For my birthday, I was given this bell treat. You know, it’s one of those bell-shaped treats for your parakeet or canary or lemur. I took it into the wilderness today and stashed it in a tree.
It was not without sacrifice that I got the bell treat to its new tree home–you see, it was surrounded by other lifeless, leafless (but certainly not limbless) trees which clawed voraciously at my vulnerable little legs.
Moments after placing it on its carefully chosen branch and meditating on the wonders that this new freedom would surely bring into little BellyBelle’s life, I turned and left the thicket of trees to resume my path through the canyon. As I reached the dirt trail and looked back to wave goodbye, panic suddenly overtook me. Where was she? I couldn’t see her anymore amidst all the leaves and branches, against the drab rock background! She had vanished, it seemed, off to make her fortune alone, without me, without even a friend in the world. But such was always her destiny. She was meant to feed the earth and all its woodland creatures.
So there I was, walking toward an outdoor amphitheater in Salt Lake (as usual), when suddenly I saw the awesomest nature show I had seen all week. A dragonfly was hovering overhead, but his flight pattern was most curious. He looked like a crippled helicopter, spinning helplessly toward the ground. Once he hit the ground, he began to writhe and bounce about. Something was clearly afoot.
I took a closer look. Sure enough, a wasp was on his head, stinging like crazy. The two rolled around a bit on the sidewalk. I wondered for a minute who would emerge victorious. It soon became clear that despite being four times the size of the wasp, the dragonfly was utterly defenseless. A few more stings in the head and it was lights out for Mr. Dragonfly. Satisfied that his job was done, the wasp stopped stinging and then nonchalantly took flight and buzzed away.
I looked at the broken dragonfly’s body for a few seconds, then got out of there before the pack of wasps came back to eat him and possibly me.
I learned a lot about wasps that day. For instance, that it would only take about 1/4 the number of wasps as it does dragonflies to bring down a sasquatch.
My brother, Dan, sure got more than he bargained for when he came out for a visit a few weeks ago. We took a beautiful hike into the mountains above Provo one sunny afternoon and saw more dragonflies than we had ever seen before in all our lives put together! It was really amazing!
They would fly out of the trees by the hundreds as we passed by them on the trail, creating a most dazzling display of dragony shimmeriness. I marveled at how there could be so many of them and yet remain so silent–a thousand dragonflies dancing overhead didn’t seem to make any more noise than a single one gliding over the glassy surface of a crystal pond. And why should they come out from their hiding places only as we passed by? It felt almost like we were being carefully escorted (hunted?) on our mountain voyage. Have you ever seen anything like that before? We both agreed that we most certainly had not.
Oh and then we came around a bend in the trail and, sure enough, there were tons of them feasting on the dead corpse of a sasquatch.
When my brothers and I were growing up, our neighbors had bunny rabbits. We had cats. I’m sure you can imagine what happened. We definitely saw our share of bunnycats.
Today I was at the Orem Fitness Center in Orem, Utah, having just finished running four miles in the International Thanksgiving Day Run (which I hadn’t properly trained for and which left me feeling a little queasy) when I saw something that caused me to burst out laughing. It was a magazine for sale near the entrance of the building entitled, “Loss of Life! A Senior Citizen’s Guide.”
Haha! Can you believe that? I sure couldn’t. So I looked again after I had finished laughing. This time it read, “I Love Life! A Senior Citizen’s Guide.” Haha. Yeah, okay. That made more sense.
I am not a business major. Well, I am . . . but not really. Business majors lead lives that look like detailed architectural plans. My life looks more like an unfinished piece of French impressionism. I’ve often listened to faculty at the Marriott School of Business spell out the terms and conditions of my future success and thought, “What on earth am I doing here? Why am I not at a choir rehearsal or studying abroad in France or researching the formation of stars or writing a screenplay or learning new teaching techniques or even just sitting in a room memorizing fifty thousand digits of pi?” The answer isn’t always immediately clear. I am often left to go home and lose myself in a train of very pastel thoughts that unfailingly lead me to this conclusion: only the passage of time will fully reveal the masterpiece currently in progress.
I don’t want anyone to get the wrong impression. I can see a number of immediate reasons for pursuing my chosen course of study, and there are many aspects of it that appeal to me. What’s more, I do occasionally catch glimpses of the finished canvas (a gorgeous array of blues and greens accented by a deep crimson) that provide clear insight and motivation. I just don’t feel that I’m particularly talented in business as compared to some of my other interests; or at least I don’t yet feel that I fit into the business culture at BYU. My classmates and I seem headed in such different directions, perhaps because my true desire is to be a religion teacher while producing creative works of all shapes and sizes on the side.
Nevertheless, this is the path I’ve chosen, and it is right for me, so I’ve adopted a new attitude. It’s called the “I’m Sorry if You Don’t Like French Impressionism, but That’s the Way I’m Gonna Play This Gig” attitude. Essentially, this means that I’m pursuing my own education in my own way for my own reasons, and should I feel a need for advice or approval or direction from an outside source, I will surely solicit it. My path has never been normal, and things will probably be easier for all of us if we just accept that it never will be.
I feel good about this approach. It adds another brush stroke to the foreground, in the light of what appears to be a large tree.
A little more than a year after being strong-armed into finally getting one of those “cell phone” doohickies, it appears that I’ve now somehow been persuaded to start one of those “blog” thingamahoos. If this trend continues, I’d say it’s safe to expect my smiling face to make its debut on YouTube within the year.
Before you begin to read what is posted here, a couple of items merit your attention: 1) What I write is primarily for my own satisfaction, entertainment, and fulfillment; thus, reading it could potentially prove to be a tragic waste of your time; 2) I hope that you will read it anyway.
That being said, today’s post will probably be most appreciated by other BYU students and alumni. Well, on second thought, they actually might be the ones who hate it the most.
. . .The three deafening hisses from the sinister forest behind me were cause for considerable concern.After the first, I mused at what on earth could be producing such an unusual sound, but then it dawned on me that I had wandered into cougar country, and a large, tenacious feline was not happy about it.I had heard a lot about what to do in such situations–look tall, make noise, move slowly–but that all suddenly became irrelevant as body overpowered mind and I found myself barreling down the mountain at breakneck speed, able (so it seemed) to taste my own terror. Oh, the bitterness.When I finally stopped and had a moment to catch my breath, I puzzled at the notion that the demon-beast I had just encountered should somehow represent the student body of Brigham Young University, renowned for its high standards of ethical conduct and moral integrity. Given my experience and a few simple facts about cougars in general, it hardly seems appropriate for a school whose motto is “Enter to Learn, Go Forth to Serve” to be associated with such a menace. Consider with me a few reasons why the BYU Cougars should consider becoming the BYU Ducks.
For starters, cougars are vicious and would very much like to eat you for dinner.This is a rare trait in the animal kingdom, even among predators.Bears, for instance, will generally only attack a human out of defense, stopping once the perceived threat is resolved.This is why animal experts counsel you to play dead if attacked by a bear.Cougars, however, rarely attack out of defense; should you find yourself unlucky enough to be pounced upon by one, fight back, lest you become an easy meal!BYU’s mission statement says that “. . . all relationships within the BYU community should reflect . . . a loving, genuine concern for the welfare of our neighbor”; but its mascot says, “Even if you surrender, we’ll still eat you alive and leave your bones strewn about a mountain glen.”Yuck!
Another declaration from the university’s mission statement reads, “. . . [Graduates] will not only be capable of meeting personal challenge and change but will also bring strength to others in the tasks of home and family life, social relationships, civic duty, and service to mankind.”Obviously BYU expects its students to be family-oriented, socially involved individuals.Are cougars representative of such characteristics?Hardly.The males are loners, interacting with females only when it is time to mate and with other males only when there’s a fight to be won.They father any number of offspring and care for none of them.Though the female’s disdain for family life is not quite as depressing, still her young will be with her only a short while before she chases them off to make it on their own, perhaps never to be seen of her again.In the meantime, they’ll all be sure to spend their time as reclusively as possible, staying out of sight and in the shadows as they plot the demise of their next victims.Tulsa, here we come.
Ducks, on the other hand, are the very embodiment of all the above mentioned ideals, fully committed to family, community, and service.They are one of the few animals that mate for life and work together to raise their young.They live in large communities, help bear one another’s burdens (e.g., the “flying V” that allows for taking turns resting while in flight), and mourn the loss of loved ones who pass on.In addition, they are very industrious creatures, accustomed to long hours of work as they forage for food or migrate over long distances (not unlike the Mormon pioneers).Could it be any more obvious?Ducks are like nature’s BYU graduates!
I recognize that my opinion on this matter is entirely unsolicited, but I cannot apologize for speaking out.I am certain that by now there are many others who share similar sentiments, perhaps even among those reading this very sentence.To you I say, rise and shout!Stand in the trail of glory and let your voice be heard!We need a mascot that truly represents the qualities we came to BYU to foster and cultivate.Out with the Cougars, in with the Ducks.Yes, I know there was no verb in that sentence, but it hardly seems to matter at a time like this.If enough of us band together, we can make a change for the better in at least one more aspect of the institution we all love.Remember: Quack!Quack!Quack-quack-quack!Quack!Quack! Quack-quack-quack!Gooooooooooo Ducks!
