Elmer Fudd-isms (or Just Plain Duck Hunting)

It’s That Time of Year Again: Duck Hunting Season (Not Really)


My office looks out onto a lake/wildlife preserve just outside of downtown Nashville. It’s really a pristine and relaxing view to be able to look out upon. All day ducks, geese and heron placidly drift through the water.

Within this gaggle of geese and paddling of ducks, you’ll find a peculiar specimen: an odd looking water bird. I am told he belongs to some weird species of duck that is much larger than his mallard brothers. He is possibly the ugliest thing you could see -- a mugwort breed of duck and buzzard with a bleach white head and red patches above his eyes.

In ways he reminds me a lot of myself. Like him I often feel quite awkward, a bit out of place, swimming about in the pond with the rest, but at my own pace and in my own little world. I mostly feel like this as I try to figure out this man-woman, duck hunt called “dating.”

It’s a strange phenomenon, this whole mating ritual. Guys strut about town, their feathers out in display for all to see. (Here in Nashville they take on the plumage of tattoos, emo-wear, low-cut V-necks and band-age) The girls do their share of primping, corseting, curling, and painting themselves as well.

Then, there’s me.

On good days I feel presentable (at most) and hope my character (however marred and in need of editing) would make up for my deficiencies. But, like that water-buzzard, I feel strangely out of place. Different. Following from a distance. Observing. Watching (and waiting) for a sign of interest. (A mating call, if you will.)

I realize more and more why so many of us are still single, still searching, still out in the fields with our whistles waiting for someone to take notice. We’re all stuck in our heads. In our ideals. In our daydreams of what “perfection” looks like.

More and more, I feel as if time is buffing out the things that were so precisely carved out of my own Pygmalion creation. I’m learning that the heart -- a man’s character and beliefs -- his integrity and passions are more attuned to how this heart is moved. Looks matter, yes, but the heart (of a man) is what I’m hoping to understand, to hold, to cherish. All the rest is just peacock plumage - pretty packaging that fades and wears and, more often than not, distracts from what is inside.