Pack Creek Ranch, Moab, Utah
Smoke in the air from wildfires up north – the distant landscape looks like an ancient Chinese painting – mountains fading into the far back of the beyond.
STORYTELLING
Old friends sometimes gather at a local watering hole to share an adult beverage and tell stories. Not new stories, but ones they already know. The stories are judged by how well they are told over time.
Are the stories true? Yes and no, but they contain truth.
Here’s one of mine – when asked to “tell the one about Jack, the dog.”
Outside the City Market, the local Animal Shelter Society set up a booth, with a sign proclaiming “DOG-ADOPTION DAY.” Rescue dogs are much in demand these days. And volunteers were standing by with their dog inventory.
Two middle-aged ladies stopped to consider the offerings.
One said, “I’ll go get my husband.”
The other lady asked, “Does Jack want a dog?”
“No, he’s the dog I have in mind. I’d like to put him up for adoption. I thought I’d donate him to the cause – tell them to neuter him while he’s there – he might make someone a good pet – he knows a lot of dog tricks already – how to shake hands, how to beg, and how to roll over and play dead.”
And as long as I’m telling stories about old dogs…
It’s breakfast time at the Moab Diner early on Monday morning in winter.
Four older guys in camouflage hunting clothes are in the next booth chowing down on eggs and sausage and hash-browns and toast, with black coffee on the side. It’s not hunting season, but if you’re retired and hunting is your passion, you wear your camo year-round so that other hunters will feel free to talk about hunting with you.
Before I go on, you need to know that it’s “deer-dodging season” around Moab. Herds of deer have been driven down into the valleys by the mountain snow. Bored deer entertain themselves by standing around in the roadside bushes waiting for cars and trucks to come along so they can launch kamikaze attacks by bounding across the road in front of drivers.
It’s a bizarre sport – played by deranged deer on one side and anxious drivers on the other – with deadly results for both sometimes.
Every hunter has a deer-dodging story:
“Almost got my buck – an 8-pointer – just grazed his ass when he shot out in front of my car.”
“That’s nothing. Old Eddie actually hit two at one time with his dump truck up on the La Sal Mountain Road.”
“That’s nothing. The boys over at the Volunteer Fire Department claim they just about wiped out a whole herd on a 911 run up the valley – guess the siren sucked the brains out of the deer.”
I got up and walked around to their table and said:
“Well, that’s nothing. I got a deer with a baked potato.”
“No way!”
“Damn right – I carried a pan of hot foil-wrapped potatoes out onto the porch to cool off, and this big old doe marches right across in front of me and starts tearing the lid off the bin where I keep cracked corn in to feed to turkeys.
So, I just grabbed a potato and hauled off and hit her broadside.”
“And then what happened?”
“She was so startled she tried to jump the retaining wall, lost her traction on the ice on the deck, and crashed into the wall.
BOOM – one deer down.”
“Did she break her neck – was she dead?”
“I thought so, but she lay there a while and then got up and staggered away.”
“Hell, we can’t top that . . .”
But then I told the story about the old man driving a beat-up old pickup truck with his hunting dog in the back. The man stopped suddenly at a red light. The dog was tossed over the cab of the truck – and hit the ground running on ahead. When the light turned green, the old man drove on slowly alongside his dog. He whistled. As the truck passed ahead of the dog, the dog jumped into the back of the truck and life went on.
“Damn, that’s some dog!”
This is mostly a man thing, I guess.
Keeping score – playing “Can You Top This?” or “Mine is Better Than Yours.”
The same guys will talk miles-per-gallon of gas, blood pressure, weather, cholesterol numbers, how far it is to Salt Lake and how fast one can get there, team scores and standings, stock market numbers, and on and on…
Most of it is wrapped in creative stories.
It’s a data-driven world.
(I don’t think I ever used the word “data” in the old days, except in a sentence like this: “I don’t wanna data girl who can’t dance.)