Turkey Shoot

A few miles east of me is a small scattering of homes-- a very small community where there used to be a convenience store a decade ago but it had to close because of lack of business. The volunteer fire department (one fire engine and an emergency vehicle) still exists there. In order to maintain the service, they have a "Turkey Shoot" each year. It's a pretty informal event with food supplied (and yummily cooked) by the volunteers and their wives and prizes are donated by some of the merchants of surrounding towns. Targets are erected and, for a buck a shot, the hunters vie to win turkeys, hams and the first prize which is a rifle or shotgun.

It's surprising how many people show up this far out in the country and even more surprising is how this one event generates enough money to keep the Fire Department operating for one more year.

It's a part of Americana that exemplifies what community means, much like the church picnic or the festivities and parade preceding small town high school homecoming games. It's kind of saddening to see these slices of the American pie getting smaller each year and to realize how neighborliness is slowly dissappearing in the complex, electronized and digitized cities and towns across our nation.

By nature, man is a social being and it is not amusing to me to ponder how the fast-paced business of corporate capitalism is affecting this socialibility and how it surely is going to eventually change the nature of humanity.