Do you get it yet?

Hunting season is now over for us and the whirlwind has settled down a little. This past weekend was the first in 6 that we, as a family, were all together. We were at home. No plans. No road trips. Just quiet.
It's not that the chaos wasn't fun, there was always something going on and somewhere to be . We even broke with Thanksgiving tradition this year and headed out to "The Rest of your Life" aka The Hunting Cabin. We went with Dude, Dudette and their family. We shared grocery duty, but that did not stop a discussion between Carpenter and I on the necessity to have Eggs Benny for breakfast, and at least one steak and seafood dinner during the stay. He would say, "Even though Dudette has packed eggs , English muffins, and bacon, you need to pack some too. Trust me,"
Now, to me this hardly seemed helpful , when Dudette and I are trying to watch our figure having lost 20 and 40 pounds respectively over the last three years. I was encouraged by Dudette to pack veggies and fruit to help us abstain from eating the chips and candies. During the long 6 hour drive, where Gem refused to sleep, Carpenter and I discussed once again what I had packed in the way of food, and should we stop along the way. After a couple of hours of debate and banter, he said, "Whatever. You just don't get it."
We arrived in darkness, to the cabin which was as cold as the night air. I crawled between the sleeping bags on the foldout sofa, and tried desperately to catch some zz's Carpenter woke at 5am with an adrenaline rush.He and Dude stoked the fire and headed out for a morning hunt.When I awoke for the second time, I looked out the picture window. I thought to myself,"I certainly could get used to this. i sat up snuggled in the sleeping bags, and stared at the open space. I fell in love with what I saw.
Carpenter and Dude came back not quite empty handed. Along their trek they had stopped and picked shaggy mushrooms. Now it was time to fry them up and serve them with the breakfast of choice"Eggs Benedict". Again I broached the subject of the "eggs Benny breakfast" and was told "Because, that's the way it is.It's what you eat when you're at the cabin." Once again I still didn't get it.
I still didn't get why we had to drive so far just for hunting either. Besides the spectacular view. I mean seriously, what was the attraction? I tried discussing it with Carpenter. He said I wouldn't "get it" til I actually went with him. Okay. It's not that I wouldn't enjoy a hike in the great wide woods, and maybe see some deer, moose or elk. It's that if we did, I'd like him not to shoot it in my presence, which would negate the whole hunting process. Weird huh?I know. I grew up on a farm. I've seen things die. I've shot rifles. I've shot gophers. Lots of them. But I could not shoot a bigger animal, much less watch it. And so Carpenter and I were at wits end.
I still didn't get it.
So he tossed me a Sept/October2004 copy of Bugle: The Journal of the Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation. Inside on page 72 is an article written by John Madson called Why Men Hunt.
He writes:

[They hunt] for many reasons, any one of which may be enough. A common one of course, is the meat reason The woods are full of people who claim to be hunting for prime meat, although I've a hunch that this is a standard alibi for busting the first deer that comes along. yet there are some real meat hunters-men who are pretty good at judging meat on the hoof, and who have the patience and experience to carefully pick and choose, and who take pride in the quality of their venison. [There is] the trophy reason. In it's shallowest context , it is simply an exhibitionist effort to display prowess and status. In a deeper context it goes beyond that. Aldo Leopold once observed that "Poets sing and hunters scale the mountains primarily for one and the same reason- the thrill to beauty.Critics write and hunters outwit their game for one and the same reason-to reduce that beauty to possession." Those trophy antlers on the wall may not be only a hunter's efforts to posses beauty, but also to keep something important to him from slipping away and being forgotten. And if the trophy testifies that here is a strong and skillful hunter- well,what's the use in denying it?... Companionship can be a strong element in hunting. For as long as men have hunted, they have banded into special hunting packs with their own taboos, traditions and rituals.And sometimes the companionship and the rituals become more important than the hunt itself, and sometimes the greatest pleasure is in anticipation and recollection, with the hunt only serving to bond the two. [If you were to watch a group of hunters one night] dress their deer, while their companions offered unsolicited advice, listening to the good laughter and easy talk [suddenly you would comprehend, that these men are free.]
Pascal once observed that the virtue of hunting is not in possessing game, but in the pursuit of it. By being absorbed in looking outward for game,"the hunter is absolved of the really insupportable task of looking inward upon himself." And so the hunter's eyes are directed outward instead of inward, and myriad nagging,worrisome concerns are overlain with the illusion of being part of an older, freer world.

He went on to talk about "awareness of other presences" in a very elegant and poetic way. I found myself completely immersed in his article. So much so , that I decided to bring it home and read it again. Carpenter could not have explained it quite like this.I may never fully comprehend the depth and breadth of the of it, but it was a start.
On the drive home "I'm still a guy" blared on the truck stereo, and Carpenter turned to me and said, "Do you get it now?"
Do I get that he's a guy? Yes. Do I get that he's a guy who loves to be outdoors?Yes. Do I get that over the years this world has done is share of emasculating the male species, and the every day pressure of work, and mortgage payments is enough to drive a man to the brink of insanity if he didn't have some place to go and "be a man"? In the words of my dear friend Ferf:
Abso-frickin-lutely.