@ponchoparker
As I watched a family of deer cross in front of me earlier this week, I experienced/suffered one of those non-acid flashbacks that threw me back in time to where I had a very personal altercation with one of nature’s more timid forest creatures. Fortunately, I was behind 4,000 pounds of glass and steel which prevented Bambi from attacking yours truly and if you dare, please read on as I unveil a short series of stories that’s far from terrifying, unless you’re me.
It was the 1970s, a time of leaded gas, T-shirts with your name on the back in felt letters and a very young Poncho Parker, who was diligently practicing his piano lessons. The piano was a permanent fixture that sat right next to our single pane patio door and unbeknownst to me, Uncle Brian, the hunter in the family, had thought he’d show off his prize winning seven-point buck. While I plunked away on a mediocre version of “My Bonnie Lies Over the Ocean,” eternal negative connotations of killer deer would be immediately evoked as Uncle Brian had silently slid open the patio door (we didn’t lock doors on the farm) and stuck the antlers though the opening which was still attached to the head of the deceased animal and let out a scream that no deer has ever made. That scream was drowned out by my shriek of terror and I found out right then and there what it meant to be paralyzed by fear.
Fast forward a few years to the mid 1980s when I had just finished cultivating the north 40 with moonlight as the only remaining luminosity, perfect for reflecting the eyes of the enemy. It was a short walk to the old Ford half ton that would carry my bones home had it not been for the party of deer that had surrounded my means of transportation. Being a chubby child with asthma and weak ankles, running was not my forte but for a solid 38 seconds, I’m convinced I was faster than the Flash hopped up on trucker pills. And so there I sat, in the cab of a tractor surrounded in near darkness with a faulty CB radio and one overactive imagination while faded memories of the “piano experience” were brought to the forefront of my melon. Every once in a while you’ll hear stories of people blacking out to prevent mental trauma and while I won’t push it that far, I find it odd that I can’t genuinely remember just exactly how and when I got home that evening.
And in a final stroke of bad deer luck, I must have been attempting my Eric Lindros impersonation because I never saw the hit coming when that dastardly deer hip checked me off my snowmobile.
And as we both lay in the frozen field counting the stars, the only way the situation could have gotten any stranger would be to have a referee counting to 10, although the deer made the count and I received the TKO. For a time I was convinced that any and all deer in the Tiger Hills vicinity had taken out a “hit” on my person for reasons that I couldn’t comprehend because by this time in my life, I was erring on the side of caution when it came to a doe, a deer and not necessarily a female deer either. Funny how a single scene can trigger an entire flood of memories isn’t it?
And if you’ve got something on your mind, you can find Poncho weekday mornings on Medicine Hat’s Best Rock, 105.3 Rock. You can also track him down at 1053rock.ca or on Twitter @ponchoparker
