my various stints in the Seattle/Tacoma area, I never heard of them, however, and their "home" these days seems to be portions of Idaho, Utah, and Nevada. They are very bad news and can be aggressive. A few years ago, the son of a local family we know well, was bitten -- but quick medical care handled that just fine. I doubt if they ever make it across the "wide mountains" to Illinois. Thanks again and all best wishes. Snow and cold here -- but nothing like North Dakota and Montana. Best, Hunter or John ----- Original Message ----- From: [email protected] To: [email protected] ; [email protected] Cc: [email protected] ; [email protected] ; [email protected] Sent: Monday, January 14, 2013 10:22 AM Subject: Re: [BearwWthoutBorders] [SycamoreCanyon] RATTLESNAKE BUDDY:COLLOQUY, CHALLENGES AND SOLIDARITY Hunter, Very nice writing! Fine indeed. I hope I never see a Hobo Spider. Otherwise I capture spiders in the house and dump them back outside in the garden or in the garage woodpile if it's bad weather. Take care. Alice M. Azure 2313 Holiday Lane Maryville, IL 62062 Check out my new website and leave a comment http://aliceazure.com In a message dated 1/14/2013 10:14:54 A.M. Central Standard Time, [email protected] writes: HUNTER GRAY [HUNTER BEAR/JOHN R SALTER JR] Mi'kmaq /St. Francis Abenaki/St. Regis Mohawk Member, National Writers Union AFL-CIO www.hunterbear.org (much social justice material) I have always lived and worked in the Borderlands. See my piece ON BEING A MILITANT AND RADICAL ORGANIZER -- AND AN EFFECTIVE ONE (Mississippi et al.): http://crmvet.org/comm/hunter1.htm The Stormy Adoption of an Indian Child [My Father]: http://hunterbear.org/James%20and%20Salter%20and%20Dad.htm (Expanded in Fall 2012. Photos. Material on our Native background.) See the new and expanded/updated edition of my very well-reviewed "Organizer's Book" -- the inside story of the massive Jackson Mississippi Movement, the murder of Medgar Evers, and more. And with my new and very substantial introduction: http://hunterbear.org/jackson.htm This is an older post of mine stimulated by a brief exchange on the Redbadbear list -- where anything is possible discussion-wise. Emerging were comments about saving and relocating spiders -- this motivated by much younger family members but in time embraced by some older ones. Our only exception to that at our place, here in Idaho, is the very poisonous Hobo Spider, only one of which I've seen in all of these years. When he tried to enter our house during a rainstorm, I stepped on him. I also noted, as I have occasionally, that we never kill rattlesnakes -- ever. (H) RATTLESNAKE BUDDY: COLLOQUY, CHALLENGES AND SOLIDARITY [HUNTER GRAY] Scheduled for publication in 5th World Journal. The wild, high-pitched buzzing sound that exploded from the clump of sage just to my right as I walked down the bare trace of a game trail brought me to ice-water reality -- pronto indeed! Jerking to face the sound, then instinctively freezing, I next heard my daughter, Maria, yell out an alarm. Our Shelty [also named Hunter], then on a leash held by me, really seemed quite casual about it all. Backing off, and then backing a few steps up the trail, I saw it. This was the kind of early morning where one stands in the high country, looks up at the sun and the deep -- very deep -- blue sky. And feels the cool wind singing its song in the Idaho cedars and sage and pines. And it was also an early morning where the brownish face in the broad head that looked out at me from the tangle of sagebrush -- almost triangular in a finely-cut fashion -- moved not a whit. And its dark eyes, fixed upon mine, were intense. Extremely intense and absolutely gripping. Vigilance distilled into super-essence. Right at ready, that sharp head stiff and up out of his body with its several coils -- and with his rattling tail straight up and singing high -- he faced me and I him. His tannish skin with many light and darker brown splotches blended easily into the sage and dry gramma grass. No Army troopers from my old unit could have been better camouflaged. And I said, "Well! Goddamn! Are we glad to see you." The rattling stopped -- but the intensity of those eyes burned into my mind and beyond -- deep into my skull. "It's him," I said to Maria. "Longer than he was, a few more rattles -- but that's our buddy." And she agreed. And he certainly wasn't rattling angrily at all anymore. About two years before, at the end of July 2000, right in this very immediate setting, Maria and Hunter [the Shelty] and I had been climbing the bare trace of the game trail from our already far-up Idaho home -- 'way 'way up into the high country. As I passed by a thick clump of sage, Maria saw a snake start to emerge. She yelled, I turned around, and saw him retreat back into the bushes. We got a glimpse or two of him at that point. And then we continued our junket high up and far away. But then, much later that day as we prepared to return and after some strange then-indecipherable brooding on my part, I decided we'd go back down by way of the snake. And so we did, saw him splendidly sprawled in the cooling dust in the middle of that trace of a trail, watched him action-coil in a split-second, then move swiftly and ultra-smoothly from the open area right back into the protective brush. And then we went home. But, very early the next morning, drinking strong coffee and wondrously pondering why I felt some sort of bond with a rattlesnake -- a poisonous, venomous rattler! -- I suddenly realized that both he and I had some deep things in common. We were Ishmaelites. Most humans would kill him in a moment -- and some of those very humans in our particular Idaho setting who'd do so were giving our family -- radical Native activists-- a great deal of harassment. They, so-called lawmen and vigilante-types, had done so ever since we'd arrived in Idaho three years before in the summer of '97. So I wrote about Him and Us and Our Setting and Our Challenges. And that was published in due course in the January/February 2001 issue of the excellent socialist journal, Against the Current, as "Reflections on Idaho: Unfriendly Forces, Mountain Lions, and Our Rattlesnake Friend." [You can find it in this specific section of our large social justice website, Lair of Hunterbear http://www.hunterbear.org/THE%20WILD%20WEST.htm -- or within the excellent website of Solidarity/Against the Current at http://www.igc.org/solidarity/indexATC.html ] But after those two sightings that late July day of two years ago, we never saw him again. We looked many times the rest of that hot, drought-stricken summer. Nothing. And we looked into the fall. Nothing at all. The next spring and summer and fall -- still extremely dry -- we continued to make our junkets 'way, 'way up. And we looked faithfully for him. Nothing. As usual we saw coyotes, bobcats, lions, mule deer, moose -- and much more. But we never saw him. And we worried. Had someone spotted him, done away with him? Had a hawk grabbed him, carried him off to a craggy nest for the little hawkies? A good friend of ours, Jeff, a young mining engineer who works for the U.S. Bureau of Land Management, was up in the high country one day last summer with his dog, Stormy, an affable retriever. And then Stormy was bitten -- by a sure enough rattler. Jeff, a rare gentle soul, didn't kill the snake, carried his dog down the high ridges and mountain slopes to an emergency session with a vet, and anti-venom injections pulled Stormy through. But that happened far from our special Friend's Land. It may have been his cousin, at least his fellow-tribesmember, but it wasn't him. Then this past winter saw the severe drought break in our Intermountain West via heavy and frequent snows. Spring saw rain -- some of it heavy. Things were very green, every flower bloomed. Even the yucca and cacti in the cedar country. Many animals of all kinds during the summer drought periods had had to go way up into the mountain tops -- where it generally rains even if doesn't anywhere else. Or, in other cases, some predators -- lions and coyotes and bobcats -- chose to go down to the very edges of fringe-area homes like ours to scavenge. But now, they're all -- game animals and the hunter animals -- scattered normally and conventionally all over the upper regions just above our home and beyond. The Balance of Nature is balanced in the context of water. And again as this spring began, and as we made our regular trips out and far, far up, and looked in the area where we'd last seen him -- now almost two years before -- there was no sign of our Ishmaelite buddy. And now we were really worried. Downright troubled. It's always a rough life for the likes of him. When we started out very early this last Saturday morning, there was no sense of expectancy. A small forest fire was burning in the ridges ten miles or so away -- but that was not the direction we were going. Our junket went conventionally and well. And then, on the return and going down, and no more than 150 feet or so from where we had met him on that now far away day, the Rattling Rolled and We Gathered Again. Right there in the sage. After quickly recapturing my composure, I certainly had a few things to say. "Much has happened since we last saw you," I told him. "The country has gone straight over the canyon edge to Hell. Fear and Hysteria, War and Repression." The dark eyes stared on, deeply into mine. "But people are fighting back," I told him. "And we're going to win." His coils shifted smoothly, slightly -- but the sharp face in the sharp broad head with the sharp dark eyes never moved. "And you," I asked. "You're OK? Plenty of little things to catch and eat? Warm den in the winter?" He looked fine, very healthy indeed. In fact, he looked sleek, flush. Most likely a very capable hunter. But I'm sure he had had some tough times -- with the drought and all. And he certainly always has his enemies. Some hawkishly hungry -- and some humanly vindictive. I did have one more thing to say. "I wrote about you, buddy. And it was published in a socialist magazine. Socialist! It's called Against the Current. We talked once or twice about bringing a copy up and reading it to you." And the dark eyes certainly seemed now to be super, super intent indeed. "So take care, amigo," I said and finished, "We'll bring a copy of the socialist magazine next time. That's a solid promise. And we'll keep bringing it 'till we see you once again." I waved as we backed away and slowly turned. As we did so, the sharp face in the sharp head with the very, very sharp dark eyes carefully turned to watch us go. He has his challenges, We have ours. So far he's made it. And so have we. But we're together in this fight. In some strange and mysterious way, it's Real Solidarity. And that's the Trail to the Sun. For everyone. Hunter Bear HUNTER GRAY [HUNTER BEAR/JOHN R SALTER JR] Mi'kmaq /St. Francis Abenaki/St. Regis Mohawk Member, National Writers Union AFL-CIO www.hunterbear.org (much social justice material) I have always lived and worked in the Borderlands. See my piece ON BEING A MILITANT AND RADICAL ORGANIZER -- AND AN EFFECTIVE ONE (Mississippi et al.): http://crmvet.org/comm/hunter1.htm The Stormy Adoption of an Indian Child [My Father]: http://hunterbear.org/James%20and%20Salter%20and%20Dad.htm (Expanded in Fall 2012. Photos. Material on our Native background.) See the new and expanded/updated edition of my very well-reviewed "Organizer's Book" -- the inside story of the massive Jackson Mississippi Movement, the murder of Medgar Evers, and more. And with my new and very substantial introduction: http://hunterbear.org/jackson.htm ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ _______________________________________________ BearWithoutBorders mailing list [email protected] https://lists.mayfirst.org/mailman/listinfo/bearwithoutborders