Why

Why

Caught again ! No ! Not with my pants down, but without a camera ( seems, if my wife and I own a camera, it's either lost or not working ). Today, you're just a minor league player without pictures to show what you've been doing, so I took to putting words together to create mental pictures which must substitute for camera shots since no click, no picture.

Take, for instance, veal. Back fifty/ sixty years ago after see a documentary about the wholesale slaughter of very young calves for their succulent meat, I swore off eating anything veal. No more veal. The images of those wobbly legged young calves herded through a narrow, tight chute only to be hit between their ears with a heavy hammer killing them could not escape my mind.

Then, the horror which scunners me even to this day, as the image appears in my mind's eyes just as I begin to close them, of men battering to death helpless young seals on windswept Arctic beaches. Killed and skinned for their soft, supple, fur hide so some affluent young matron could promenade in the latest style.

A chill runs up my spine each time I catch a view of industrial style feed lots for Christmas turkeys or wire pens for chickens. Packed tightly, hardly able to turn around, force fed both feed and fluid their only possible salvation are the sharpened knives which ultimately kills them. It's a huge quota needing to be filled and an unsuspecting public or an unconcerned public makes these enormous demands without the big picture in mind.

I am a hypocrite, also, along with most people in this over analyzed World. I am aware of things I've vowed I would not do, but with the passage of time and a weak internal fortitude, I've broken my vows. Yes, I've eaten veal since my awakening. I am not proud. And yes, I've had both turkey and chicken from the supermarket over the years, again, I'm not proud.

Today, I'm trying to put closure to the tragedy which occurred Friday in Newtown, Conn.. How can I erase the image of twenty vibrant, young, elementary children and six professional adults being slaughtered by a deranged twenty year old discharging an untold amount of bullets into their midst. I have a few years left to live, I think, but what time I have left will be spent trying to answer maybe the unanswerable question. WHY ?

Ronald C. Downie