Kickass and the deer season

Kickass, the doorstop dog, reports that there was a time—actually a very long time, in the keeper’s life when the opening of the gun deer season was akin to a religious ritual of soul-involving proportions.  It dates back to a time when deer hunting meant heading north to the big woods and it bears no resemblance to the current situation of an excessive, semi-domesticated deer herd spread across the entire state and sprawled as road-kill along the highways.  At its most intense, the traditional nine-day season was a state-wide celebration as the tribal males went off to the hunt, marking the beginning of winter and kicking off the holidays.  It has all changed with way too many deer and expanded opportunities to kill them with technology that has a way of somehow turning a meaningful experience into a cyber-strewn shopping trip.   So the keeper remembers, and as is the case with many things, the eve of the deer hunting season finds him taking great pleasure in sorting through the golden days of his youth with no more apology than an old dog having a leg-kicking dream as it naps before the warmth of the fireplace.