Across from the Highlands Golf Course, where aficionados of the sport practice the art of knocking a small, hard, plastic sphere that has never done them any harm to way over there, perhaps an even more sinister sport is practiced; archery. I was out wandering America’s premier urban park when I first stumbled upon this odd juxtaposition of avocations, dragged there by my hound, a humble rescue dog with the suitable name of Rigby (if he were a fruit we would have named him Figby).
I was planning on attending the park by myself today, but as I was sneaking towards the door, Rigby was looking mournfully at me with those puppy dog eyes. I stopped and told him “No.” He leaped up extactically, evidently misunderstanding my response, so I grabbed some plastic bags and a few treats in case of truculence on his part, and off we went. We parked on Wells drive, just east of the Zoo and raced up Crim Hill by the St. Louis Forestry Division yard.
There was a lot of mud by that Yard, where a variety of pieces of necessary equipment are stored, and Rigby, obviously not well trained in the art of guide doggery, lead me right through the thick of it. “Schluk, schluk", went my boots as I freed them from the grasping earth.
We wandered through the baseball diamonds of Aviation Field (all eight of them), and got caught in more mud on the other side (“Schluk, schluk, schluk”), before standing once more on terra firma. It was there that Hamlet sprang to mind.
Pasture and trees