Man, The Hunter
What do we do with our children, the values we gift them with, the exposures we grant them, the opportunities we hope to place in their paths of discovery of the world at large and their place in it. And in the process finally producing a finished product, one we offer to the world with overweening pride and a sense of final accomplishment. In the process honouring our forbears and at the same time presenting the face of the future. Perhaps that lead-in should have read "what do we do to our children".Some parents believe themselves to be the primary custodians of sentient beings who will develop into fully-conscious, priority-driven and well balanced members of society and govern themselves accordingly, to set the example they pattern their child after. Others believe themselves to be chosen to lead malleable children into circumscribed and well-trodden paths; to praise the Lord and all His creatures in their own inimitable way.
And, in today's news, a truly sterling example of parents earning their parental stripes by enrolling their child in a private school, the Christian Heritage Academy. Oops, the warning feelers are out; the word heritage, once denoting something to be proud of in honouring the past, now accords with something entirely other, and when one links "Christian" and "heritage" we know we're in for a tough ride.
This little eleven year-old boy, his parents' delight - and why not, after all he has just completed sixth grade on his school's honour role, in Pickensville on the Mississippi border, Alabama - has already accomplished an outstanding feat. He has become the Good Lord's instrument in removing the dignity and beauty inherent in life from one of that Great Spirit's very creatures, well-coached by his proud father.
We once had the pleasure of hiking some back-country trails in Alabama through forests of oak and discovered what we knew to be evidence of wild pigs having scavenged at the foot of tree trunks, looking perhaps for mushrooms. And we learned several things: that the area is known for the presence of wild pigs, escaped many decades ago from an imported- boar raising experiment by someone who hoped to raise them for whatever reason, perhaps even for the purpose of rooting out the presence of those treasured fungi.
The resulting feral pigs likely interbred with local stock and the result was a proliferation of wild pigs. We never did have the opportunity to see any of the beasts for ourselves but we did learn that it was considered high sport to hunt them. Needless to say in the American South-East hunting wild animals is sport of the highest calibre.
Back to our little 11-year-old, the budding scholar who earned a place on his school's honour roll. The child's name is Jamison Stone, and his father Mike Stone took him hunting on a 2,500-acre commercial hunting preserve in Delta, where they proceeded to hunt, accompanied by two guides. Jamison, we are informed, was not new to the hunting experience. This precocious boy killed his first deer at age five.
On May 3 Jamison used a .50-caliber revolver to shoot a very large animal. He shot it no fewer than eight times and chased it for three hours through hilly terrain before he finally was able to kill it at point-blank range. His father and the guides had high-powered rifles aimed to fire should the beast, armed with its own 5-inch tusks, have decided to "charge the boy". While the beast chose only to flee in terror, one wonders why Mr. Stone wouldn't be charged for child abuse.
"It feels really good" Jamison said in an interview by telephone with The Associated Press. "It's a good accomplishment. I probably won't ever kill anything else that big." He may be right. The wild hog weighed in at 477 kilograms, measuring 2.8 metres from the snout to its tail. And Jamison feels really good. Jamison is proud as punch.
The head of the beast is to be mounted, the better to admire it in, presumably, the Stone living room, and so that as Jamison grows older he can point with pride forever and ever, at his "accomplishment". The meat-starved family plans to have the rest of the animal made into sausage, figuring they should get at least 500 to 700 pounds out of it.
We pass our values, our conscience, our priorities in life and our consciousness of the world around us to our offspring. God being the enabler.
Labels: Heroes and Villains, Human Fallibility
posted by Pieface @ Saturday, May 26, 2007
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