That quote from Riesenthal comes from the label on the Jagermeister liquor bottle. It's written in German, but I found a translation on Wiki, actually two translations. The other translation says, "honors the Creator in the creature". That one is probably more clearly understood, but I like the one I used because it can be taken two ways. One interpretation is that the hunter honors the Creator by honoring the creatures that He has created, and the other interpretation is that he honors the Creator by doing a little creating himself. Well, I'm not really creating anything in Beaglesonia, I'm just taking what's already there and trying to maximize its potential. This is congruent with my Deist beliefs, that you should try to make the most of what God gives you.
Sleeping in my deer blind doesn't have a lot to do with all that. It's just that I found out a long time ago that you generally see more deer when you're sitting still than when you're walking around. The old fashioned way to hunt deer is to walk slowly, stopping frequently, and remaining alert at all times. This is certainly more interesting than sitting on your ass for hours at a time in a plywood box, but it's not nearly as productive. Before I had my heated blind I could only sit for an hour or two without getting cold and/or getting a backache. I would walk around until I felt better and then sit for another hour or two. By making my blind warm and comfortable I was a able to sit for six or eight hours, although four hours is about all I have time for nowadays. The trouble is, as soon as I get warm and comfortable, I tend to fall asleep. I decided not to fight that because sleeping in the woods is more productive than sleeping at home. I suppose I have slept through some deer visitations, but I have also woken up just in time on several occasions.
Before and after deer season we have several small game seasons, the longest one being for rabbits and hares, September 15 - March 31. Hunting rabbits with hounds is a lot more fun than deer hunting, but shooting a deer is more exciting than shooting a rabbit. With deer hunting you have hours and hours of boredom and then one thrilling moment. With rabbit hunting the excitement is spread out over several hours, but its not as intense. The trouble is that our rabbit (actually snowshoe hare) population crashed about 20 years ago has never recovered. There just isn't enough small game around here anymore to justify keeping a dog so, when my last one died, I didn't replace him. Since then, I keep busy all winter cutting firewood and plowing snow. For some reason it doesn't take nearly as much to keep me busy anymore as is it used to, so I don't know where I'd find the time to hunt rabbits if there were any rabbits to hunt. I suppose I would have to cut my firewood in the summer, which would cut into my fishing time. So there you go.
I agree that you and I have different attitudes towards authority. I don't understand how you can be resentful of all authority, especially since you eventually joined the ranks yourself when you became a teacher. I have no problem with competent, duly constituted authority that stays within its duly constituted limits. In a way, those people are actually working for us. All power originates with the people, and the people delegate some of that power to their leaders because they are supposed to be better at it than we are. If they are not better at it than we are, they need to be either retrained or replaced. I have been in leadership roles a few times myself and, while I kind of enjoyed it, I don't really need it to be productive or happy. If somebody doesn't know what to do and they ask me, I'm happy to tell them. If I don't know what to do, and I know somebody who does, I'm content to have them direct me, as long as they do it responsibly. I don't know if that's a conservative thing or not, but it's my thing.
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