November 2013_TDGT Tabloid 11/5/13 6:05 PM Page 14
Sex in the Woods Real Men Hunt AND Gather
By Crystal Laramore In honor of Hunting Season: Last week I was driving along the road and for some reason just started seeing, really seeing my surroundings. What jumped out at me was all of the Neon signs. I happened to be praying at the time and my conversation with God morphed from “thank-you’s” to “look at what your children have created”. Then I wondered if this is what he had in mind for his children? Neon signs, busy streets, clocks, fax machines, cell phones we cannot seem to put down, email, internet, Xbox, YouTube, Facebook, twier, tmblr, Instagram, Pintrest….it’s like we are all LinkedIn and checked out. Several months ago my UB (Uncle Bill for you newcomers) and AC (his beer half, Aunt Cheryl) sent me an article titled “Shhhh, I’m Hunting” and it resonated with a lot of my core beliefs about nature and God and the way our lives all seem to be headed in a negative direction. For YEARS I have wrien this column and for November 2013
YEARS I have preached that women were intended to nurture and men were intended to hunt AND gather. Period. My very successful sister, Jacqueline Morrison, just told me this past week that she loved nesting. I said “me too” and she shook her head back and forth and said “No you don’t”. I said “Yes I do” and so began an eye-opening conversation. I don’t think it maers how successful you are in a career, if you are a woman you like to nest. MOST women anyway. And we are happy to have our men do what men should do…hunt and gather. Men might be happy at work but I bet they’re happier in a deer stand or hunting elk or speeding around a track in a race-car than in some corporate meeting. Now, there are jobs that satisfy the wild heart of men but not many. You often hear people say men are defined by what the “Do” as in their job but I beg to differ. I think that is just bull malarkey. I have known many a “successful” man who is divorced and living away from his children; miserable at work and at home; checked out; stressed out.... Why do you think that is? I think you MUST connect with God and your family to have a happy one. And it’s kinda hard to connect with either when you are tied to a
job…especially a job that does not embrace God First, Family Second and Career Third values. It’s sad to see that our world is so dependent on gadgets that it’s actually “in” right now to turn off the cell phones at least one day during the weekend. One person said it prompts your friends to just stop by. What a novel concept; faceto-face time instead of Face-time. Just to drive my point home I interviewed several men from across the nation to get their point-of-view and their responses were so amazing that I decided to turn this into a series. The first response is from Paul Phillips. Paul Phillips is a retired Army officer. He now makes his living as a Wyoming attorney, but spends the majority of his waking hours planning his next excursion to see what is over the next hill or around the next bend in the stream.
sand night’s sleep have been dark and troubled. And while I may never banish my worries and torments entirely, the bleak hours and frightful murkiness are somehow softened by memories of guns and dogs and deer and roosters and fences and old rutted roads and mountain meadows and trucks and on and on – a million memories drawn from a still-too-few days afield. Maybe you’re the same. Can you hear the sound of your favorite pair of boots crunching through heavily-frosted weeds and grasses as you take those first, furtive steps on a foggy morning? Can you hear that old barbed-wire gate? Can you sense the
soft glow emanating from a far-away camp-fire – the one you sought after having gotten lost just long enough to make your heart pound? Can you remember that moonlit walk with your father down a snow-covered, ancient logging road lined with ponderosa and white pine? Can you smell the damp sweetness after the sage and greasewood brushed against your pant-leg while you stumbled to get into position in the pre-dawn darkness? Can you remember that day last November, when the morning sun warmed your beard, and do you recall how – in spite of the warmth – your teeth chattered slightly as your gloved hands struggled to load See SLEEP WELL page 30
Sleep Well Perhaps the world would be a better place if they told bedtime stories for adults so as to comfort us, to ease our fears, and to put our minds at rest. For want of a simple story with a happy ending, a thouThe Dam Good Times
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