Kickass picking apples with the NRA

Kickass, the doorstop dog, is often put off by the keeper’s misguided attempts at drawing social meaning from his stumbling through life; and a recent weekend of his bleeding heart liberalism being graciously hosted by a gun-loving NRA member has him—the keeper in a state of significance-drawing pregnancy.

It was a great weekend, of setting aside the tired mantra of guns as the reason we kill each other, and relating to one another as human beings, of seeing a gun hobbyist as an exemplary loving father/husband/community-contributor who may have different ideas about the role of guns in today’s world and would express them forcefully if invited to do so, but otherwise prioritizes guns way down the line from other things in his being, as do other passionate hobbyists.

In this era of divisiveness as a way of life, the liberal keeper and Steve the NRA member and their loved ones mingled with the kid-dominated crowds at an apple-picking, pumpkin-patch outing on a magnificent sunny Saturday afternoon.  It was just one of thousands of such events across the country and it made the point that to put divisiveness in its place we need to stop shouting labels at each other and pick more apples and collect more pumpkins together.