Pregled posta

Marketing

I could hear my mom yelling when we got out of the truck and began walking to the front door. My cousin Jay was sitting on the couch when I walked in. I was always so happy to see him. We both smiled when our eyes met.
The yelling in the kitchen seemed to escalate once my dad joined in. I could hear my aunt Angie, Jay’s mom, crying and breathing heavily. She was my mom’s sister... and out of the five my mom had, I think they were the closest. You’d never know it by how much they argued with one another, but despite all their disagreements, they were together on a regular basis, which was a huge bonus for me and Jay.

I walked into the kitchen to see what all the yelling was about. Jay stayed in the living room, playing with a small car he had pulled out of his pocket when I walked away.
My mom had a plastic bag full of ice and was holding it to my aunt’s face. It was heavily bruised and swollen, you could see that much even from the side.
My mom only had to look at me, I knew it meant she wanted us in the room, yet again.
Jay’s mom said hello to me... through the ice pack, tears, and heavy breathing.
I said nothing and stared a second longer... just long enough to irritate my mom and get the second look... there was no third... I knew it was time to go.
Jay and I walked up the stairs.
With my ear on the door, I could hear my mom making phone calls.
Jay and I stood by the door for a while trying to make out what they were saying. It became too tiresome to continue, especially with a room full of toys at our disposal. While wrestling for one of the cars, Jay accidentally shouldered me on the mouth. I reached up and realized he had loosened an already loose tooth. I wiggled it back and forth and squinted at the slight pain. There was blood on my fingers when I looked down at them. Jay didn’t like blood. He backed away like I was about to turn into a zombie.
“Sorry.” He told me, in a remorseful tone.
“It’s okay. It was already loose.”
“Can you pull it out?” he asked.
“I don’t think so. It would hurt too much to do that.”
“I saw this thing in a cartoon once.” Jay said.
“Yeah?”
“Yeah.”
“Well what happened?” I asked him.
“This cat had a tooth that was hurting him. And the mouse, his friend, tied some string to the tooth, then tied the other end to a door... and on the count of three, the mouse slammed the door and ripped the tooth out of the cat’s mouth.”
We thought about the image for a second then started laughing. We stared at the door, then back at each other, and began laughing again. This went on for a while. But when the laughter had passed, we still had an issue.
“Do you have any string in here?” Jay asked.
I looked down at our shoes, wiggling the tooth, hoping that by wiggling it, it might just come off, and not require me to take such extreme measures.

Jay took the string from one of his shoes and asked me to open my mouth.
“Which tooth is it?”
I pointed to the one. Jay began trying to tie the string around it. He began laughing while doing so.
“What?”
Jay shook his head and kept laughing.
“What!” I asked a second time.
“It’s the same tooth the cat in that cartoon had ripped out.”
We both laughed.
After a few more minutes of giggling, Jay finally got the string tied around my tooth. How he accomplished this will always be an incredible mystery to me.
Getting it around the doorknob was a lot easier… or so I thought it would be.
“Is this far enough?” I asked, speaking with a lisp, the string hanging from my mouth.
Jay looked at the doorknob and where I was standing. The math seemed good enough for him.
“Uh huh.”
I closed my eyes. Jay began to count.
“One, two…”
“Don’t say the numbers Jay, just close the door when you want to. I don’t want to know when you do it.”
I heard the door slam but never felt the tug on my tooth. I opened my eyes. Jay was picking the string up from the carpet.
“It didn’t stay on the door.”
It seemed hard to fathom... that it came off the door and not my tooth.
Jay scratched his head and looked over at me.
“Still on your tooth?”
“Uh huh.”
We froze at the sound of someone coming up the stairs. Jay ran and jumped on the bed. I walked to the door and picked up the the string, trying desperately to get it off my tooth without making it hurt any worse.
“What the hell are you guys doing slamming doors?” my mom yelled from the top of the stairs.
In a panic, not able to get the string off my tooth, I tried locking the door. It swung open before I could get to it. The knob hit me square on the mouth. The tooth, the string, and a little bit of blood sprinkled the floor.
My mom stuck her head around the door, not able to open it any further.
“What happened? Are you okay?”
I was on my behind, running a finger in the place the tooth had once been. I moved away from the door so she could open it. She got a closer look, picked the tooth up from the floor and handed to me... then ran to the bathroom for tissue.
Jay had buried his face in

Columbia Bottoms is a Missouri Department of Conservation Area.

Some people have misconceived notions in regards to what it is, what it is there for, and why it is.

It's protected land. It is managed and cared for. It is an opportunity to visit and see. To some it this carpet a department has spread out for them to have and use with an ill idea they have a right without ever doing any right. Nature is their personal property.

It is what it is, natural land undisturbed for natural things to be. It's land for the sake of land that is not owned. It is not a lawn, it is not a fish pond, it is not a gun range. These things are allowed and that's what troubles me. Not that they are allowed but at the confusion regarding their allowance. A necessary approach to maintain and not a right to have or demand pleasure or recreational purpose over all else. As if it is a toy.

We do not own land or have any right to it, nature proves this occasionally. Floods, winds, earthquakes, and more can take hold of anything and bring it to rubble in seconds if she chooses. Your piece of paper in a deed is far less sturdy than any structure.

We are allowed, we are granted permission, we commonly place ourselves above as humans and are quick to point out "our right". "Our Rights" are nothing more then what other trespassers, like ourselves, have granted and certainly not bestowed by nature that I know of. We are blessed to be given permission but blind to our blessing.

Our hardened egos lead us deeper away from the very thing that is here right in front of us to teach us how useless these self-entitlements we as humans grant each other. If we were truly the master beings of this world we would devote ourselves to its balance and shed these selfish ways. Our right is to protect and preserve what protects and preserves us the most, nature. Or right is not a law or a privilege, our right is a measure based on how we treat nature. Our right is what we do good, a required act. From nature life springs forth. She is God's gift to man yet she keeps man, she is here to maintain man's life and for man to nourish or abuse with a choice that is mysterious. We depend on her and instead tread on her often with this banner called "our rights". To disgrace, claim, abuse or misuse nature is to surely spit in the face of God. No, you don't have a right to her. Your right is to protect and honor her, it is what you do and not what you have. It is doing right and not having a right. She grants all permission, how is that respect returned? The answer reflects from her. Beauty they say is in the eye of the beholder, surely it is under the foot and controlled by the hands as well. It challenges us without asking to let her be. Can you let nature be nature?

Oh how arrogant we are and can be.....

"I love Nature partly because she is not man, but a retreat from him. None of his institutions control or pervade her. There a different kind of right prevails. In her midst I can be glad with an entire gladness. If this world were all man, I could not stretch myself, I should lose all hope. He is constraint, she is freedom to me. He makes me wish for another world. She makes me content with this."

Henry David Thoreau


Please explain your rights to Nature, I dare you.