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Old 05-19-2009, 08:27 PM   #1
DZaidle
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 @ 08:40 AM 
Default The Hunt for Red October

Thought you guys might get a kick out of this.

The Hunt for Red October

Techno-thriller book enthusiasts (*mea culpa*) and movie buffs connect "Red October" with the book and subsequent movie of the same name. Historians and political pundits think of the Bolshevik Revolution led by Vladimir Lenin 25 October 1917--notwithstanding that the backward Russians still used the Julian calendar and the actual date was 7 November by the Gregorian calendar the rest of the world uses, "Red October" stuck nonetheless.

To the hunter, "Red October" means something quite different, although the sanguine connotations of "red" remain consistent--whether shed in anger, revolution, or predatory conquest, the color of blood doesn't change.

The world changed in Russia's Red October, which seems wholly fitting. October has marked a time of change ever since Man named the months and seasons. It is the time of the Harvest Moon--the first full moon nearest the autumn equinox, when waning days give way to longer nights--followed by the Hunter's Moon--the first full moon after the Harvest Moon.

Harvest and hunt are the essence of Man's very existence, the bread and meat of body and soul. To reap the herbaceous bounty of Earth satisfies hunger, but leaves wanting a deeper need untended by seed and scythe. The hunt slakes a primordial thirst common to all men--an imperative to kill, taste flesh, and smell the sweet warmth of blood, a need driven by genetic, saber-toothed memories of prey and triumph.

In October, autumn woods turn the color of blood and bone, a rich mix of crimson and ochre that reminds the hunter of his predatory ancestry. The air smells different, a burnt umber scent of ancient campfires and roasted flesh of hard-won prey. The world *feels* different, a subtle inner throb that drives a man to he knows not what--unless he is a hunter.

For many, the October primordial drive finds relief in dove and other avian weight in the game bag. But to some--those still sufficiently "uncivilized" to embrace their roots--it is a time of blooding in earnest, a reconnection to the surrogate fang and claw of ancient ancestors, a time to take up the simple instruments that propelled Man to the top of the food chain--the time of the bow.

The name (if he had one) of our ancient, hairy ancestor that discovered the utility of wood held bent into a bow by sinew to launch a stick tipped with chiseled flint is lost to antiquity. Nonetheless, his nameless legacy endures, personified in Saxton Pope, Arthur Young, Howard Hill, Fred Bear, et al--men who understood what it means to be a predator, equipped not with fang and claw, but intellect sharper than any corporeal weapon in Nature. And it was those men, their ancestors and progeny, that secured the future of the modern hunter, and more than that--the very survival and continued ascendance of *Homo sapiens*.

The bowman's art figures prominently in Man's history, reaching beyond mere sustenance to the fortunes and defilement of political pretenders. Britain's War of the Roses reached resolution with the Act of Accord that recognized York as King Henry's successor to the throne, disinheriting Henry's six-year-old son Prince Edward (largely due to the efficacy of bowmen) in *October* of 1460. Bows in the hands of American Indians wrought crushing defeat against Kentucky and Pennsylvania militiamen in two separate engagements on 18 and 22 *October* 1790.

October saw Columbus discover America; the birth of King Henry III of England, and Commander James Lawrence, who uttered the famous last words, "Don't give up the ship!"; Alexander the Great defeat the Persian army; and Spain cede Louisiana to France in a secret treaty.

The magic of October drives men to great things in field, fiefdom, and boardroom. It stirs an inner cauldron, in some long dormant, that conjures ambitions and machinations beyond normal reach; awakening the primordial hunter that sleeps in our psyches, restoring life to dreams undreamt for perhaps millennia to hunt, stalk, and kill creatures vulnerable to our schemes, prey and predator-foe alike.

The ancient hunter-gatherer with his bow of wood, medieval British archer with his longbow, and French *soldat* with his crossbow are all the same--torch-bearers of an ancient art that gave rise to tribal leaders, kings, and despots with equal definition. For the same strength of arm and shrewdness of eye that wielded the bow that brought meat to hearth, also made kings, dethroned cruel overlords, and changed the fortunes of nations.

Without the bow and the bowman, the world as we know it would not exist--perhaps Man would not rule Creation. The hunt itself might lay dead beneath the detritus of antiquity. But because of the *bois de arc*--the "bow of wood"--Man rules the cosmos, civilization exists, and the hunter is the bulwark of culture.

Maybe, someday, the hunter and his bow will go the way of the dodo and Clovis point. Meanwhile, the hunter and his instincts rule the corporate boardroom, the headship of nations, and the suburban bedroom. The hunter's instinct and baser drives cleave the way of progress, innovation, and triumph. And the man who draws the bow holds in his fingers the history and fate of the world at large, and Mankind in particular.

It could not rest in better hands than of the man who hunts and yearns for Red October--the season of blood.


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Old 05-21-2009, 01:01 PM   #2
biggen
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 @ 07:54 PM 
Default

Interesting!!!
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