With apologies to Jorge Luis Borges, the Latin American writer who once wrote a short piece entitled “Borges y Yo,” in which he compared his private and public personas, I will attempt to do the same. I have, however, begun in a horrible manner by editorializing. Let the fun begin now that I have ruined my introduction.
I can define myself in many ways, but often, I choose to define myself by what I do. This is a very American trait. We find ourselves at parties and gatherings often answering the question of “What do you do?” Rather than admit that I am an English department chair (part bureaucrat, part academic–yikes) I fancy answering them by saying “I feed my outdoor obsession as often as possible.” But, alas, I usually just give the straight answer. There is indeed a part of me that is a rather middle-aged, middle-of-the-road English teacher at a two-year college. But there is a part of me that, while earning my pay in obligation to the educational system, is dreaming of epic battles with steelhead and charging moose.
I find in one persona a student and teacher of writing combined with a Hemingway wannabe who seeks hedonistic pleasure in using implements to play out the age-old ritual of making contact with fish and game, at times for the purpose of simply feeling the wild antics on the end of my fishing line, only to release the prey, and at other times respectfully taking the life to consume it in a cycle where I am the dominant predator. Sometimes I steal their images with a camera, slipping back out of their realm to wonder at the things I’ve seen.
So that is what I will share with you. Experiences. Photographs. Opinions. Ideas. All for the sake of furthering our collective outdoor obsession.
As Borges ended his discussion of his personas, I will end by saying I do not know which of us is writing this blog post. Teacher or hunter? Bureaucrat or fisherman? I will let the readers decide. See you tomorrow, and I look forward to interacting with the mini-blogosphere that Skinny Moose has so graciously created.
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