yes, this really happened.
yes, I am totally cool with hunting on the way to school,
yes, it's totally cool to have a rifle on the bus so you can get supper.
No, this wouldn't fly today. Too many snowflakes are crying their eyes out for poor Bambi.
But I'm laughing over the stark contrast that in just 55 years culture has shifted so much that it's inconceivable that a bus driver today could even HAVE THIS PHOTO on his bus
https://www.facebook.com/GrimOutdoors/posts/930326197166659
That's fuck up man, really fuck up. And I will probably never get that aspect of US culture. It would be unthinkable 50 or 100 years ago to do such thing, I even show that to my old man that regularly hunt with my grand uncle on boars and partridges if he ever heard about someone do such thing here. He look at me angry, nobody is such fuck up to do such idiocy, no respect for the animal or other people.
ReplyDeleteBut hey, in my hunting culture doing such thing is unthinkable. In your hunting culture history it was "cool". IMO it is better that School Buses don't carry kids to school covered with blood and carcass of dead animal in front. It's a mater of taste... and smell.
It's food. Like a cow, but not kept in a pasture. They are free range and we're only allowed to cull the herd in a short hunting season in the fall... a couple hundred years ago there were no such things as hunting seasons, but then, there were no such things as refrigerators or stoves.
DeleteAnyway, which aspect of USA culture? Hunting? Or feeding your family with wild animals?
I'm still laughing about how upset this made your dad, I can't even understand what is fucked up about it... that he was on the job? Strapped the deer to the hood? Well, you don't put them on the roof, or the would drain blood down into the vehicle. So, on the hood or if you have a trunk, over the trunk.
Wait, you say it would be unthinkable 50 or 100 years ago to do this? Uh, only where you live, maybe. I grew up in Michigan, on the Wisconsin/Canadian border, and it's still a common site during hunting season. Not on school busses, true, but on vehicles.
It wasn't unthinkable 50 to 100 years ago, it IS unthinkable now to kill a deer on the way to work, with a rifle, on a school bus.
Even 40 years ago it would have been totally fine. All us kids on the bus would have helped haul the deer up there. We see that animal as fresh food. Steak even. The skin will be made into leather. So - what is fucked up?
And the carcass doesn't smell for hours, as long as you've gutted it.
Ok, it is a matter of taste, most people do NOT want to see how food is made from animals, and the more money people have, the less they even understand that animals are food. Some animals.
In some places, people with great "taste" and lots of money only arrive at a restaurant, never eating at home, and have a waiter get the chef to make a plate of food, with a garnish for effect and ambiance.
So... the less money people have, the less "taste"?
And yet, I constantly, consistantly, and daily showcase art, design, craftsmanship and share it with you and everyone else.
Have I no "taste"? Am I fucked up? Or am I simply adpatable and ready to sharpen my very razor sharp knives so they easily part the skin from the animal, open the belly to remove the organs, and butcher the carcass into pieces of meat ready to cook, after I take my rifle, pistol, or bow and arrows and stealthily go into the forest where I avoid alarming the animals as I select the one I will kill and take home to eat?
It that without taste?
Or, only by getting it home on the hood of the bus, has no "taste"
Would this guy have "taste" if he went to a farm, hired a farmer or rancher to use a bolt gun to a cows brain, hired someone else to butcher it into steaks, and make hamburger, and then add some cheese and lettuce, and a slice of tomato -voila, a delicious burger?
Not hunting as whole but, striping dead animal to the hood of a vehicle. We don't do that, such thing is fuck up for us. Just why, some kind of bragging, trophy show? We just don't drive around with dead animal strapped on the front of our cars, doing such thing was and still is unthinkable for us. This is not about hunting, but what you do with hunted animal after that, that strapping thing is US thing and I don't get that. I will never do, I just can't imagine even for what reasons anyone would do this. This is a culture thing, as you said it's still a common thing but why, I don't get that and will never do.
DeleteMy grand uncle never came from hunting with striped boar to the mask of tractor, never get mertens or partridges hanging from the grill. I never saw that anywhere, never heard that anyone would do such thing. For us NOT strapping dead animal to the front of vehicle is a matter of good taste.
This is the case of hunting culture, for me such thing is unacceptable. Because we never did that, that would be immediately condemned if anyone would do that no matter if we live now, 50 or 100 years ago. And that's why I ill never get that, my old man also will never get that.
How do people trasport deer, bear, moose, and elk from area they are hunted, back to the hunters home when the hunter has a car, and not another vehicle?
DeleteI guess the thing is this driver did not need to shoot it. I mean, he had a salary and could just feed his family buying all he needed at a local grocery. I have no problem with "hunt to survive" in desolate Alaska, but hunting as a sport is, to put it blantly, fucked up. Plus, putting a dead animal on a school bus hood - come on. That photo looks like some post-apo alternative reality shit. Times changed, and in this aspect it's for the better.
DeletePS. altought we might not agree on this, just wanted to let you know you run a great blog. Keep it up!
Sorry for delay, got one of those calm "no-net" weekends to chill out.
DeleteIn old days we just used simple horse cart, now mostly single-axle trailer and tractor. Sometimes vans or "brigadier", the van-pickup hybride. Americans are highly motorized nation, pickups are very popular and they are the simplest answer, you put dead animal on back of car. In the end, this is what it is for, to transport things. If you don't have a pickup then why not borrow or rent simple single-axle trailer for the hunting trip. Or even buy one, they are rather cheap. I even saw some hunters with quads that ride with such simple trailers and put hunted animals in it.
IMO there is just no reason to carry dead animal on hood, I can get that in one extreme situation someone will do this. But all the time? You can damage the hood, you need to clear it after all, some of blood can get under the hood ect. more cleaning. To clean trailer you just need some pressure washer. With so many options to get the killed animal today from point A to point B I just don't see any logical reason to do this on the hood of the car.
Thanks for the compliment!
DeleteAs for the driver, I've probably internalized the situation and relate to it, because though I'm not in Michigan anymore, until I graduated high school, I lived in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, and can see just how realistic the situation is to living there. Both of us are guessing - at whether he needed the deer for food, or not. I figure he did, you figure he didn't because he had a job. I'll point out again, this was 1963... and people didn't get paid shit for menial labor like bus driver. That's a minimum wage job usually filled by teenagers that just graduated - in poorer areas like the backwoods, the Ozarks, the hills of Tennessee, etc. This sure ain't the city life, and people had too many kids, not enough food, etc. When I was growing up in Michigan, we hunted and ate every bear, deer, rabbit, partridge, and fish whenever legal. There are, or were, a lot of deer seasons, and you could get a male deer in Bow, Rifle, and Blackpowder, and you could try for a license for does. We had one or two in each... and that's from mom's license and my step dads. Then there was bear, and fishing was ice, lake, and smelt (like the salmon run situation, little fish have a mass migration out of Lake Superior into the rivers) and we trapped mink, muskrat, and beaver to sell their furs. Not for fun, but because we needed the money bad enough to be out in the freezing cold during November and December. My grandpa didn't trap, instead he went for duck and geese.
So, we both have our own concept of whether or not he could " just feed his family buying all he needed at a local grocery" and neither of us has a fact to back that up, although, I've got him hunting deer before work, and you have him having a job.
As for the deer on the hood, frankly, I get a laugh out of that, as I KNOW, and am not guessing, that every single busload of kids I ever rode with would be pretty cool, even proud, of riding on that bus. It would be the talk of the small towns, and by small, I shit you not we only had 5 or 6 kids in my entire town, and had 8 other towns that all were bussed to one central high school. We went through one 100 year old school house for k-3rd, another for 4th -8th, then over to L'Anse for 9-12.
Shas, in reply to: " single-axle trailer and tractor, sometimes vans. Americans are highly motorized nation, pickups are very popular and they are the simplest answer, you put dead animal on back of car. If you don't have a pickup then why not borrow or rent trailer for the hunting trip. Or even buy one, they are rather cheap. I even saw some hunters with quads. "
DeleteI thank you for your reply, I'd wondered what you use... ok. I agree, a trailer is the right wheeled vehicle for the job, however, you bring up renting one, buying one, or getting a quad... and I have to say, most people are too poor to have the money for that, and when, like this guy in the photo, they are hunting to eat, that indicates they are, or were, too poor to afford to buy food in stores. I grew up that poor. I'm still not rich, but I'm so much more able to pay for food now than my parents were in the 80s. We hunted for food, in every hunting season with every different weapon, as the Michigan hunting was a situation where there was one season and hunting license for Bow and Arrow, one for Black Powder rifle or pistol, one for modern rifles, and I think one for does. Then we trapped mink, muskrat, and beaver for furs to sell, and fished summers and winters for more food, and grew a very large garden for vegetables. It was all because we couldn't afford food. We didn't have new cars, or trucks, or atvs when those became a thing, nor video games, nor big screens. Heck, we had a black and white tv until the early 80s. Everything we got was used, or free. Clothes, cars, tires, etc. As kids we did whatever there was that would pay, like mowing lawns, raking leaves, wash cars, cut split and stack wood, shovel snow, painting houses, or what ever neighbors needed done that they'd pay some kids to do.
And deer weren't commonly found on the hood of new cadillacs, rolls royces, etc... the people hunting for food usually had some really old used up cars that weren't much more than basic transportation and a furry ol deer on the hood isn't going to harm a thing.
Such situation is not so unfamiliar to me, I was born and raised in times of PRL (in simple terms, communists times... it's not 100% correct term, but that's whole different topic) and even the middle class would look like poor one in US standard. My family were farmers for couple of generations (my old man was first to became the "worker class") and they made almost all the food they eat, bread, meat, vegetables ect. The most precious thing they had were agricultural machinery with tractor on top of it. But still, parts and oil were costly if even available so horse was still important part of farm. My grandfather (just like everybody in the countryside) did build own house and many of equipment he used. Well, some se steal from Germans when they retreat before Red Army, I still have original Wehrmacht issue spade. So he build with help of others a cart, two single-axle trailers, one single-axle pig trailer ect. He did take parts from scrapyard, mainly axles, some from here and there and build them. This is how they work back then, the need is the mother of the invention. Still in 80's car was a rare sight in area, it was for us a luxury thing. You wait for one couple of years even, you've registered yourself on the list in factory and wait. So this could be also part of "no animal on the hood" culture, it's hard to get one there if you don't have hood at all. Also as luxury thing, you care for a thing that maybe you will get one in a lifetime.
DeleteSo, when my grandfather or granduncle need a simple trailer they build one. The first and only trailer by grandfather bought was 4,5 ton D-46-B all metal trailer in early 80's, it did serve him to his death for more then 30 years.
But we did grown in different places, political systems and reality of them, different culture, traditions and views on many of things. Some things change, some evolve and some stay as they been for generations. Thank you for your reply it was a personal story of yours and I appreciate that you shared it with me.
As I do appreciate yours, as it's a world I've only heard of, and never in such a detailed personal way. Thank you!
DeleteProud "Snowflake" here. And I have no problem with this. I see deer on my way to work almost everyday and would love to take one home for dinner!
ReplyDelete