Great white harvesters

Never once did I ever hear my dad, an oldtime hunter, talk about harvesting deer, elk or antelope. Instead, he talked about "huntin'." Maybe this a term reserved for shooting bear. Ever since the ongoing Daily Bee controversy regarding the unacceptable photo of the cute bear eating stuff off from someone's picnic table this past summer, I've encountered the term "harvest" in regard to hunting and killing a bear.

Once again today, it came up when someone sent another bear picture to the Bee. In this case, the fuzzy critter wasn't eating bread stix; instead, it was a dead bear from Wrenco lying in the back of a Lexus. Does this say anything about the new Sandpoint?

How many hunters-er-harvesters have most of us ever seen hauling home their dead animals in the ol' Lexus? I haven't even seen a set of antlers hanging over the front of a Hummer which is big enough and ugly enough to suggests such uses. Oh, I have seen gory-lookin' animals, with their tongues hanging out, strapped over the top of a beat-up, rust-spatterd Ford Escort.

Usually, though, carcasses get hauled around in 4 by 4 rigs---not your fancy Lexus. Maybe this is the start of a new trend for trendy Sandpoint. Imagine: dead deer and dried blood all over the gold Jaguar as it pulls to a stop for those tourists toting their Coldwater Creek bags at one of the downtown crosswalks in our walking town.

Times have certainly changed here in North Idaho, and while I'm picking tomatoes and corn from my garden, the guys and their guns and bows are out there in the hills of Gawd Almighty country harvesting Bambi and Smokey and all their friends.

My brother has gone harvesting for the month of September in Alaska. I don't really know what he's gonna harvest, but it's possible when he comes back we'll see plenty of pictures of caribou, sheep, or maybe even ducks. I guess I haven't kept track of what's in season up there right now, so I'll just have to wait to see the pictures.

In the meantime, I'm trying to imagine my dad sitting around down there at the old Pend Oreille Sport Shop on First Avenue, smokin' his roll-yer-owns and tellin' stories to his buddies about the big mulie he harvested up there on Deer Ridge back in the late '30s or the antelope he harvested with one shot when he and Mother went off on one of their fall trips several years ago.

I just don't think I ever heard Harold use the word "harvest" in reference to any of his wild game stories, nor have I heard it come from the lips of my brother who has a game gallery in his basement called the "head room" because of all those sets of beady looking eyes staring off into space and wondering how they suddenly ended up on someone's living room wall after living the simple life out there in the woods or the open fields.

I guess I'd better start adjusting to "harvesting" just like I had to do after hearing Ashleigh Banfield use the term "gone missing" on MSNBC for the 37th time. They say change is good for us and that language is fluid, so I'll keep working on this harvesting concept.

I'll also be sure to set my brother straight when he comes home and dares to talk about hunting in Alaska. After all, he's been out of circulation for a month and a lot can happen to the lingo in that time. Look at how the word "tapping" has suddenly taken on a new connotation since August.

I'd better shut up and head outside this morning to hunt down another juicy ripe tomato or two. Then, I'll take a picture, send it to the Bee and let folks know that this dead tomato has been hunted and bagged from the Lovestead garden, and it didn't even need to be hauled home in any fancy Lexus.