Joe,
All the way from Africa, I found your web site and love your work. Articulate, funny and your perspective, well, exemplary. You strike me as a gifted orator and if you were here in Africa, well you would be the old man that all the village children crowd to for stories on the full moon nights by the open fires for a taste of good story telling. Am sure they wouldn't have enough of you.
I have pasted a parable below for your reading pleasure. Please spare some time to go through it. I am just a guy like many of your readers curious about this world we call home and about all our habits and cultures that define and separate us yet we may just all be rednecks in the inside. Its simple but I thought insightful.
Who is that dog?
Since we are on the topic of hunting, (your book) here's one for you.
Once upon a time up in the mountains of Africa, there lived a hunter and his trusty mongrel. Dog and master had a good fruitful working relationship. They worked together hunting as partners and once a kill was made, the dog would be taken care of.
Of course he would not get the choice cuts, but the dog could count on the hooves, the inedible parts of the head and so on while the human got the really good meat.
But the mongrel was happy with his job. It was interesting. He got to travel to distant bushes and meet different animals. And the pay, well, a dog could live on it.
One day, dog and master went out hunting and got a particularly juicy buck. It was fat, strong and beautiful and took all the strength of the mongrel's jaws to hold it down, awaiting his master. The master duly came, finished off the prey and carried it back to the village, his faithful dog, proud and exhilarated, at his heels.
But on arrival, something strange happened. A large pack of men came to congratulate the hunter on his good job. They stayed to help with the slaughter. The dog watched from the sidelines, occasionally rising to wag his tail and grin in appreciation of the proceedings. His stomach was, however, on fire. He used too much energy to fell the prey and was hungry.
But the hunter appeared to have forgotten his partner. He gave the intestines to one of the villagers and the liver and other delicacies went to his own hut. The dog watched with rising panic as all the scrap were shared out, then the villager hoisted the rest of the carcass and took it to his own hut. The hooves also went to another villager.
At this point the dog was on his feet, alarm quickly turning to fury. Only the skin was left and as the hunter and villagers prepared to ready it for curing, the dog swung into action.
Quick and agile, he snatched the skin between his jaws and took off like an arrow. A gaggle of villagers grabbed various weapons and shot off after him.
The dog ran and ran past the village, down gorges, forded rivers shied and up deep valleys. Ten miles away he looked up and the strong pack of runners were hot on his tail. More miles down the road and the dog was beginning to weaken. He took another cautious look back and the villagers were beginning to gain on him. He grabbed up the skin and off he went again. He ran and ran for hours in the hot sun. Weary and fed up, the pursuers no more than 30 paces behind, he put down the skin and turned to face the villagers, and asked, "Gentlemen, this is not about the skin, is it?"
End of story, but my guess is the villagers answer would be, "No it's not, we just wanna kill you useless eater."
Thanks,
Lenny
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Dear Lenny,
Wonderful little piece of traditional oral wisdom. If you threw in a dead mule, you'd have a story much like those once told on the front porches of the American South when I was a kid. Not so strangely, it also echoes many similar Sufi, Jewish and American Indian folk stories.
As it stands right now the global village's "big men" have the dog down and are beating the hell out of it. And they are promising that "When we stop the beating things will be much better." (No shit there Melvin, how can they not be?). "Meanwhile," they caution, "just take the beating and don't ask questions."
Still, that doesn't keep some of us older dogs from howling like hell, in hopes of at least annoying the feasting bankers and CEOs.
Thank you for sharing such a fine tale.
In art and labor,
Joe
