The pen is mightier than the sword...but the log is mightier still

So the oldsters, 65 and 70, are out for a pleasant afternoon hike when a mountain lion decides 70 year old human steak sounds good. So it tries to get a bite of him. For some inexplicable reason Jim was not quite as pleased.

Now, if I were a 65 year old woman and a mountain lion decided to chew on my husband, there are many things I might think about doing. One of them would NOT be picking up a log and waffling said mountain lion. That is one reason Mrs. Hamm is cooler than me, because she saw things differently. She did indeed pick up a log and start waffling the mountain lion.

When that didn't work, she snagged a pen from his pocket and stabbed the mountain lion in the eye.

(Note to self: Look up "ways to enrage a hungry mountain lion" and see if "stab him in the eye with a pen" is on that list)

But here is the best part: Mrs. Hamm talks about the effectiveness of the pen to the eye maneuver:

"So I got the pen and tried to put it in his eye, but it didn't want to go in as easy as I thought it would."
The pen bent, so Mrs Hamm went back to the log.


My hat goes off to the woman who stood by her man who, by the way, survived.

And now we come to the serious portion of the evening (What? You don't think an attack by a mountain lion is serious? Well...not when it involves pen-stabbings to the eye. Then I just think it is funny)

Wardens then shot a couple of mountain lions that were near the trail. Okay, that would lead me to assume they knew which lion made the attack...and why. But no...they are NOW going to do an investigation to assess guilt. Wanna know what that reminds me of? The Indian Wars.

The Indian Wars is a term to describe mid to late 19th century US History. And here is how it went.

Sometimes with, sometimes without provacation young Braves would commit some crime. All to often that crime would include killing some white person. So the army would respond with a surgical strike to punish the wrongdoer.

Time for some definifitions:

"Army Surgical Strike to punish wrongdoer": An event in which any foe who looks like the suspect is considered a legitimate target and summarily killed, often without warning. Foes include women, children, and men of any tribe of the same skin color.

In other words, even someone like Black Kettle, a "good Indian" who tried to farm, gave up his weapons, was moving to the assigned reservation under the protection of the US government and wrapped himself in the US flag could see their camp razed, the women and children slaughtered, defenseless or close to it, in a surprise attack because of something that happened several hundred miles away.

Does Black Kettle = Mountain Lion? Well..no. But the similarity is disturbing and sad.