Vac. Day 3 - Toys

Toys have really changed since I was a kid. While some of the joys of my day are coming back in cheaper forms, think Transformers, some of the great toys of my time died with my childhood innocence. We lost G.I. Joes, Mask and the good Lego sets (like the outlaw's rock hideaway so after you simulated a bank robbery, he could have a place to shoot the police afterwards). We have since been weaned onto such inferior marketing ploys as Power Rangers and Polly Polly Pocket to try and entertain our children and keep them out of our hair.

In the less progressive areas of our state I have discovered that after you give little Billy his first Red Ryder BB Gun you can also buy hunting action figures so you can practice getting your hunter in and out of the tree stand and what to wear when you need to go goose hunting over when you need to go turkey hunting. Yesterday we made it to town to converse with the natives, eat some food and check out the local shops. We strolled into the local sporting goods store where upon walking up to the wall of guns (Charleston Heston would have sported wood) you realized that there was way too much junk in too small of a store. Well after meandering through the endless supply of ammo, guns, fishing supplies and trolling motors we come to children toys section and the largest selection of cap guns, six shooters and fake pump shotguns. The toy that really caught my eye though would be the Hunter Dan collection of action figures that you can now purchase for your children so they can mimic the killing machine that is Hunter Dan. You can buy Snow Geese Hunter Dan or Black Bear Hunter Dan or even his wench of a girlfriend Bow Hunter Ann. Some how I feel that childhood innocence always becomes forgotten when you throw in a female toy to interact with your male figures. Barbie was G.I. Joe's bimbo girlfriend (even though she stood over three inches taller) so I'm just guessing that Ann is Dan's long time girlfriend who also travels the countryside killing animals with their trusted Remmingtons. But what happens after the kill?

The camera draws into a moonlit bedroom with camouflage clothing thrown over the log dresser, the bear skin rug and over the camouflage textile canopy bed. As it pans the room the viewer can see deer, moose and bear heads mounted in the "A" frame house that belongs to the greatest hunter on earth. We start to zoom in on the end table covered in PBR cans and a camouflage bra laying over the edge of the bed. As we start to move into focus of what actually happened we see four feet sticking out of a goatskin rug and as the camera starts to pan up we see completely out of breath and glowing, the hunter and the hunted sharing a stick of beef jerky. The camera fades to black but the memory of scene will last forever.

-B.

I was going to include the secret photos that I shot with my camera phone in this entry but laziness got the best of me and so nothing.