ANTISEMITE DEER HUNTER?

 What am I going to do when I can't escape to the deer woods? There's only two more days to the season, one of which I probably won't be functioning enough to climb a tree or handle a firearm. Today I hunted above the Hassidic's again. As I parked the truck at the curve in the road two eyes stared back, reflected in the headlights. I flicked on brights. She jumped then stopped and maintained the gaze. Had it been fifteen minutes later I would have tried to cap the gun. I saw nothing after that, getting out of the stand around 10:00 I drove home.

I had a bath, re-heated some coffee and decided to drive to Mountain Dale to check on the Social Sculpture Park, and get something to eat. All was status-quo in the park. A nice relief. Sometimes I go to Mike's Quickie Mart for a bacon, egg and cheese and sometimes I upgrade with a lunch at Forage and Gather  (please note: business names appearing in HWS are correct. All others may not be.) I greeted my good friends Slick, Handsy and MS with smiles and hugs. This is all small town stuff. Slick said he was telling them about Piglet a guest's pit bull and how the dog latched onto his Alpaca's neck (animal not sweater) and was trying to kill it, and Slick fell down in the mud trying to save his Alpaca, and got shit spread all over his brand new clothes, as he had just come from a date with a girl who had converted to Judaism "on a hunch" that she was Jewish, even though her father was Protestant and mother was Catholic.....it's a long story and I didn't want to interrupt. 

I hadn't seen MS since last summer. You remember the bare breasted sculpture and how it got toppled over and stolen? MS put the Borsht Belt Plaque up around the same time. She's all about the Jewish history of the Catskills. Then Oct. 7th happened. I think I called for a ceasefire on the 9th. I got Covid on the 14th. After that I don't remember much. Through the grapevine I heard that MS (and a few other Jewish friends) were hurt/pissed/outraged/disappointed at my overt pro-Palestinian stance that was not equally balanced with outrage over the atrocities of 10/7. Admittedly, I am never balanced. I'm an artist. I'm opinionated. Still, I like MS and the others and want to keep them as friends. But when I went in for a hug with MS I noticed a decided chill. I wasn't wrong.

What followed was a rather embarrassing display of.....what would you call it? "False assumptionism?" The word was "disappointment." Like a let-down second grade teacher MS took me to task (concerning the Gaza situation) for being "misinformed," "ignorant as to meaning of genocide....."no intent," and of all things an "antisemite." Now I've been called a lot of things in my life. "Stupid." "Braindead.""An obnoxious asshole." are just a few this month. But in all my years I can't ever remember anybody (seriously and repeatedly) calling me an antisemite. But MS did just that in Forage and Gather, right there on Mainstreet, across from Mike's Quickie Mart. Great soup and sandwiches!!! 

I told this story to Junebug and Savage on the speaker phone. I hate that fucking speaker phone! Savage said I just had a knack for pissing people off. He's right. It's a gift. That doesn't mean I'm not sensitive and never EVER want to be considered an antisemite or racist, or a pedophile or Trump supporter. I'm a pretty good deer hunter, not a bad artist, a decent writer, and try my damnedest to see all sides of an issue. What Israel is doing in Gaza and the West Bank to the Palestinian people is a genocide unfolding in real time before our very eyes. The language and actions towards a stated goal of "extermination"  was the same in the colonial United States towards the Indigenous population, in Turkey towards the Armenians, in Nazi Germany towards the Jews, etc., etc. ,,,,,,,,South Africa, Bosnia, Rwanda. These are only the most obvious examples. The only logical answer to the carnage is to stop the killing. 

As always, this is only my opinion. Tomorrow we put on drives at my house with Bird, Savage and UB. None of us are Jewish, but we all have some very nice Jewish friends. The deer don't care one way or another.