When Walt Harrington was first invited to Kentucky to hunt with his
African American father-in-law and his country friends--Bobby,
Lewis, and Carl--he was a jet-setting reporter for The Washington
Post with a distaste for killing animals and for the men's brand of
old-fashioned masculinity. But over the next 12 years, this white
city slicker entered a world of life, death, nature, and manhood
that came to seem not brutal or outdated but beautiful in a way his
experience in Washington was not. The Everlasting Stream is the
absorbing, touching, and often hilarious story of how hunting with
these good ol' boys forced an enlightened man to reexamine his
modern notions of guilt and responsibility, friendship and
masculinity, ambition and satisfaction. In crisp prose that bring
autumn mornings crackling to life, Harrington shares the lessons
that led him to leave Washington. When his son turned 14,
Harrington began taking him hunting too, believing that these
rough-edged, whiskey-drinking men could teach his suburban boy
something worthwhile about lives different from his own, the joy of
small moments, and the old-fashioned belief that a man's actions
mean more than his words. The Everlasting Stream is a funny,
intimate, inspiring meditation on the meaning of a life well lived.
CHAPTER ONE Walt recounts the first time he went shooting with his
father-in-law, Alex, in rural Glasgow, Kentucky, during a
Thanksgiving visit with his wife. "I lived in Washington DC, where
most people I knew believed hunters were sick, violent men." His
attitude toward his African-American hunting mates ("I was white,
and I figured it was going to be my worry to fit in") is
"condescending as hell," but it all turns around when he shoots his
first rabbit, and surprises himself with the purity of his
exhuberence when he calls out, "I got him!" He discusses the
repulsion over having to clean his rabbit, but when his guests act
similarly repulsed when he serves them rabbit dinner, he says "I
think I'm going to kill some more." CHAPTER TWO He describes
hunting with Alex, Bobby, Lewis and Carl in a gully half the length
of football field. "Over the years I've become convinced that Alex,
Bobby, Lewis, and Carl have discovered the secrets of living life
well," although "the idea that these men had anything to teach me
didn't come to me for many Thanksgiving vacations." He is attracted
by how well they get to know a place through hunting it: "How many
of us can say that about any place in our lives?" The men are like
relics of a bygone era, but they eventually convinced him that he
should bring his son along too. He introduces Carl and Bobby, who
have retired from factory jobs--they own sixty acres together in
the country. Lewis bought his own 18-wheel rig a few years ago and
still hauls freight. Alex is retired and has many hobbies. The men
talk in a colorful drawl about their dogs, teasing each other
mercilessly. CHAPTER THREE He talks about hunting at the Old
Collins Place. Every time he comes back there, he sees something
for the first time. He talks about how ambitious he was as a kid,
determined to make a name for himself in journalism. He meets his
wife-to-be, Keran, and works thankless 70-hour weeks until he
finally writes a profile of George Bush that gets him major
attention, a huge raise, and freedom to cover other figures such as
Jesse Jackson, Jerry Falwell, etc. CHAPTER FOUR: BOBBY'S BARN His
son Matt catches a rabbit and gets a sip off the post-hunting
bottle of Wild Turkey. He discusses his tough decision of taking
the boy hunting for the first time when he was seven: "Really I
rolled the dice. I knew that most affluent city perople would
shield their sons from such rough men and gritty settings. But
after my first few years of hunting I deced that the forests,
fields, wind, rain moon, stars, leaves, weeds, guns, killing,
cursing, drinking--and naturally the men themselves--would be good
for Matt." He describes skinning and gutting a rabit--he does it
without squeamishness because "it has to be done," the same way you
have to clean up a kid's vomit. LAWSON BOTTOM He discusses the time
it dawned on him that he had come to savor things--the Miro
painting he owns, for instance-- and asks himself "I love my work
but what if the day comes when I don't? What happens to all of
this? What happens to me? Will I be trapped in my affluence for the
rest of my life?" (The climax of his career comes when President
Bush is seriously considering appointing him as his official
biographer, and even invites him to a celebrity-studded dinner, but
eventually Bush decides the security risk is too great. Harrington
considers it a blessing in disguise, thinking about all of the
quality time he would have lost with his son, etc.) THE EVERLASTING
STREAM He recalls a morning of picture-perfect contentment at a
place called the Everlasting Stream--"such memorable moments are
like waking versions of lucid dreams. We are within them and
outside them at once as they are happening." He reflects "To this
day I don't believe I have ever seen men so at ease, so thoroughly
enjoying one another's company." He realizes he hasn't had true
friends like these since he was kid. BEHIND BC WITT'S FARM He talks
about the way that moment at the Everlasting Stream has caused him
to think of hunting not just as a diversion, but to think of it off
and on throughout the year. Carl takes him to the four-room shack
where he grew up and Harrington is shocked by how small and
run-down it is. Carl says "We hunted to eat." THE SQUARE He
describes being in the zone--"hunters since Socrates onward have
described an ethereal hunter's state of mental and emotional
clarity. What nature writer James Swan calls the Zen of hunting---
'a state of awe and reverence, which I sthe emotional foundation
for transcendence." LEWIS'S GARAGE He talks about the joys of
hanging out in Lewis's garage after hunting. "I have come to love
hearing the men laugh. After all the years, if I were blind I'd
still know the men by their laughs." .. "Listening to the men is
like watching a pinball bounce around its board. The action is
impossible to predict but it isn't random. The point is to relax
and lety my time with the men wash over me in the way that a
Christmas midnight Mass with candles and organ and incense would
wash over me as a boy."
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