Guns & Hogs

I was recently asked if there is a place to shoot guns here in Fairyland--the inquisitor indicating that the presence of a shooting range would make Fairyland the ultimate Utopia. Here I am in Utopia. I'm not sure how I feel about using that as a selling point about the place. What concerns me about our firing range is not the loudness--we're far enough away that I can pretend I'm hearing distant fireworks and I'm reasonably sure my children won't wander into range. What concerns me somewhat is perhaps the motivation of those utilizing the range. One instructor told a group that they didn't have to stick with the oh-so-boring standard targets, but could get creative and create targets on butcher paper. Later it was discovered the group took the advice to heart and had created detailed pictures of smiling people, which I have to assume were somehow related to real-life individuals, at which to shoot. This is disconcerting to me.

And still dear friends, this is not what ruins my Utopia for me. It is ruined by hogs. Yes, hogs. We live near the main road into FairyLand. At the end of this road sits a lovely chapel with an astonishing view. Many people venture to FairyLand solely to glimpse this view. Many others it seems venture to FairyLand to be heard on their way to glimpse this view. They drive very loud motorcycles. I'm told they're called hogs. I've seen hogs at the fair. They smell about as bad as the motorcycle version, but they are certainly less foul. The noise pollution of the mechanical type is certainly much more obscene than the rumbly grunting at the fair.
These hogs can awaken a sleeping child from a mile away.

I am much less disturbed by the occasional weirdo with a gun then the apparently very pervasive complete disregard for the disturbance of the peace. Why? Well, the weirdos with guns seem to be few and far between whereas the hog-riders are legion and I'm confronted with them daily. I can almost accept this on a crowded, already noisy highway, but to drag the stinky, loud, ugly thing up a serene mountain to a place of peace and beauty, cutting through the sound of birds and water as if everyone there had just been sitting around thinking "it's much too quiet up here." I find this intolerable and apparently waste much emotion on the subject when the offenders are and likely will remain oblivious.

I'm hoping at least to ingrain this feeling into my child by way of his general manners training: "Mommy, dat mocycle is 'bnoxious, dey aren't being polite or safe."

Since my father-in-law has decided that for his mid-life crisis he would purchase a hog and ride it around with my mother-in-law, I have had the additional task of explaining to my child (along with explaining to him that he will never, while he is a minor, nor has any sense in his head, be allowed to ride said hog)--that hog-riding is not a mark of grandparenthood. As we discuss the fact that one day he will be a daddy and I will be a grandma, and no, daddy will not be riding a motorcycle when he is a grandpa.