I GOT GAME
When first-time acquaintances in my town learn I am the "Rick" behind "Rick's Last Licks," they invariably ask me what I do for a living when I'm not writing for Inside Chappaqua magazine. As if I needed more on my plate. Somehow, they sense that my column isn't enough for a gainfully employed man -- at least a gainfully employed man living in Chappaqua -- to be doing.
Actually, I tell them that the wonderful publisher of Inside Chappaqua pays me ridiculously well. This and the few wild nuts and berries I can gather keep me in my upwardly mobile lifestyle. With frequent naps, that pretty much rounds out my day. While some people live month-to-month, Inside Chappaqua allows me to live every-other-month, to every-other-month.
No. I do other things for God's sake. Twenty-five years ago I hired myself to run a start-up business communications company -- Media Dynamics -- producing memorable corporate sales meetings and management conferences -- if for no other reason than I could stay in all the world's nicest hotels. Two and half decades and hundreds of happy clients later, it still feels eerily like a start-up.
I also write two blogs designed to cure Bush-Activated Depression, or BAD. But rather than shamelessly promote my news service, suffice it to say I keep just busy enough to stay out of jail. The wildlife in my yard is plentiful, and though my wife's vegetable garden is perennially decimated, there is so much meat available "on the hoof," that one has to wonder why Horace Greeley ever told townspeople to go west.
I remember once, during a visit to Hawaii, feeling that I could survive just picking the fruit hanging within reach of my hammock. Well deer, coyote, fox, bobcat, muskrats, snakes, moles, chipmunk, and endless wildfowl make Chappaqua a veritable supermarket for carnivores like me.
I even have a squirrel who conveniently beds down in my barbecue grill at night. He likes the warm grill just after the last embers have died.
With his blackened tail, the clever squirrel resembles a midget chimney sweep. To my amazement, he seems to tolerate the second-hand smoke quite well. When I evict him, he bites his cute little furry thumb at me and later, pelts me with acorns. Getting hit on the head with an acorn is painful. I can't actually see him doing it, but I know it's him by the sooty footprints on the acorns.
"Can we just not play this game any more?" I scream up into the tree. I'm going to eat that fuckin' rodent one of these days. But I digress.
It's amazing when you think we Chappaquakers live 35 miles from Grand Central Station. The Big Apple may nourish our capitalist cravings, but the bucolic swamps and hillocks of New Castle foster the family and fuel the writer's imagination.
The endless saga of life playing out in our hamlet plays against a backdrop of an indifferent Mother Nature happy to snap up our lilies and lettuce plants in exchange for life in a game park. No, whether man or beast, around us is everything we need to raise our young-in's and feed our souls.
A word of caution: Our Vice President notwithstanding, Chappaqua residents are not allowed to hunt people (or animals) with guns, so those contemplating a career in writing should also consider a companion class in archery.
When first-time acquaintances in my town learn I am the "Rick" behind "Rick's Last Licks," they invariably ask me what I do for a living when I'm not writing for Inside Chappaqua magazine. As if I needed more on my plate. Somehow, they sense that my column isn't enough for a gainfully employed man -- at least a gainfully employed man living in Chappaqua -- to be doing.
Actually, I tell them that the wonderful publisher of Inside Chappaqua pays me ridiculously well. This and the few wild nuts and berries I can gather keep me in my upwardly mobile lifestyle. With frequent naps, that pretty much rounds out my day. While some people live month-to-month, Inside Chappaqua allows me to live every-other-month, to every-other-month.
No. I do other things for God's sake. Twenty-five years ago I hired myself to run a start-up business communications company -- Media Dynamics -- producing memorable corporate sales meetings and management conferences -- if for no other reason than I could stay in all the world's nicest hotels. Two and half decades and hundreds of happy clients later, it still feels eerily like a start-up.
I also write two blogs designed to cure Bush-Activated Depression, or BAD. But rather than shamelessly promote my news service, suffice it to say I keep just busy enough to stay out of jail. The wildlife in my yard is plentiful, and though my wife's vegetable garden is perennially decimated, there is so much meat available "on the hoof," that one has to wonder why Horace Greeley ever told townspeople to go west.
I remember once, during a visit to Hawaii, feeling that I could survive just picking the fruit hanging within reach of my hammock. Well deer, coyote, fox, bobcat, muskrats, snakes, moles, chipmunk, and endless wildfowl make Chappaqua a veritable supermarket for carnivores like me.
I even have a squirrel who conveniently beds down in my barbecue grill at night. He likes the warm grill just after the last embers have died.
With his blackened tail, the clever squirrel resembles a midget chimney sweep. To my amazement, he seems to tolerate the second-hand smoke quite well. When I evict him, he bites his cute little furry thumb at me and later, pelts me with acorns. Getting hit on the head with an acorn is painful. I can't actually see him doing it, but I know it's him by the sooty footprints on the acorns.
"Can we just not play this game any more?" I scream up into the tree. I'm going to eat that fuckin' rodent one of these days. But I digress.
It's amazing when you think we Chappaquakers live 35 miles from Grand Central Station. The Big Apple may nourish our capitalist cravings, but the bucolic swamps and hillocks of New Castle foster the family and fuel the writer's imagination.
The endless saga of life playing out in our hamlet plays against a backdrop of an indifferent Mother Nature happy to snap up our lilies and lettuce plants in exchange for life in a game park. No, whether man or beast, around us is everything we need to raise our young-in's and feed our souls.
A word of caution: Our Vice President notwithstanding, Chappaqua residents are not allowed to hunt people (or animals) with guns, so those contemplating a career in writing should also consider a companion class in archery.
posted by R. Reynolds at 7:54 AM
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