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MOST PEOPLE TALK BULLSHIT:
One Primate's Search For Intelligent Life
(GENESIS)
We
Move Away From The River and Deeper Into The Barrens
The last fight with my cousin was the final time we ceased to
have any interaction with their family. Within the month, we
moved closer to one of the restaurants where my mother worked.
Our new home was five miles closer to the beach and situated
across the road from the entrance of Camp Lejeune’s rifle range.
Now
we were deeper in the pine-barrens and except for two
neighboring houses we were alone..
The one
neighbor’s house was the distance of a football field from us,
separated by dense growth of pine trees and underbrush. A young
couple with a two-year girl lived there. Across the dirt road,
in the other house lived an old couple with their
eighteen-year-old severely retarded son. We were instructed to
stay away from him. His strangeness and his reclusive nature did
not make this difficult.
The
majority of the traffic on the road was Marine Corp vehicles. I
always felt a thrill and more than a little awed every time I
saw Marines in their fatigues or camouflaged uniforms. Since we
no longer lived near people that cared to watch over us, my
mother hired a girl to watch and cook for us.
Another downside about living deeper in the barrens was that we
no longer lived near the New Islet River which meant that my
supplemental food supply was greatly diminished.
The
discomfort of our hunger pangs came back tenfold. I still went
frog gigging to help take the edge off my hunger. Every time I
managed to catch one I brimmed over with excitement as I cleaned
and cook them just like my uncle VD had taught me. Unfortunately
now that we live deep in the barrens, the big frogs were less
numerous.
For
those of you who may wonder about the finer points of preparing
frogs for a tasty meal, cleaning and skinning them is easy. The
skin of a frog peels off as easily as wet vinyl off a manikin.
After skinning, then you gut them, dip them in flower and fry or
bake till done. However, a few times I think I did not prepare
the frogs well enough and I got really queasy after the meal.
Perhaps that is why, years later, the thought of eating frogs is
not as pleasant as it once was. When I think back, the stuff I
often ate would have put me in the running on the show Fear
Factor.
Hunting down enough to eat to keep ahead of my caloric needs and
my pangs of hunger was really tough. When we lived near the
river, I felt that I could keep level with my body’s needs. The
river was flush with food, and more frogs and turtles lived
closer to the river than deep in the barrens. My growing body
and the calories I burned hiking and foraging for food exceeded
the food that I could collect.
I
ate stuff that I once thought would be impossible for me to eat.
Starvation has a persuasive influence on what a person finds
palatable.
Once, when I was out in the barrens, the pangs of hunger
tortured me so much, I was compelled to do the unthinkable. I
had read how many people of primitive tribes around the world
supplemented their meat and vegetable diet; they ate bugs,
especially maggots and grubs. The thought of maggots was too
gross for me to consider.
I
remembered all the times that I had seen the fly maggots
crawling by the millions in garbage cans back in Philadelphia,
and they reminded me of the fat parasitic pin worms that can rip
through your intestines: since my brother and I had to be
treated for worm infestations a few times, I vowed, starving or
not, I would avoid anything that looked remotely like a maggot
or a pinworm.
However, the big fat beetle grubs that were prolific as hell
under logs out in the barrens was another matter. I reasoned
that they did not look unlike the shrimp I helped my uncle to
de-head, clean and pack in ice. My starving brain convinced me
to see these beetle grubs as big fat succulent land shrimp.
I
screwed up my courage by visualizing that I was working on the
docks next to the children and handling thousands of big beetle
grubs, cleaning them and then packing them in ice, just like we
did with the shrimp.
In
my mind, I saw these grubs neatly lined around in the same
silver bowls of ice, with cocktail sauce and garnished of
lettuce, just like the shrimp cocktails I had so often eaten.
I was
convinced they would taste just like the shrimp.
I
was encouraged when I read the natives that ate these grubs
didn’t even have to cook them. Hell…they didn’t even bother to
kill them. In one book, the anthropologist observed the natives
plopping these plump wiggling grubs into their mouths, like
children greedily eating candy, then exhibiting inexplicable joy
with each mouthful.
My
brain desperate for nourishment whispered to me that I had
tapped into a food source that would guarantee that my belly
would stay filled, since these grubs existed in the millions out
in the barrens. You could find them almost virtually under every
log. “Land shrimp”, my mind whispered again.
Now
I was determined to gather my new food source. I felt delighted,
ecstatic even, at the thought that I would never go hungry
again. Now I would soon be enjoying something that was like one
of my favorite seafood dishes… shrimp cocktail! A small part of
me, in the back corners of my mind saw how this knowledge could
be shared with the rest of the world. In my mind’s eye I saw
people sitting in their favorite restaurants ordering up bowls
of beetle grub cocktails as they waited for their main course.
My
desperate starving body took me away from this line of thinking
and re-focused me again to start harvesting the beetle grubs. I
was a hungry boy on a mission. I had canning jars with me which
I had punched holes in the top to allow any critters that I
would often catch to examine so they could breathe. I often
brought these with me whenever I went out into the barrens, the
swamps, or any terrain. I was after all, half Marlin Perkins,
half Tarzan.
I
went through the barrens lifting up logs at a fast and furious
pace…my brain compelling me to apply myself to finish the task.
I decided that I would fill up both large jars to the brim. When
I had both jars filled to the brim with wriggling squirming
grubs,
I felt a
keen sense of satisfaction, of accomplishment.
I
hurried through the barrens to get to a stream that I often
visited when I hunted for fish and frogs. At a certain section
of the stream the water flowed at a decent speed.
I
untied my tee shirt that I usually kept wrapped around my waist,
and then I laid it out on the ground like a small picnic
blanket. I dumped both jars of grubs onto my shirt. I could feel
the heat from their writhing bodies hitting my hands before I
even brought them close enough to touch them. I marveled at how
such little non-mammalian creatures were able to generate such
heat.
“Perhaps
they are still holding on to the heat that decomposing leaves
and wood puts off,” I thought.
I brushed
off as much dirt from their bodies as I could, since I was a
little concerned about germs. While they were in the center of
my shirt, I twisted the shirt in such a way as to keep all of
the grubs from spilling out. I remembered that my Nana had used
cheesecloth over food to do what I was now about to do.
With
my living writhing booty of food I made a few quick dipping
motions of the shirt full of grubs into the running stream, to
ensure that more unsavory debris was rinsed off along with any
unnecessary germs. I did this three times, and very quickly,
since I thought that drowning them would ruin the meal. (No idea
why I thought that).
I
rushed over to a flat area near the bank of the stream and
anxiously opened my shirt.
“Good, I thought, they are not sopping wet and ruined!”
The
grubs were still generating heat from their bodies and they were
still moving around vigorously.
The
sun was very warm and felt magnificent. The birds were singing,
the frogs croaking, the Cicadas chirping their song, and right
then and there I felt heady with the knowledge that I was just
like Tarzan of the Apes. I could live off the land with the best
of them.
I now had
an unlimited food source. My mouth was salivating profusely in
anticipation of the feast. Life really couldn’t get any better!
I was going to eat my fill.
Despite all of these empowering thoughts and feelings, I
hesitated as I looked down at the squiggling grubs. Then I threw
all caution to the winds...I grabbed the three biggest most
succulent grubs and plopped them right into my salivating mouth.
For an instant I was put off by their moving about in my
mouth…their tough tiny little clawed legs scraping my tongue,
the way that a piece of a shrimp tail or its shell will. I bit
down quickly with the intent to chew fast and furious, to get
the buggers digested. I was not prepared for what I experienced
next.
Their warm, plump, moving bodies exploded throughout the
interior of my mouth, (*like fat tough skinned grapes that were
filled with hot creamy pus). It wasn’t the taste that was that
bad, it was the combination of the heat from the moving bodies,
along with the nasty clinging texture… and the thoughts that
they conjured up. The creamy hot fetid pus-like interior of
their bodies coated much of the inside of my mouth and my
tongue.
I
must have looked like a dog gagging and choking, trying to rid
nasty peanut butter out of its mouth. You know…the way a dog
looks like its body is torn between trying to get the stuff down
it’s throat to its stomach, or frantically spit it out while
wiping its tongue on the grass…doing what ever it takes to just
get that God forsaking mess out of the mouth.
In
disgust I picked up my shirt and tossed the two jars worth of
grubs that I had spent so much time and effort carefully
harvesting into the tall grass. Then I took my shirt, and
careful as I could be, find a spot that the grubs had not been
on so that I could start rubbing and scrapping the remnants of
their fetid bodies off and away from my tongue and mouth.
As I
was furiously wiping my tongue, my stomach retched powerfully
from the horror of what I had done. The retching was so painful
because of the lack of food which it could eliminate for relief
was not there. All that came up was digestive juices and
greenish-yellow bile.
Once
my body quieted down and the horror of what I had done had
softened, I sat in the shade feeling dejected, and hungry. Gone
were the thoughts of grubs being served up in restaurants, gone
was an unlimited food source. Two sad thoughts were now
dominating my mind. The first one was that those primitive
natives were just poor buggers who suffered from starvation that
was greater and longer than my own.
The
second sad thought was the realization that if I did not find
something in the barrens to eat…I would have to endure what
seemed to be torturous hunger until Teresa had supper on the
table.
Despite the horrible
experience with eating uncooked grubs if I had known it was safe
to sautéed grubs, bugs and worms I would have certainly given
these a try. I still may.
MOST PEOPLE TALK BULLSHIT:
One Primate's Search For Intelligent Life
(EXODUS)
MOST PEOPLE TALK BULLSHIT:
One Primate's Search For Intelligent Life
(REVELATIONS)
MOST PEOPLE TALK BULLSHIT:
One Primate's Search For Intelligent Life
(JUDGMENT DAY)
ADVENTURES IN MARINE BIOLOGY
THE MARINES: GOD'S CHOSEN
WARRIORS
VINCE'S GYM
CONVERSATIONS WITH NEO
NEO TEACHES ME THE ART OF WAR
& PEACE;
His Version of The Matrix
MEMORIES OF MY FATHERS
ZEN & THE ART OF RESISTANCE
TRAINING:
A Yogic & Scientific Approach To Weight
Lifting
ZEN & THE BIOLOGY OF
TRANSCENDENCE:
The First Matrix of Psychic
Phenomena
ZEN & THE ART OF KINESIOLOGY:
The Yogic & Scientific
Approach To Movement
ZEN & YOUR ENERGY SYSTEMS
ZEN & VARIOUS ASPECTS OF
TRAINING
MOST PEOPLE TALK BULLSHIT:
One Primate's Search For Intelligent Life
(GENESIS)
HOMEPAGE
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