Michael Jackson Tribute from Nature

COLUMN: Down side of a nature walk

By Tobin Barnes
In the greater scheme of things, this incident, admittedly, is going to seem ridiculously trivial.

Nevertheless, for what it’s worth, here goes.

We live on the rim of Higgins Gulch here in the Black Hills, a nice scenic place to be with the gulch below and a good-sized mountain, Crow Peak, off in the distance. The rim is also a good place to take a walk. Although others have begun building houses in the area, enough nature is still out there to make it almost like a hike.

Sometimes we walk this together, sometimes we go alone, sometimes the neighbor dog goes with us. On this particular day in early June, my wife headed out with only the neighbor dog as companion.

This dog is a typical young pup, literally all over the place, and that, of course, is part of his charm, or any pup’s charm. He’s also one of the fastest dogs I’ve ever been around. This combination of goofiness and speed make him an entertaining walking companion.

My wife and the dog had gotten about halfway through the walk when, quick as a flash, and this is more fact than cliché, he was onto something and in attack mode.

When she came upon the scene, it wasn’t pretty. The dog had its jaws locked onto a little fawn that had been hiding in the tall grass. A couple times the fawn escaped, but the dog was too quick for it, quickly snapping it up again.

She tried to get in between the dog and the fawn when she could, but she and the fawn were no match for the dog. Finally, she decided that the only thing she could do was grab the dog by the collar and drag it away from the fawn. She was a good mile away from our house, but she knew she’d have to lead the dog by the collar the entire distance or it would go back after the fawn.

I was out in the yard when they arrived. Immediately, she wanted to drive back and do what she could for the fawn, despite the fact that she had seen blood.

We were both concerned about interfering with nature—are dogs part of the balance of nature?—but decided to at least check it out. I figured the best-case scenario would be the doe coming back for the fawn and leading it away out of our responsibility.

We put the dog temporarily in the garage to keep it from following us. My wife got some old towels, a bucket of water, and some gloves and stowed them in our pickup. She also brought her cell phone and phone book to call someone like State Game, Fish, and Parks, maybe—heck, we didn’t know. They probably get a lot of calls like that, and they probably always say the same thing.

There isn’t a direct road to the location of the attack, though, as I said, it’s only a mile or so away. We had to drive about six or seven miles to get there by road.

Once there, the fawn wasn’t where she had last seen it. We started looking around, myself hoping my doe retrieval theory had panned out.

But no, I saw something lying on this rocky outcropping and knew immediately what it was, the fawn. I called My wife over and we walked up together and immediately knew the verdict. The fawn was dead. It’s eyes were open, but the light was gone from them. They were glazed over.

I nudged it with my foot, hoping for some kind of Lazarus thing, but the fawn remained still. A little bit of blood showed on its belly, though more damage than that revealed had obviously been done.

It was smallest fawn I’d ever seen, not even any white spots yet.

All in all, it made for a scene of disturbing pathos for two people raised on Disney and not much involved with the harsher side of nature.

Of course, it wasn’t the dog’s fault. He was just doing what dogs do.

And I guess the fawn was playing its part, too. Victim. Much sooner than we would have liked.

Cool Spinning Baseball Bat Trick

Kind of amazing.

COLUMN: Bicycling on a Beach?

The lighthouse at Harbor Town. Image via Wikipedia

By Tobin Barnes
Normally, a person doesn’t think of bicycles and beaches together.

Or anyway I’d never combined those two images—different spheres of activity, really. But it turns out that was just a lack of experience on my part.

I never thought I’d be much of a beach person in the first place. Not that I’m a ball of physical fire, but beach life always seemed pretty sedentary, and frankly, a little dull. I’ve since changed my mind.

We’ve been to a lot of places now where beaches border oceans, and I’ve come to enjoy and appreciate them immensely. Yes, as good places to sit around a little while and enjoy the rolling surf and the incoming and outgoing tides--but mainly as great places to take a walk.

Something primal about beaches appeals to a lot of people, and to me.

I’ve been on beaches where the sand was so soft it was like walking on pillows. And I’ve been on beaches that were literally strewn with shells and sea-life debris. And I’ve been on beaches that were mostly pebbles, rocks, and boulders.

But I’d never been on a beach where people rode bicycles until I’d gotten to Hilton Head Island in South Carolina where we spent an early summer vacation recently. Our hotel was just off the beach, the two separated by a line of sand dunes with sea oats growing on them.

So, yes, this was a sandy beach, but a hard sandy beach, particularly on the parts where the tide had come in and gone back out. Then it was so compacted and broad, it was fit for an airplane landing strip.

And, as I’ve indicated, this surface made it a perfect place to ride bicycles.

Rentals could be taken out from all kinds of places on the island, including our hotel.

The rentals we picked up were pretty stodgy things—nothing special whatsoever, just well-used, broad-handle-barred, fat-tired, single-geared, reverse-the-pedal-to-brake-it kinda clunky things. Pretty much like everybody else’s who was riding this beach. The standard model, I guess.

Nevertheless, these bikes were more than enough to make you feel like a kid again. But then bicycles do that. They were seemingly designed for kids and for people who don’t mind feeling like a kid.

The beach was so flat and hard that pedaling was supremely effortless.

We’d go for miles and miles before even noticing the distance we’d covered. We’d swerve back and forth, down by the water and then back up toward the dunes. We’d swerve around other bicyclers and walkers and people in beach chairs and on towels. It was like a dreamy clip in a movie.

No one seemed to notice all the two-wheeled traffic winding amongst the sunbathers, no one got upset. People riding bicycles was not only condoned, but expected. All the beachcombers probably did their share of riding, too. Seemed like these fuddy-duddy bikes were parked by many, if not most, of the houses, condos, and hotels on the island.

When we had our fill of riding on the beach, we’d turn inland and ride the miles of flat bike paths amidst the subtropical, almost jungle-like growth in the interior of the island—specifically, nearly 50 miles of bike paths, if I remember the tourist literature correctly. We didn’t do all fifty, but we biked a lot of them across the island.

So, bicycling on a beach?

Sure. Some places, it’s the thing to do.

Early Muppets and Wilkins Coffee

Good Late Night

Monologue | Aired Tuesday night on CBS: Thank you very much. Welcome to the “Late Show,” ladies and gentlemen. Now, when I call your name, please come forward and pick up your apology.

I want to get through this as quickly as possible so you folks can get to the “Fire Dave” rally.

It’s nice that people hate me who are no longer just part of my immediate family.

My son, you know, he’s telling everybody at school that his father is Conan. Read more…

COLUMN: Time Takes a Holiday

By Tobin Barnes
Let me tell you a tale of woe. We were taking a trip to South Carolina a couple weeks ago when time became mushy. And let me tell you, you don’t want your time to get mushy like ours did.

It all started at the Rapid City Airport. Our last travel adventure, The Trip to Nowhere, had started at that airport, too. That one had also ended there. Matter of fact, this current South Carolina trip I’m talking about was actually the fulfillment of a South Carolina trip that had abruptly ended in the blizzards of April. Then the Rapid City Airport closed due to bad weather, despite the fact that we had snow-shoed--among other things--to get to that airport on time for our flight.

If you note a certain bitterness so far, good--that tone will continue in spades.

Anyway, it’s while we’re waiting for our second attempt to fly to South Carolina that time got mushy. We and our fellow travelers had boarded the plane in good order, stowed our baggage, and gotten settled when the captain told us to get back off the plane. Apparently, a runway construction delay in Denver made them unable to receive our flight from Rapid City. Rather than sit and wait on the plane, we would get off to sit and wait in the terminal. This would be more comfortable, and “it shouldn’t take long.”

It shouldn’t, but it did. In the mean time, a guy sitting behind us in the waiting area decided to make a totally meaningless cell phone call. Why do I call it meaningless? Because I was subjected to hearing every word of it, as was everyone else in the surrounding area, given the human propensity to talk louder into a cell phone than is necessary, particularly in public. And let me assure you--that conversation was totally meaningless. But that’s a topic for another day.

Eventually, we were told to board the plane again. And we were doing just that when we were told to stop boarding the plane. The problem in Denver evidently still hadn’t been resolved.

Well, we’re back in the terminal yet again, but “it shouldn’t take long,” and the ticket agents would reassign us new connecting flights for the connections we were going to miss in Denver.

Now “long” is a relative term. When a criminal is sentenced to life imprisonment, that’s long. But when a “not long” airport delay causes a missed connection, that can also be long, as you will soon see. Yes, time had begun to get mushy.

Once in Denver, we found our new, later connection to Dallas, the second leg of three on our trip to South Carolina, and boarded without any reboarding rigamarole. But be assured, this was not the beginning of a happier time. We were now trapped in a vortex of mushiness that would last at least six hours. I eventually became so slap-happy I’m not sure of even that figure, what with the time change and all.

Ever spent six hours sitting in a little uncomfortable airplane seat when you thought you were going to spend less than two hours in it? Don’t. It will fathom the depths of your psychological inadequacies.

Because of the reassigned connection, we weren’t even sitting next to each other, and therefore unable to carp upon our misery to a familiar ear. What’s worse, I was stuck between two burly guys named Bubba.

Things really started going to heck when the pilot told us there was a thunderstorm over Dallas so our takeoff would be delayed a few minutes. I’ve always thought of “few” meaning three or four...at the outside maybe five. His few minutes was more like a half hour. The mushiness was continuing.

After we finally took off and were flying for a while, the pilot gets on and says the storm didn’t move on as fast as expected, so we were going into a holding pattern over Wichita Falls to wait it out. But it shouldn’t take “long,” maybe 15 minutes.
Yeah, there’s that word again. We ended up holding for more than a half hour when he gets back on and says the unplanned delay was using up our fuel, so we’d have to land in Oklahoma City to refuel, but it shouldn’t take “long.” We’d be first in line.

As you have probably guessed, not only did it take long--we were evidently last in the refueling line--but after gassing up and taxiing out for take off, the pilot gets on and tells us things were still fouled up in Dallas because a big backlog of planes still had to land after the storm delay. So we’d have to sit on the tarmac there in Oklahoma City until things cleared out. “Shouldn’t be more than a half hour.” Turned into more like an hour.

He also said not to worry since all the planes coming into Dallas had been delayed, so our connecting flights would probably still be there for us once we got in. Uh huh.
Of course, as you have probably also guessed, ours wasn’t. It had been “long” gone in the mushiness of time. I hope that’s the last night I spend in Dallas.

Good Late Night

Monologue | Aired Thursday night on CBS: Here’s big news from the world of TV. And I don’t know if you guys are ready for this or not. If you have an old TV, tomorrow, it won’t work unless you digitalize it. You’ve got to get a converter thing and a lot of people are confused about this. For example, earlier today, John McCain wanted to know after the conversion, will his TV dinner still work.

You folks been following the Iranian elections? Well this guy, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, he’s running for re-election. Have you seen this guy? This guy looks like the kind of guy that tries to get to you buy a cell phone you don’t need. You know what I mean?

He looks like one of those guys that would be wearing a Members Only jacket.

He looks like one of those guys they drag away every week on “Dateline”, you know what I mean?

Boy, here’s a story that won’t go away. Miss California - remember Miss California? Got herself in a lot of trouble, shooting her mouth off. Gee, I wonder what that’s like.

Well, now, Miss California’s been fired. Don’t worry. President Obama said he will announce a replacement within a week, so that will be good.

Well, it’s been a busy week here on the late show. Earlier in the week, I made some jokes that upset Sarah Palin. And I was telling jokes about her family and stuff. She got really upset. And I think everything’s fine now. I think everything’s going to be great because she called today and offered to take me hunting.