CAA: Christian Anime Alliance

Yay! Inspired by what some people have told me about my little reflection on the desert in which I live, "Dry"... I pitched an idea to my boss at the local newspaper.

I work as a graphic designer for a little newspaper, and haven't been getting enough hours/pay to live off of there, but, I do rather like the job, and am on friendly terms with my boss, who is the publisher. We have one main writer who covers all the big local events and accidents, contributing articles from the head of the local police, and one of our people (who also does final paste up and newspaper delivery) writes a humor collunm.

I know that the writing there is paid per line. My boss cannot have me do this yet, as we are having trouble with people purchasing adveristing, a couple of our advertisers declaring bankruptcy, and some people just being deadbeats (the newspaper is completley supported by advertising revenues). But, that's okay, as I want to get a few of these little things written up ahead of time, anyway.

I pitched an idea to her for my own collunm, and she really liked the idea! She wants me to write these... and when our business picks up, if I have a few ready to go for a few weeks, I can have a weekly collumn!

It would be.. a little reflections on the desert/ local life thing. I think my first submission will be my "famous" piece, "Dry", but... I need to have more than that to submit! All my pieces need to be short, after all, this is for a newspaper, not a novel. I want to do this more for the publishing credits than for the pay - I'd like to have some publishing credits under my belt, for my possible writing career, which I wish to take off.

I figured that I would start this thread, and as I write my little pieces, post them here to have people preview them and give me opinions on them. I want to make sure they are good before I have my boss look them over.

I wrote up a piece today after I came home from work reflecting on the encounters with unique local wildlife. I will post it after I start the thread, in a reply.

First collumn for submission:


CRITTTERS


There is something special about living “in the country” surrounded by the Arizona desert. Whenever I take a walk out in the desert, I see something wild: a cottontail rabbit, lizards, jackrabbits, sometimes even a coyote. I have had several particularly special encounters with the denizens of the desert in my life that I will never forget, such experiences that people who live in the city never have.

I remember being thirteen years old and climbing a stony mountain near my home when I caught sight of a pair of great-horned owls. I stayed far off, so as not to frighten them away as they looked down at me from the rocks they were perched upon. One of the birds turned its head and looked at me with its huge, deep eyes. He certainly was afraid that I would come closer, that I might hurt him, or perhaps it was a she. I wished only to stay where I was, and to look, breathless and wondering.

There was the time my mother and I watched a large Gila monster cross the road through the Estrella housing development, loping along at his slow, wobbling pace, a red and black-checkered dinosaur with a stump for a tail... There was the coyote that came up our street before he caught sight of me looking at him and ran the other way... and, of course, there was the snake on our roof.

I was in high school then. I remember not wanting to get up to get ready to catch the school bus when I heard the family dog barking his head off. The dog was just beneath my window outside in the front yard, barking at something by my plant-trellis. Mother went outside to check it out, and I heard her screaming a moment later about a rattlesnake being there and not to come outside. My mother is a practical person who has no qualms about killing a snake if she feels the need to. She taught me the method with a flat-bladed shovel, though, in all legality, when one encounters a snake in one’s yard, one is supposed to call animal control. She always thought that it was too much of a bother and was afraid of a resident snake coming back.

She was attempting to eliminate our rattle-tailed friend when the reptile, as quick as lightning strikes, coiled and slithered up my trellis to my mother’s scream to keep my head away from the window (which was closed, by the way). In the end, when I went to catch the bus, the snake was happy and safe on top of our roof. Mom had fears that the animal would somehow climb down into our pipes, but it never did. I can only assume that it eventually slithered down and found a new place to live. After his experience with my murderous mother and the barking dog, I probably would have done the same thing.

Not everyone who visits or moves out here from the city knows how to deal with the local wildlife. As a child, I grew up catching lizards. The ones I most commonly caught were horny toads, because they are slow, gentle, and fairly easy to capture. Speedier lizards were more challenging game, and thus more special to catch when I managed to do it. Upon making a capture, I would hold the tiny animal in my hand, admiring its special beauty and gently stroking its smooth, scaled skin with a finger – then I would release it to go forth and continue living its life. I never paid attention to those who said that little girls were not supposed to like lizards and things like that.

One of these times, my urban-dwelling cousin was visiting. I had a small, tawny-scaled lizard in my hand, and I showed it to her proudly, for it was one of the fast-running lizards, often chased but seldom caught. I could not believe how loudly she screamed! I showed her that it was harmless. The creature had much more to fear from us than we of it; after all, I have never known these kinds of lizards to bite. I could have crushed it in my hand, had I wanted to, yet my cousin acted as if it were vicious or diseased. After laughing at my cousin, I let the lizard go.

A few years ago, a new pastor was hired at the little local church I went to. He and his family were from Phoenix. One Sunday, after a potluck in the Sunday School building, I entered the main sanctuary to find the pastor and his wife shouting and absolutely unsure what to do.

There was a large scorpion near the altar. The pastor’s wife was whacking at it with a broom, trying to crush it with the bristles. I calmly told her that I’ve dealt with scorpions in my family’s house time and time again. I took the broom from her, turned it around, and crushed the offending arachnid with the butt end of it. I don’t like taking lives when I can help it, but there were children around and I did not want any of them to be stung. Dealing with the scorpion in this manner was all that could be done in the place at the time, but one certainly cannot kill a scorpion by brushing it with broom bristles! City people. I was dubbed the “church wildlife ranger” from then on.

Given wildlife encounters both awe-inspiring and frightening, I am glad, overall, to have grown up in the desert. The beasts that have shared their desert world with me have made my life a rich and unique experience that I could have received nowhere else.

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This is absolutely wonderful. Yay!