What I know about the profession of park rangers I learned from visiting the park near my grandparents' house between the ages of six and ten. In those few extremely formative years I didn't spend an enormous amount of time in the park when visiting grandma and grandpa, mainly because their beagle and I were much too busy saving the world from a billion or so ceramic frogs, my older cousins and a concrete statue of St. Francis in grandma's garden (my childhood axis of evil) but when I did, I drew the following conclusions about park rangers:
1.) One of them always worked in the weird little toll booth thing going into the park. But that job was clearly his or her downtime because
2.) They were always stoic, silent, majestically fit men and women. They were so mighty that digging out a map of a park for you was beneath them, but they did it anyway because inferior beings needed sympathy too.
3.) They wore uniforms that I assumed you got after they gave you your license to kill in boyscouts or girlscouts.
I decided, based on these conclusions, that being a park ranger was epically bitchin'. As a child, I imagined the day of the park ranger beginning just before dawn in a cabin deep in the woods. Probably the ranger arose to the muted baying of a distant wolf about five seconds before the sun rose because park rangers had no time to waste waiting for the sun. They then proceeded to eat some wholesome granola soaked in a shot of Jack Daniels, so as to be both healthy and prepared for the day to come. After breakfast, the park ranger would engage in a rigorous training regime. Their exercise would be based on a secret martial art known only to park rangers, and would definitely involve breaking shit with their feet, jumping inhumanly high and that thing where they stand on a little pillar of wood for an indefinite amount of time while concentrating really hard (I knew this had to be part of the ritual training because those little wooden pillars were in the park. No I don't mean tree stumps. Focus.)
After completing his or her preparatory training (they wouldn't train together. Park rangers are far too hardcore for that), the park ranger would leap deftly into his or her Jeep four by four to do a quick check of the park. Many dangers would be waiting in the bracken as the park ranger drove along. Some days they might merely have to shoo some children off a picnic table. Those days would be lame. But other days, a massive bear would lunge out of the woods and start raining down a shitstorm of asscrazy bear-wrath hitherto unknown to man. The only option for the park ranger, in order to maintain a safe park environment, would be to cooly step out of the Jeep and wrestle the everliving fuck out of that bear. They'd grapple wildly in the leaves, throwing punches and kicks and... err... claw punches until the bear was subdued. The park ranger would never actually do any lasting harm to the bear, of course. That would be against their code.
Other days a flock of vicious swans (anyone who thinks swans can't be vicious has never been chase by one. Those bastards would peck out both your eyes as soon as look at you) would storm up from the lake and start carrying off the children of picnickers. The park ranger present would have to charge (or, because they were just that awesome, casually stroll) in and stop the swan chaos. Every day would be a new challenge, a new mind-wrenchingly intense game of Russian Roulette with the sawed off shotgun of nature.The life of a park ranger was always fraught with danger and intrigue -and also clearing paths when trees fell down.
I may or may not have confused them with ninjas a little.
But the point is, when I was a child I accidentally created a mythic park ranger. Much like what I thought the park ranger's job entailed, the pegasus is a myth. It's a winged horse, FYI. Sired by Poseidon in his role of horse god. Aka, in horse form. Aka, in a situation I feel a strong need to avoid imagining for the rest of my life. Long story short, it's a winged horse, it can fly, it's a myth. A slightly disturbing myth.
Farming to Frank Zappa
No comments:
Post a Comment