My Father Taught Me to Hunt

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m_scott_hay

Year 2:

Week 14

Pencil

My father taught me to hunt. A very important aspect of that to him is gun safety. He went to great pains to teach me that as well. He let me borrow his Remington .12 gauge almost two decades ago. He teases me about having kept it for so long, but I always get the feeling that he doesn't actually want it back. I suspect he likes the thought of just giving me things. A trait that I think most good fathers share.

As a teen, I always imagined all the ways I would grow up to be different from him. Now, I am thankful for all the ways I am like him.

Pvt. Witt

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m_scott_hay

Year 2: Week 12

Pencil

I can't begin to tell you the amount of warmth and admiration I have for the film

The Thin Red Line

. There are so many bits of

dialogue

that touch on the meanings of life and conflict. It speaks to the wars that are between us as well as the ones within us.

Private Witt, as played by

James Caviezel:

"This great evil. Where does it come from? How'd it steal into the world? What seed, what root did it grow from? Who's doin' this? Who's killin' us? Robbing us of life and light. Mockin' us with the sight of what we might've known. Does our ruin benefit the earth? Does it help the grass to grow, the sun to shine? Is this darkness in you, too? Have you passed through this night?"

Hot Coffee

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m_scott_hay

Year 2: Week 7.

Pencil

Though my Grandmother stopped farming years ago, she stayed very active. But, she always made time for coffee in the afternoon.

This meant an open invite for cookies and

very

hot coffee if you were around the farm. She could chat on a wide variety of topics and she gave great advice. The kind of advice that someone can only give after living through the Great Depression, two World Wars, cultural revolutions, the death of a husband, friends and family, and the raising of many, many children (2 of them hers).

The day after her funeral, I stopped by her house. The house I spent time at almost every day from the age 3 to 18. I took one of her oldest coffee mugs. Just about everyone who ever stopped at her house for coffee probably drank out of it. Many of her (and my) loved ones have used that little, yellow cup.

Clarice Vivian Hay. 1918-2011

Townes Van Zandt

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m_scott_hay

Year 2: Week 3

Pencil

I have spent more hours of my life just drawing, drinking beer and listening to

Townes Van Zandt

than I care to think about. He goes great with biking or driving across the prairie too.

I wish I could've hung out with him in some

honky-tonk

somewhere. Kinda one of my heroes, I guess.

"

All the things I've seen

And the places that I've been

Don't mean a thing since I found you

All that matters now

Since I've won your love somehow

Are these plans I keep makin'

Not to lose you

So sleep till the moon slips away

I'm hopin' all you're dreamin' comes true

When you rise with the day

I might not have too much to say

But you know that doesn't mean

That I don't love you"

-Lover's Lullaby

by Townes Van Zandt

"How close can you cut it to your own bone? Did you break your own heart? Did you scare the shit out of yourself? That’s what matters. Townes went for the passion not a bunch of clever bullshit. He sounded like himself."

–Guy Clark