Buddy

We had a friend of Brian's here this past weekend. The two of them used to be thick as thieves whilst they were both single, but not long after we got married and moved here, he and his wife moved hundreds of miles west from our hometown. We're lucky to see them on holidays (and Brian, on the occasional hunting trip).

It was really good for Brian to have a buddy around, because let me tell you, while I love Brian and have fun with him, I don't think I'll ever be able to be his buddy.

And bless his heart, Brian never has a 'guys night' with guys around here. The few he's befriended are pretty much all dads (meaning, busy), and besides, when I ask Brian if he'd want to go out to watch a game with guys from work, he just shrugs and says, "Not really, I'd rather hang out with you." And while some women might not like that, I do. I love it.

Anyway, the two of them spent the entire weekend upstairs with a cloth tape measure and a notepad, scoring all the bucks that Brian's got mounted in the loft. When they wanted to take a break, they popped in a hunting video. The comments I heard floating from the loft made me smile. The things they pointed out to each other with astonishment or laughter were things I would never, in a million years, think remarkable about a hunting video or a whitetail buck. I imagined their conversation sounded to me like a conversation between me and my girlfriends watching TLC's Say 'Yes' to the Dress would sound to Brian .

"Dude, you think that's like one-eighty?"

"No way, man! That thing's a monster! I mean, a monster! Totally more than that."

"Naw, I swear he's just holding the rack a certain way."

"I'm telling you, that buck is exactly like the one that guy from my work saw in his uncle's field. He had trail-cam pictures and everything."

"No way, dude. I might not think that buck's as big as you say but there's no way you'd see something like that in velvet. He'd have to be an absolute pig, like a world record or something."

"I'm not lying, man!"

"Dude," (changing the subject) "you think I should get a new rangefinder?"

"I don't know, man, I think you've been hitting kind of high, you might need a new one, or just memorize your paces a little better."

"Man," (turning attention back to video) "I can't believe I drew for elk this year and I can't wait to go hunt 'em, but man if I could only hunt one animal for the rest of my life, it'd totally be - "

(In unison:) "Whitetails, dude."

"I'm telling you, they have so much more character and variation. Plus, dude, no other animal could live in such high concentration and still be so wary and such a challenge to kill."

"Man, I agree with you. Dall sheep or mountain goats or even elk are a challenge to hunt because of environment, but whitetails are just so wary."

"Totally, man."

... and on it went. A different tongue altogether. (I'm sure if Brian read the above conversation, he'd scoff at my misrepresentation. I'm just doing my best to portray the abstractness of it all.)