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January 12, 2005Another Reason You're Mama Said to Wear Clean DrawersMost folks that know me halfway well are aware for my love of a good ole duck hunt. Anyone who visits here halfway regularly knows how much I love my yellow Labrador. I've been in many a duck woods and started to get lost many a time. Besides a compass and the sun, there have been times I got a bit fearful whether I'd find my way back to my johnboat. I'm pretty sure it was a combination of my paratrooper's innate sense of direction (necessitated, of course, by aviators' tendency to drop us 5 or more clicks from the designated drop zone...) and a trick from caving (look behind you every few paces to see what it'll look like on your way out) that I never did wander about clueless to how I would emerge on a dirt road and at least within five miles of another human being. Still, the art of traipsing around in flooded timber without getting lost while searching for that perfect hole, the honey hole where ducks funnel in like a waterfall, the ancestral duck hole where ducks have stopped at for generations, can be a daunting endeavor even to the most seasoned guides. The trees, the logs, the brush, the sounds, the light, can seem the same and vastly different within the same second. And being flooded timber, usually with an 'oh-so-subtle' flow of water, it is constantly changing. It takes the finely honed skill of an outdoorsman to make a living in this kind of environment. Modern technology has changed a lot of these dynamics. That whole 'man vs. nature' thing continues to evolve. With the advent of the sporting public's access to global positioning handheld systems, knowing your location and other locations is not nearly the issue it was when we used protractors, compasses, and USGS maps to make our way through the wilds of the great outdoors. Camouflage patterns are developed and tweaked and honed to make man ever more invisible to his prey and, in warfare, to his fellow man. Even from a dozen yards, some forms of camouflage can make you invisible to even the keenest of animal eyes. The Marines have even gone so far as turning to a pixilated, fractal like camouflage for their most recent forms of camouflage. Still, there are times when the best GPS system can determine your precise location, and possibly, the spot where you want to go. You may know exactly where you are, but you're still lost. And in a twist of fortune, you are virtually invisible to those who might be looking for you because of the advances in camouflage. Sadly, your cell phone has no signal when you are 20 miles from the nearest population concentration of 37. If you ever find yourself in such a fix, it might be helpful to remember the story of one Arkansan's rescue--; Ben Lipscomb found himself lost in the flooded backwoods this week while duck hunting with his Labrador retriever. In such instances, a government desk jockey might consider carrying a signal flare with him. Or get a yellow dog. Post-script - I can't believe Rita missed this one since it's up near her neck of the woods... Res Ipsa Loquitur linked with Linky Loo Comments
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