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Every great empire before has fallen...

So this morning, I woke up fairly early because I planned to take my dog hiking(Yup people you read right, I do get up early of my own volition on special occasions). I get weekend custody of my dog only occasionally so I splurge and get up early at those times. My dog, sensing that I had something planned, followed me around the house, tail whipping back and forth at a slick 80 miles per hour, as if he thought continuous wagging would somehow propel me through my morning routine just a little bit faster. Finally, with a belly full of soy milk, granola w/yogurt(yes in that order) and running shoes on my feet, I was ready for a few fun filled hours of tromping through the GreenBelt. I clipped my dog’s leash into place and off we were.
The two of us spent the next hour or so exploring the woods. My dog pressed his red nose firmly to the ground as he followed all sorts of beautiful(I'm guessing) smells around while I enjoyed the scenery and fantasized that I was a primitive caveman tracking my dinner through the thicket(Is that a deer track there?) As we took full advantage of the vigorous exercise and the crisp clean fresh air…both set against the beautiful backdrop Mother Nature designed, my dog and I were truly in our element....

Slowing to a trot I was feeling my pulse and debating making this the half way point or pushing further when...

All of the sudden, we both heard a loud crash in the forest. My dog stopped short and I peered into the woodland expecting to see a falling tree. Instead, I saw a large, muscled, brown body flying through the thicket at top speed. Whatever it was, it was a hell of a lot bigger than I was and it was coming straight at me. Startled, I grabbed the nearest small tree that looked dead & dry and snapped it with quick kick & shrieking KIA. For some reason, the sound of my scream & the tree snapping seemed to rattle the creature and it leapt into the air easily 6ft or more. It landed on the path in front of me, less than 3 feet away. I could smell it's musky fear and wet fur, I'd swear I could feel it's hot breath... Had my dog and I not heard the initial crash and paused when we did, it likely would have trampled us royally...
It was the largest deer I had ever seen in my life. But then again, I have never been close enough to a male Buck to touch it, so take that statement for what you will. Still, the thing was a good foot taller than I was and that wasn’t taking into considering the massive pair of very sharp and well worn antlers that sat on top of his head. Staring at those antlers, I was no longer thinking about Mother Nature and this perfect world she had created for us. Instead, I was imagining my gored guts splayed out on the path like some sort of grotesque speed bump...

Time seemed to stand still for me and the deer; we both froze in place. My dog, on the other hand, was not hypnotized by mental images of antlers ripping and tearing at his soft underbelly, so he turned tail and ran...

yup... were talking 'bout a good 1 year old 50+lb Red Nose Razors Edge Pit Bull... yeah... and they say their killers... right...

I was completely unsure of how to handle the situation. Vaguely, I thought about my dog and remembered that looking directly into his eyes could, in dog language, be viewed as threat. I didn’t know if this little factoid held true for deer as well, but I figured it couldn’t hurt to break eye contact. Gracefully, I glanced over my shoulder to see where my dog went. He had paused on the path about 15 feet away when he realized I wasn’t following him. Reluctantly, he was heading back in my direction with a deep rumbling growl lodged in his throat.

Now, I know my dog, so I could tell he was feeling unsure of this. His growling wasn’t a sign of aggression towards the deer so much as he was saying to me, “Uh, you know I can’t kill that thing, right? So…uh…I was thinking….shouldn’t we be…uh… going that away?”

For some strange reason, the buck remained on the path in front of me even after my dog returned to my side, growled, and bared his teeth at it. With dawning realization at how useless my makeshift club would be against a half-ton beast with antlers recently honed in a true battle(yes fighters are known to be able to size competitors up quite accurately). I considered making some sort of noise with the pretty much useless club turned drum stick, I had made hopes that the sound would scare it, but my dog beat me to the punch. He mustered up all of his doggy courage and let out a mighty bark. My dog rarely barks so it startled me as much the buck and possibly my dog as well...The deer swiveled on his hooves and galloped back into the underbrush as if the hounds of hell were following.
Relieved, I sighed and said to my dog, “Holy shit! that was exciting?”
He ignored me completely, though. and was standing, body stiff and alert, facing the direction the deer had come instead of gone... I squinted, curiously, trying to figure out what he was staring at. Shocked, I realized his eyes were following what appeared to be a ridiculously large dog. It was moving at brisk trot, nose pressed towards the ground, as if were hot on the trail of something large, brown, and possibly delicious.

Two thoughts entered my brain almost simultaneously:
1. Holy shit, what is with all the monster sized animals today?
2. Oh God, it's not a dog it's a wolf, that deer may not have attacked us, but it will.

However, before I could even react to my thoughts it trots straight for us barely even bothering to look up...

Now as I replay the events again trying to think of a way out of nearly the same, but no wait, worse situation all over again...

1st getting gored alive by a buck... not good...
2nd getting torn and eaten alive by a wild beast... nope not any better...
3rd Mental Note: No more getting up early...
4th Do I have time to take a picture??? (the last sad untimely truth of a true photographer... I took the pic...see above)

Now I flip my camera over my shoulder & hoping I wasn't shaking too much when I took the picture, I quickly surmise we can't outrun a true predator like this... SO I look at my dog & crouch down near him. I heft my now trusty club back in hand and let out a very real and deep growl from depth's within me I did not now I possessed...

The whole world STOPS, okay maybe just my little part of my own world stops for a moment...

My dog sensing more then me turns behind me and thankfully covers my rear, with dawning dread, yes, I know to late, I remember that wolves are pack animals...

This was no lone wolf, this wolf wasn't just unafraid and daring but knew exactly what he was doing by distracting me ever so briefly. The rest of the pack had circled us in a perfect pinzer move, any general would be proud of...

Now for to many times in one day I feel true dread, back to back with my dog we square off with our nearest opponents, bracing each other for any re-action...

Rather quietly and out of nowhere a rather small deer(a doe) bounds out of nowhere and lands exactly where the 1st buck stood and looks at us with a stupid expression of: “Hey! You guys didn’t see a Buck run through here, did you?”

She just as quickly realizes what the fuck is up and bounds away in the direction the buck went...

For the third time in the past 5 minutes, I was unsure of what to do.
I was scared, tired, hungry and now pissed off, not a good combination,
and the adrenaline and dopamine rush & roller coaster of emotions was not helping...

I realized that exact instant I had my one and only edge against the wolves, I had to react now and make my move: do I attack one and hope the others back off or just go all psycho video game "melee" flinging swingin I hope i hit somthin, or just turn tail and run???

Frustrated, I groaned & yelled "F^CK!!! they went that way you idiots, pointing with my club...

Within mere seconds, and with nary a sound or growl, they were all gone after the deer leaving me and my dog alone, the trampled leaves, tracks and footprints being the only visible evidence of anything having happened...

Gratefully and thoroughly relieved by our thwarted untimely deaths, I sighed, scratched my dog’s chest, and continued with my hike in the opposite direction. Yes after running for dear life back to civilization and the safety of my car, I collapsed, said a prayer of thanks and cried and laughed all at the same time, it seemed appropriate...

But, you see, the whole situation got me thinking. And the more I thought about it, the more I became amazed at all the things I still do not know. Will a buck/wolf even attack a human? If it did, what could I have done to protect myself? What if my dog had gotten mauled/trampled? What would have been the best way to carry his injured body back to safety(a stretcher/splint)? What if I had gotten bit/trampled? How would I have explained my exact location to a 911 operator?

The more questions I mulled over in my mind, the more disgusted I became with myself. There is absolutely, positively no excuse for me to not know this stuff. I live my life surrounded by information. I have libraries, book stores, educational programming and the Internet at my disposal. So why, pray tell, do I barely know basic survival skills? Am I no better than every other stupid, lazy American in this country who would rather piss their life away acquiring piles of shiny junk rather than evolve into something faster, smarter, and stronger? Have I, too, become addicted to my cell phone and my Ipod and the various screens I use in order to access even more forms of entertainment?

We currently live in a country that is, at best, despised by other cultures and, at worst, actively being conspired against by others with the express goal of exterminating us completely from the planet. Is it so far-fetched to consider the possibility that we may experience war on American soil in our lifetimes?

What if it did happen? What if someone came along and turned the lights out, cut the plumbing, and bombed the grocery stores? How many average citizens know how to set a broken leg? Build a shelter? Forage for food? Dig a latrine? We spend our days working 50/60/70 hours a week in boring middle management jobs and our nights entranced by yet another episode of American Idol. When do we have time to learn how to suck the venom from a snake bite or disembowel a rabbit to fill our hungry stomachs?

Our President is an ignorant, egotistical jackass and our country is in shambles. Sometimes, as we sit in cozy coffee shops sipping on our lattes, we rail against this fact. We consider things like the Patriot Act and the war in Iraq and we wonder how those things came to be. We wrinkle our brows and ask ourselves if the basic premise of democracy is that majority rules, how is it possible that Bush is still in office even though almost every single person in this country hates his guts? Then we shrug our shoulders, pay our bills, and continue to live our lives under the guise of supposed ‘freedom’ while our sons and daughters die in a war that none of us (You know, the majority) want to be fighting.

Standing before my mortality this morning, I think I figured out exactly how all of this happened. Americans have gone soft. We have become completely and totally dependent on our government. We don’t know how to take care of ourselves. We’re whining, cheating, stupid, weak willed little children wearing big kid clothes. We don’t understand real hardship because our big, strong government has shielded from it. And while this might sound like a good thing at first glance, we need to consider that our government is corrupt. What they give with one hand, they take away with another. So as our basic rights are slowly being whittled away, we remain complacent because deep down, we know we lack the basic survival skills that would enable us to hack it on our own. Hell, look at our police departments, soft slow and predictable, they wouldnt last on Survivor and thats not even real.
I don’t know about the rest of you, but I am ashamed of myself. If I can’t handle a fucking deer and some wolves without dumb luck on my side, then how the hell will I be able handle the threat of total tyranny that lurks on the horizon? If I can’t stand up to my government now while they are still granting me the illusion that they’re willing to play nice, then how will I stand up to them after they abolish the 2nd Amendment and become my captors?

As long as we remain unwilling to grow the fuck up, as a country, then the American ideal as previously envisioned by our ancestors is doomed to fail. Furthermore, we will have brought it all on ourselves...
America will fall because its citizens lack basic Survival Skills...

natural selection at work...