Sharing Stinks

So there’s this deer – a young buck in velvet – that’s been hanging around the house. He’s small and skinny, but he seems to be in good health. His fuzzy antlers only have one fork apiece, but that’s pretty common for a yearling.


The days have been warm, and he likes to lie down in the shadow of the roof overhang. There’s a spot near the kitchen window where he’s scratched out a bed and curls up. That’s why Joan named him Curly. His bed gets a nice breeze, but when it dies down, the flies bother him, and he swats them away with his big, muley ears.

He’s gotten used to me and Joan walking by the window while we’re cooking or doing the dishes, and he ignores us for the most part. We can go outdoors as long as we stay on the other side of the building. When we stick our head around the corner, he takes off. But he doesn’t go far, and if we leave him alone, he comes back in a couple of minutes.

The other day we had a few folks up for supper, and right on cue, Curly walked up for everyone to see. Posing for a few pictures, he regarded the crowd of faces in the window with curiosity, and then he wandered off to eat.

While everyone was staring at the little guy, I noticed a big buck walking across the hilltop. He was a 3 or 4 year old with a beautiful set of antlers, and his thick, muscular body showed the weight of this spring’s plentiful grass. He loped easily over the hill, out of sight from the guests who were gawking at Curly.

The other day I took a picture of him and posted it on my facebook page. (That’s right…I’ve been sucked in. If you want, you can follow me or be my friend or whatever the hell it is.) After I put the picture online, I regretted it, because that’s exactly the sort of thing that makes more folks want to move to this area.

That got me to thinking.

I admit that I’m a selfish man. I want to keep the rugged beauty of the Bitterroot National Forest all to myself. I was hoping that after I got to Montana, they’d shut the doors behind me and not let anybody else in.

It’s not that I’d deny folks the right to enjoy the natural splendor of the area that I call home; it’s that I want them to do it somewhere else and leave me alone. It’d be fine with me if I never saw another human being while I hike and fish and hunt in the 3 million acres of public land that I call “the backyard.”

If Sesame Street taught me anything, it’s that sharing is a good thing…like Bert and Ernie sharing a bed. But when they were teaching me how to count pineapple upside-down cakes, we never got to numbers big enough for me to count all the loud, obnoxious circus freaks who tear through my forest on 500cc’s of smoke-belching, solitude-shattering, four-wheeled fury.

Sometimes, having enough for everybody to share can get you into trouble. Like rock star and realty show hero Bret Michaels. Through 3 seasons of the show Rock of Love, he shared his quest for the perfect mate. Although the producers selected the finest group of sluts, skanks, and drunken strippers for him to choose from, Bret was unable to make a lasting love connection.

If you ever get a chance to watch that show, you should definitely check it out. It’s seriously funny, not like The Bachelor at all. But that wasn’t the point I was trying to make.

Last week, police in DeKalb County, Indiana pulled over Bret’s tour buses because one of the trailers that they were pulling had a light out. K-9 units alerted officers to the possible presence of drugs.

According to the Fort Wayne News-Sentinel, “Officers searched both buses and found marijuana on each, as well as unidentified controlled substances. It was unclear how much was found on the buses.” No one was arrested, but charges have been forwarded to the DeKalb County Prosecutor’s Office.

Back in school, if you got caught chewing gum, the teacher would ask if you brought enough for everybody. That may be a good policy with gum but not with drugs. When the police pull you over and you’ve got enough drugs to share with 2 busloads of rock musicians, that’s going to wind up costing you.

So you see…sharing can cause all kinds of problems. Whether you’re talking about your forest or your stash, it’s best to keep things to yourself.

I don’t know, I guess I think too hard about these things.