People Don’t Do This Much Anymore

Full disclosure: I’m not a scientist but it’s hard not to notice.

Photo by Julia Volk

I rented a house in Maine for the winter. I know, Maine is where you go in the summer. When I was rich, that’s what I did.

One summer, I rented a house in Boothbay Harbor and even rented kayaks, just to, “have around.”

Now, I rent a place in northern Maine for the winter. It’s deserted and I love it. This house is closer to Acadia than Boothbay and I walk a lot while I’m there.

Walking through the town one day, I saw four hunters. Their brown camouflage outfits were so new, you could almost smell them. They looked like rich, white men on a hunting vacation. That’s when it occurred to me.

Have you noticed people don’t hunt anymore?

For the record, I‘m not a hunter and no one in my immediate family hunts either, yet hunting was all around me growing up in a rural area.

As I drove near my rental in Maine, I saw a “High Deer Strike” sign. I saw deer-proof netting around gardens. There were a lot of deer and they were making themselves known.

If you were 40 years old in 1998 you’ve lived through a doubling of the population. All those people need somewhere to live, so people are…