Life and death

Nephew-in-law brought me a big fish back from his Labor Day excursion -- what they call a croaker in these parts. He does not care to eat fish, just catch them. I do not care to catch them, just eat them.

So in the warm September darkness, I sat on my front porch with a sharp knife and began the familiar old ritual -- as old as the first man who robbed a river of its silvery child.

I will spare you the gruesome details. Suffice it to say, that several steps are required to convert a whole fish into the neat little fillets that just about everyone loves to sink their teeth into.

And every time that I go through them, I feel a little bad, feel a little pity for this creature that has had a very, very bad day. The justifications run through my mind: This creature is a flesh-eater, as I am, and it would have no sting of conscience in swallowing a smaller fish. Man has been a carnivore for millions of years - it's nature's way.

But still.

Hey, I have no use for hypocrites who shed tears over a hunter's bounty but load up their grocery carts with plastic-wrapped squares of meat that someone else killed.

I do respect people who have made the full commitment to live a life free of shedding blood -- and free of aiding and abetting others in the deed.

I am conflicted. Someday I hope to have the will to give up the meat habit. It is possible to live that way, and better, I think, to live that way.

In the meantime, I will be careful not to waste this fish. I will eat it with thankfulness. And I will bury the offal in the garden as man has done for millennia, thus returning what I cannot use to the earth to be recycled and nourish the land.