Alan D. Wilson, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons
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By Bill Stokes
Kickass, the doorstop dog, reports that the keeper has spent much of his long life trying to make amends for his early farm-boy years when his thoughtless marauding with his .22 rifle made no bird or animal safe.
Etched deeply into the keeper’s guilt and regret is the winter afternoon when he walked over the crest of a pasture hill to see a magnificent snowy owl perched on a fence post. Of course, he killed the owl, rendering the exotic symbol of a remote arctic wilderness, with its great yellow eyes and gorgeous plumage, into a lifeless heap of feathers and talons.
Some things are like illicit brands on the brain that withstand time as the unforgettable work of moral rustlers; there is naught to do about them except to live with them, and maybe to acknowledge how they mark the undeniable fact that ignorance and innocence are parts of the grand process of growing up.
The keeper lives with the vivid image of the owl toppling off the fence post and remembers carrying it home to display it for parents’ muted approval.
Every year since, when the snowy owls migrate into Wisconsin to the delight of everyone, the keeper is reminded of his youthful folly, and this year is no exception.  So he dredges up the universal apology for having been young and dumb, and is only mildly comforted by recognizing  that in one way or another, everyone uses it.
