I have been a regular reader of a column in our local newspaper by Philip S. Wenz. It is titled "Your Ecological House" and has been my favorite byline in the Sunday edition for quite some time. I was first attracted by outdoor stories that I arrogantly felt I could have written myself. Although my stories would have come out of the December woods and limestone streams of Pennsylvania and Wenz's came from the western US, his perception of and reverence for the landscapes and creatures he describes feels familiar, thoughtful, and reassuring. By familiar, I mean more in the circle of family than simply similar to my own experience. Yes, I hunted deer, birds, and small game well into middle age, not purely as sport, but as family pilgrimage and gathering that started with Thanksgiving and all its chaos of kids and dogs and ended with the traditional first week of deer season. In Pennsylvania when I was in public school, the first day of deer season was a school holiday, ostensibly an extension of the larger holiday but, in fact, acceptance of the fact that many of the kids 12 and over would have been in the woods.
Recently, after reading his Sunday column, I went to Wenz's Blog, firebirdjournal.com, and found myself face to face with a much larger and more engrossing world of Wenz's writings that I could have imagined.
If you've suffered through my other posts on this pitiful excuse for a Blog, you'll know my inclinations and opinions well enough, but you probably wouldn't know that I carried a Winchester model 94 (.32 Special) into the pre-dawn darkness of central Pennsylvania's hardwood ridges every Monday-after-Thanksgiving for 40 years. I confess that I have never been so cold as on a deer stand just as the increasing light of dawn instantly went from black and white to full color. I also found that my intense alertness of eye and ear combined with inevitable thoughts of being in a spot the deer have never been or would ever be. Sometimes, I was rewarded by a buck coming close and a pounding in my chest so loud I knew the animal must hear it. Being there always became a therapy to mind and soul I will never be able to explain. Besides, after being that cold, the coming Pennsylvania winter never seemed anywhere near as bad as before deer season.
I digress. Wenz's Blog showed me that he too shared those experiences and came to a perception of the rest of the world that I recognize and respect. He is both a pragmatist and an advocate for long-term enlightened self-interest. In a recent photo from some online source, I saw a young man proudly wearing a T-shirt emblazoned with the words "I'm Selfish and I'm Proud." We are all selfish and we are all proud, but many of us hope not to be proud of being selfish.
I am proud of feeling a familial connection to this man and his writings. I will read them selfishly with a hope of becoming a better human being and a better citizen.
Corvallis, Oregon
August, 2020
