All Things Anne

On the way home today (LONG errands day, out from 10:30am until 5pm!) we saw a sort of hit and run accident. This lady in a white car was going to do a u-turn (they are legal here) and she was waiting for oncoming traffic (us) to stop. We did. Somebody else didn’t. He was driving a neat old pickup, in light turquoise-blue and white, fixed up all nice (we had seen him earlier and the boys had commented on how cool his pickup was), and when the light turned yellow, he decided to go (he was farther back than us, even, and Joe had debated whether to go or not but he had stopped). By the time he GOT to the light it was red, however, so he cruised on through.

The lady wasn’t watching him; she was watching just the traffic in general I guess, and when most of us had stopped, she went. She crashed her front right quarter into his front left quarter. There was a big *SMASH* and the pickup stopped but the white car went a little bit and pulled into a parking lot, along with the school bus that had been a little in front of her. The guy in the pickup climbed out his window (his door wasn’t working, I guess) and called someone on his cell phone. We went through the intersection, found a place to turn around, and came back. While we were turning, we saw the pickup drive off! What a nice guy.

We went back; the lady was SO distraught and just not thinking right. Joe cut her bumper off, it was just hanging…the front of her car was trashed. Mom gave her our name, number, and address, and the lady told us the guy came over, asked if she was alright; she said yes, she asked if he was alright; he said yeah but his neck hurt a little, then he went back to his pickup and drove off.

That kind of delayed our getting home a little!

Off to hunter’s ed now…noodles!

There comes a time when all good children should attend their local Hunter’s Education classes in order to be able to hunt in the fall. Sure, they can go illegally, but what’s the fun in that? It’s more fun? Oh. Why am I speaking on this.

Anyway.

Since there’s more government than I can count, I think it might just be safest to like, hunt legally, you know? So. Anyway.

Back before I took Hunter’s Education, I was under the misguided notion that it was Hunter’s Safety. No. For those of you who think they teach you safety, well, they don’t. Mostly it’s ethics, mainly their ethics. Now, the ethics part of thing is pretty stupid. All they are is, your truth vs. my truth, and of course their truth is true, no matter what you think is true! So, really, it’s Hunter’s Education. Hunters are educated in the instructors’ ethics, and not much else.

Every time there’s a new 12 year old in the house, all of us who have already been through the classes go along. Moral support, ya know. The teachers don’t like it, I think. I think it unnerves them. Well this year, the twins are taking Hunter’s Ed so Ben, Joe, Eric, Beth, and I are coming along. I think we are too many for the lead instructor. Monday, the first night, we were out in “left field”, so to speak. We got there after the extra credit video, so all the seats were taken. They had to bring in an extra table, just for us! So last night, Tuesday, we went in and we were early so we were going to sit in the middle, right? Not. The lead instructor guy told us to move back to the other table! (We did, of course!)

This class does seem to be better than previous ones, though. They are talking more about practical, hands-on things like crossing obstacles and gun handling. Not so much on the ethics, thankfully! Tonight they’re going to show pictures of field-dressing a deer. When the instructor said that last night, he said “It’ll be real”, and I’m thinking to myself, “Real?? He’s gonna get a deer in here and show everyone??” But no, just pictures! Real pictures. ;)

It’s also nicer because they show more videos. (Heh heh.) Eric’s betting they won’t show the survival video.

The Legendary Survival Video
We have never seen it. We have only heard. Only one person we know of has seen the survival video. See, whenever it comes time for our classes to see it, they always say it’s lost! or there isn’t time! So we’ve never seen it. Every time we’ve gone to Hunter’s Ed (this is the fifth time for Ben and I, fourth for Joe, third for Eric, second for Beth) we think we’ll see it, but not yet! We’ve needed it, too. Sometimes, we’re out there and…it just seems like camp is SO far away and we’ve been walking ALL day, and…we’re lost. And we gotta survive.

I tell ya, our candy bars just go too fast, when we’re lost.

There’s this song by DC Talk called My Friend (So Long) and the chorus goes:

We know exactly where you are, and
you’re gone [ my friend ]
Don’t know exactly where you’re coming from
You’ve gone away my friend
We know exactly where you are, and
you’re gone [ my friend ]
Don’t know exactly where you’re coming from
Have you gone astray [ gone ]

Well, earlier Rase says to me with this funny look on his face, “Anne…you know that song where it says ‘we know exactly where you are’, do they…really know exactly where we are??”