Path to Enlightenment
My daughter is wasting her time at school
February, 2006

This whole job-marriage-family thing is putting a serious crimp in my deer season. Had I known before what I know now, I might have done things differently. Think of a hunting version of the 1970s TV series Kung Fu. Orphaned as a child, I enter a monastery in Iowa, where I learn the secret rites of Unitarian Universalism and purify both mind and body by continuous practice of archery and still-hunting. One day, after besting the emperor's vain eldest son in a 3-D tournament, I am forced to flee, driving first prize: a Dodge SRT-10 Quad Cab (Viper V-10 engine, custom Mossy Oak paint, power-bulge hood, and cigar lighter). I become a nomadic monk, hunting and fishing my way from town to town, teaching the Ten Suggestions that lie at the heart of Unitarianism and encouraging people to form meaningful discussion groups. In time I attract disciples, young men from farming villages who are drawn to my humble dignity and secret knowledge of deer. Eventually, the emperor's son, regretting his rashness, seeks me out to apologize and offer vast sums of-"

Jane taps my foot, jolting me back to the fluorescent lights of Parent Participation Night at Emma's kindergarten. My butt, I now notice, has gone numb from the folding metal chair. It no longer belongs to me. It has gone away to become someone else's butt for a time. Like the soul of a shaman, it will return to my body upon completing its quest. Strange that it never goes numb in a tree stand. I could be out there now, 20 feet up and 50 yards inside the timber on a trail leading to what I believe is the last standing patch of corn in the county. Were I not trying to amass credits as a good father (so that I can get back to the woods another time), that's where you would find me. I missed the first day of bow season back in September for a similar meeting, Parent Orientation Night, which was unnecessary in the extreme. Not only did I already know the layout of the school, I had logged it into my Garmin as a waypoint.

Tonight's riveting presentation is something about Preparing Our Children for the Future. Under the new Standards of Learning (official slogan: "Creating a nation of professional test-takers, one worksheet at a time-¿) the school day is now so crammed with opportunities for your child to check the right box that if he or she is tardy more than three times in a semester, you can officially kiss college good-bye and start planning for that career in cosmetology.

I wonder if all this hothouse learning is what my daughter truly needs to flower. Perhaps I should field-school her during October and early November. Liberated from the confines of the classroom, a radio-collared girl running the woods in a zigzag pattern might flush bedded deer my way during the slow midday hours. Mom would not go for it, of course. Nor would some of the more alarmist child-protection people. But they wouldn't necessarily have to know. And Emma, who learns quickly, would probably not need a shock collar after the first couple of outings. She'd be getting healthy exercise, learning about the deer woods, and spending quality time with her dad. A win-win-win situation, and only during archery season, of course, because Emma's welfare comes first.

The meeting finally ends. The spirit of my butt returns to its corporeal home. At the school playroom, a quietly fuming sub hands us our little monster, whose legs are encrusted with paste, glitter, and paint. "Like the circus girl,-¿ Emma chirps.

We get home and see that our neighbor has put up an electric Christmas reindeer, a motorized wire skeleton covered with tiny white lights that turns its head every 15 seconds. As Jane precedes us into the darkened house, I grab my daughter's shoulder.

"Emma,-¿ I whisper, hunkering down next to her. "Deer! Don't move. Let's sneak on it.-¿ There i