Why Didn't You Call Me?

Remember this: No one would answer.

I don’t care about people hunting. It is the shooting from a truck that bothers me.

As posted yesterday about the nut shooting from the truck window. I called the local DNR office to see if I could report the problem; the line rung on and on with no automated system with voice mail, or direct calls to an after-hours report line.

I decided to call this morning because those people will be out hunting today and probably the 1^st.

I leave a message at the local DNR office. Officer calls me back. I begin to tell him about this person shooting from a truck. He asks me why I didn’t call him yesterday. I told him I called the office-no one answered. He tells me he was in my area up to 7 pm. I replied how was I supposed to know that? I figured if the person was desperate enough to shoot yesterday, given there was only two more days to the season-they would be out shooting tomorrow. Besides, they already realized they were seen and decided to leave.

I told him that every time I call the after-hours number the person there replies like battery acid and that I didn’t have good experiences with the DNR people on duty.

This is the modus operandi of DNR employees in dealing with caller complaint.

The officer does not take down the complaint and listen to you.
The officer becomes argumentative about why you are calling.
The officer whines there isn't enough help to cover the complaints.
You are suppose to magically know daily schedule of the DNR officer so as not to impose inconvenience on him.
The officer will defend the criminal because it is two days left to the season and why bother? Right? 

   I finally became frustrated and told the officer he wasn’t interested in listening to my complaint. All the officer had to do was pencil my complaint down and tell me he would look into it. This is not what they do. It becomes a reverse argument based on implied lack of response on the part of the caller by the DNR investigator.

The truth seems to be: They just don't want to be bothered.

Somehow, you are the guilty party. I replied that I felt he was defending the person breaking the law. He was trying to reason with me why he shouldn’t bother to look into this person. It was more important to disregard my complaint, upset me and I was already bothered by the shooter from the truck window. It is not my problem the DNR doesn’t employ enough staff to do the work.

I thought about calling the main office in the upstate, but if this officer’s attitude is a reflection of the overall attitude of the state DNR employees-it is a waste of time and effort.

When you have to use the current behavior of a DNR officer as the prime example for why you weren't Johnny-On-the-Spot for calling, is a sad indicator of the treatment a caller complaint is going to receive when calling that agency regardless of the content of the complaint.

Some of the money coming out of your pocket is probably paying that employee for extending to you a poor example of bad customer service. 

But you better be respectful of them at all times even when they are disrespecting of  you? How is that right?

What good is a state agency when the workers refuse to do their job? How safe are you actually as a private land owner when someone agitates your property boundaries out of hunting desperation?

Written by: Angelia Y Larrimore

Lightning and the Mysterious North

Remember this: Impromptu is the best laid plan. No one sees it coming.

I was trying to get away from the idea of dating. I believe the E-Harmony commercial is right. The person shows up with the couple for the cake, or hints at a one night stand. I was on the previous with the cake couple after one outing.

I wanted to decompress without the pressure, even though my mother was pushing this person. I rebelled. Who wouldn’t?

I had enough and put my fishing gear in the truck. I cut out of there. I drove down the road and pulled into this drive. I found the person I was looking for sitting at a decrepit, rotting picnic table. The little, old man was nursing a blue can filled with the Gods of Barley. He was slowly caving in on himself. I rolled down the window.

“Hey, you! Want to go fishing?” I started to laugh. I noticed his eyes open wide as he popped up from his seat.

“Yeah, yeah”, Thom blurted in his slightly inebriated, loud voice. He pulled out some keys to lock the door on a RV trailer, now occupying most of his drive. The blue can disappeared somewhere in his mobile house. He shuffled over to the truck and hopped in after opening the door.

I watched Thom struggle with the seatbelt as he tried to latch himself in. I smirked. Somewhere in Thom is an alien running on 100% fermented liquids, instead of blood. I am amazed some days at how functional he is.

We headed down the road toward the river. Thom began to grill me about my evident absence from his daily view of life at the picnic table.

“Where have you been?” Thom looked out the truck window watching the passing landscape.

I began messing with the dial on the radio, looking for a decent song. “I’ve been around. I was finally removed from doctor’s care. Why? Did you think I died?” I laughed at this thought. You never know. People disappear all the time.

I am sure at Thom’s age he is a little hard of hearing. He always talks with emphasis with double words. Thom may have an inner Hispanic in him that is trying to communicate.

“No, no. I thought you went North.”

I eyeballed Thom. “North? What are you talking about?”

He looked around suspiciously. “Lightning moves North.”

I was about to choke with laughter. “Are you saying I am lightning Thom?”

“You never know when you are going to strike.” We both chuckled over that observation.

Thom and I spent the next two hours on the river bank, wandering from knobby hole to the next, getting our bait snatched by baby fish. The baby fish were staying close to the shallow, sandy sections of the river’s rim. One three inch fish snatched my hook and made for a hole in a tree trunk on the bank before letting it go. I saw another palm length fish meander in the shallows through the roots and fallen limbs.

Of course, do not be fooled by the inviting photography of South Carolina rivers. You will dehydrate fast during the summer months. The woods on the bank are the equivalent to a sweat lodge. Imagine moist, steamy heat hitting you from all sides with no barrier. It is constantly surrounding you. You spend up to three to four hours on the bank of the river with no water, and you’ll be having yourself a spiritual experience. If you’ve had a belly full of food, you will vomit it up, eventually. If you drink too much water, after losing to many fluids, and get stressed, you will get the dry heaves.

Thom caught a fish and pulled it to the bank. I began to realize how humid it was at the river. I started feeling my impurities floating out my pores then decided to go find Thom.  I had so much sweat beading down my face, I could barely keep it wiped out my eyes. I found Thom on a log near my yellow backpack.

I asked him, “Did you give up?”

He replied, “Yeah, yeah. The fish aren’t biting.” Thom began to rock back and forth to get off of the log. He has bad hips.

I began to pack up the stuff while Thom carried the bream busters. We weren’t very far from the truck. I know Thom is in his early seventies. I didn’t want him to prune up and die on the river. How would I explain that? I took Thom fishing and it killed him.

Not today.

I went forward to clear the path of snakes. I didn’t want Thom to get snake bit but if so, the snake wouldn’t make it. The snake would lose all venom quality from the alcohol content in Thom’s blood. I jest.

We walked back through the woods to the truck. I ignited the engine and turned on the A/C. I put the gear in the truck with the rods. Thom hopped in to the winds of the A/C. I offered him some fluids. He refused; no alcohol. I downed three Capri Suns. When I go out in the jungles near my home, I deflate like a balloon. Thom sweat till it made him sober.

I had already been sick for a week. I decided I didn’t want to pass out while driving. I just sat in the A/C, collecting myself. We were watching a couple fishing from the bank, out in the middle of the river.

Thom spoke up. “They must be fishing for roots out there.”

I just turned and looked the other way. The trees had yet to move. I laughed.

I stopped the truck near the access to the river that lead to the main road. “Thom, do you have anywhere you have to be?”

Thom began to slowly disappear into the seat. “No, no. I don’t.”

“Let’s ride across the road. I’ll show you where I caught some shellcrackers.”

Thom agreed. “Okay, okay.” He adjusted his little hat.

We drove up to the main road.

“Thom, people are going to think you’ve been kidnapped.”

“No, no.” He wiggled around in his seat laughing.

We drove to the other side, noted how low the river was, then I took him home.  He got out in his drive and walked around the truck. “Maybe next time we will have better luck.”

“I guess Thom. I’ll see you later.”

He walked over to his trailer. A blue can appeared. He sat down and I pulled off to head home.

There were a couple of things I learned on this fishing expedition to failure. I was telling my son about Thom’s view of me when I appear after long absences. He started to tell me different cultures and their perception of lightning and direction.

I decided, just for fun, to dig into this a little. I didn’t want to put any special meaning on this. It was just something to research and do. I was hearing Thom relate his conscious-unconscious, as he tried to address my absence; or my existence in his mental world. Am I a trickster?

Somewhere in Thom’s conscious-unconscious or psyche, I exist in a northern direction when I am absence.  He perceives the place where I subside as a mystery, because he has no clue what I am up to. It is a mystery.

I am taking liberties here because, who knows what goes on in Thom’s mind when he is under the influence. He says the weirdest things to me. I shake my head and take it. What can I do?

When I appear to Thom, I am symbolic of lightening. I assume he thinks I am random, unexpected but when I appear, the air is alive with activity. This weird energy he senses, lifts him off his picnic seat of old age, and thrust him into action to go do something. I pretty much strike Thom, not in the literal sense.

Maybe Thom thinks I am the flash of the Thunderbird’s eye?

Thunderbirds move contrary to everything else. Everything else is under the influence of direction.

Thom and I have a very odd relationship. He expects nothing of me. We function as scouts. The problem with being a scout is you get in predicaments, gather information on what you see, then someone wants you to hand that work over to make someone else’s life easy.

I looked into the direction thing. The Chinese notes North to represent the Rat. I am a Rat. The Celts believed North represented Earth, Home, Security, and fertility. Right again. The Feathered Serpent of the Southern regions is the God of Lightning. Tribes of North America viewed North as wisdom and thought. Depending on which tribe you based this information on. Each one is slightly different. It means other things as well.

I was still curious about this mysterious North Thom believed I returned to. Maybe, Thom thought I was a Viking?

I was now a part of Thom’s internal mythologies. A person’s body is surrounded by a spiritual reside that rubs off and is absorbed by another. You become a part of them, symbolically living in their internal landscape of dreams.

I thought Thom would be waiting at that picnic table, and I would never appear again. My spirit would have moved on to the mysterious North in his psyche. I would be lost from this world, running back to that mysterious place where I came from.

I began thinking of Thom’s age. One day, I would go to pick Thom up for an adventure. I will find an empty picnic table. Thom’s body will give out and his spirit will subside to some directional place I will not be able to go to. It will be a mystery to me. I am sure where ever Thom will be, he will be standing in Demeter’s golden field.

Written by: Angelia Y Larrimore, Lightning of the North