Chris Maroldy
I don’t know what made me think of it, but the 1991 Bill Murray movie What About Bob? popped into my head as the calendar turned over to the new year.
Bob, played by Murray, is an obsessive-compulsive neurotic (according to the movie’s blurb; I am not a licensed psychiatrist myself) who drives his new psychotherapist (Richard Dreyfuss) batty after tracking him down at his vacation home.
The German version of the film was titled Was Ist Mit Bob? and translates literally to What is with Bob? Or more loosely, at least in my mind, What’s the matter with Bob? Perhaps Germans don’t add the implications that I do to their own translation of their own language. I don’t know. I know a little German [insert 1984’s Top Secret! gag *here*] but I’m no linguist, either, of any type.
Perhaps I’ve been thinking of old friends at the New Year. For years, I had a steadfast frenemy from bow-hunting chatrooms named Bob, for instance. He and I didn’t see eye-to-eye on some things, and I used to torture him online with “What about Bob?” and “What’s the matter with Bob?” references. When he’d stake out one of his tenuous positions, I particularly liked to tweak him in debate by posting an iconic screen shot of Bill Murray as Bob, wearing a ludicrous life jacket and tied to the mast of a sailboat. (If you haven’t seen the movie, you really should.) I’m not sure Bob (my rival) ever got the joke, but that made the teasing even more delicious.
Well, I haven’t talked to Bob in ages, not since that forum disintegrated, and maybe at the New Year I think about stuff like that. I always liked to deer hunt New Year’s Eve and sit somewhere for a while on the way out in the evening and watch the night fall and the stars come out and let the old year recede before making the final push to the truck. Maybe that’s what I was doing.
Excepting urban archery seasons and a special youth day hunt, deer seasons in the Carolinas close on January 1, traditionally. (North Carolina will go to the 2nd if the 1st falls on a Sunday.) Virginia often gives you a few more days so as to round out a calendar week. But I haven’t taken advantage of that in years. So, for me New Year’s is the last gasp, and maybe that’s why all this “stuff” bubbles up in my brain. It’s not out with the old, in with the new, though. More like let’s stew on the old ‘til I can get used to the new.
I lost my favorite treestand to a thief on New Year’s Day 2001. That’s some old stuff I remember this time of year. I climbed down my tree New Year’s Eve, and because it was freezing cold and I planned to be back in the morning anyway, I didn’t pack up the climber to take it out of the woods as usual. I cabled it to the base of the tree, drove home, cleaned up, and went off to my new girlfriend’s holiday party, which I’d been told was mandatory. Never mind. I always spent New Year’s morning in the woods. I had to be in the Big City to kiss the girl at midnight.
So the clock struck midnight. Our lips met, and I felt I had done my duty. It still took a while to be able to leave gracefully, so I fell into my own bed with two big hours to spare before the alarm was set to go off.
To make a long story out of a short nap, I hit the snooze button a few too many times and ran very late getting to the woods. The sun was coming up. I crept towards my stand, hoping not to bump deer on the way in. I came to the little rise above my stand and paused, looking for my tree. There were a couple in the bottom that might have been mine, but neither had a stand at its base. Was I off on my approach a few yards? I snuck for a different angle and scanned some more. No treestand in sight…
Did I tell you this was public land?
The dawn wasn’t even two hours old, and some dirtbag had already swept through and swiped my Loggy Bayou. My cable was no obstacle.
I won’t go into the consequent futile Episode Of The 11-87 And A Ski Mask, as my friends like to call it, but please take the story you have so far as evidence that I have some trouble with this time of year.
So, yeah. What about Bob? What’s the matter with Bob? What about January? What’s the matter with January? It’s all of a piece if you look at it just so. Things ending and things beginning. People come and go. I lost the girl a few years later. The stand got replaced but not really.
