Read Online Driving on the Rim by Thomas McGuane - Free Book Online
Authors: Thomas McGuane
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acknowledgment. I was very anxious to do away with the hawks that decimated our partridges during the winter, especially the northern harriers who hugged the ground and left many a feather pile behind. But Dr. Olsson gave me my first inklings of a holistic view via the old phrase “the balance of nature.” He insisted that I learn to love the hawks. I didn’t find that easy. When he learned that I had shot one from a tree out at Gladys and Wiley’s, he stopped speaking to me for twenty-nine days, which I thought would kill me. I once poured my heart out about my love of hunting and nature to Wiley and my father, who squinted through their cigarette smoke as I talked. When I’d finished, Wiley asked my father if he thought I’d been drinking.
I think that Dr. Olsson was an atheist. When news of some fatality or another came to our attention, he always said the same thing: “Live it up.” Over time this seemingly casual remark acquired a kind of resonance, and the subtext for “Live it up” came to seem, “That’s all there is.” It might have explained his friendship with Wiley, who often quoted the old-time trail cowboys to the effect that if you waited for Jesus to feed you, you’d starve to death.
It was widely felt that I was Dr. Olsson’s surrogate child. When I overheard this, I was thrilled. This was the beginning of the hope of being a doctor myself, a wish so far-fetched that I shared it with no one and hardly took it seriously until Olsson urged me to think of making something of myself and medicine appeared as a duty that had befallen me. Running a modest practice with patients you knew inside and out, and from the downstairs of your home, was a model I must have gotten from Dr. Olsson. Olsson lived within his modest means, but surely something had propelled him from his place of origin.
Dr. Olsson had some money, or at least enough to do as he pleased. Now and then, he’d take a trip. He loved the Huntington Library in California, where Tessa had once worked. He went to Japan. Always it was something specific he wanted to see. He wanted to see Kyoto. He flew to Germany to have dinner with a Wehrmacht doctor under his charge in the war, a POW neurosurgeon. He flew to New York for the opera, the symphony, and the art museums. At such times, I took care of Pie and did a responsible job of it; I think he trusted me, though he called every day about her. One year he went back to Ohio to bury his sister; it was December. Partridge season was finished and he left me with Pie.
I decided to take her hunting.
I think too that Dr. Olsson helped me along on my somewhat indiscriminate love of nature. I became modestly knowledgeable about mountain wildflowers and birds, though my familiarity had to be renewed with regular resort to the guidebooks. After I was forbidden to shoot hawks, my predatory impulse was transmuted into a fascination with all hawks and especially falcons, including, on a medical junket in Texas, the exquisite aplomado coursing over the low salt marshes of the Aransas lagoons. I finally understood that my old enemy the northern harrier was a beautiful bird despite his stalking our partridges. I kept a great list of creatures I wished to see: the Stone sheep, Kemp’s ridley turtle, the bird of paradise. And so on. I was particularly anxious to see a wild condor. “Who else lives here?” was a question I entertained as adolescent endorphins supercharged my imagination.
Dr. Olsson asked me to bring him my report cards, which I did, as I was not ashamed of my schoolwork, and because I thought compliance would assure me of his favor. He took me to the library to get my first and explosively important library card, soon confiscated by my mother.She said, “Don’t let me catch you there, you little nothing.” Dr. Olsson quietly got me another, and I soon began to lead a covert life in the library, establishing the excitement that would attend the sight of books for the rest of my life.
I think that Dr. Olsson was an atheist. When news of some fatality or another came to our attention, he always said the same thing: “Live it up.” Over time this seemingly casual remark acquired a kind of resonance, and the subtext for “Live it up” came to seem, “That’s all there is.” It might have explained his friendship with Wiley, who often quoted the old-time trail cowboys to the effect that if you waited for Jesus to feed you, you’d starve to death.
It was widely felt that I was Dr. Olsson’s surrogate child. When I overheard this, I was thrilled. This was the beginning of the hope of being a doctor myself, a wish so far-fetched that I shared it with no one and hardly took it seriously until Olsson urged me to think of making something of myself and medicine appeared as a duty that had befallen me. Running a modest practice with patients you knew inside and out, and from the downstairs of your home, was a model I must have gotten from Dr. Olsson. Olsson lived within his modest means, but surely something had propelled him from his place of origin.
Dr. Olsson had some money, or at least enough to do as he pleased. Now and then, he’d take a trip. He loved the Huntington Library in California, where Tessa had once worked. He went to Japan. Always it was something specific he wanted to see. He wanted to see Kyoto. He flew to Germany to have dinner with a Wehrmacht doctor under his charge in the war, a POW neurosurgeon. He flew to New York for the opera, the symphony, and the art museums. At such times, I took care of Pie and did a responsible job of it; I think he trusted me, though he called every day about her. One year he went back to Ohio to bury his sister; it was December. Partridge season was finished and he left me with Pie.
I decided to take her hunting.
I think too that Dr. Olsson helped me along on my somewhat indiscriminate love of nature. I became modestly knowledgeable about mountain wildflowers and birds, though my familiarity had to be renewed with regular resort to the guidebooks. After I was forbidden to shoot hawks, my predatory impulse was transmuted into a fascination with all hawks and especially falcons, including, on a medical junket in Texas, the exquisite aplomado coursing over the low salt marshes of the Aransas lagoons. I finally understood that my old enemy the northern harrier was a beautiful bird despite his stalking our partridges. I kept a great list of creatures I wished to see: the Stone sheep, Kemp’s ridley turtle, the bird of paradise. And so on. I was particularly anxious to see a wild condor. “Who else lives here?” was a question I entertained as adolescent endorphins supercharged my imagination.
Dr. Olsson asked me to bring him my report cards, which I did, as I was not ashamed of my schoolwork, and because I thought compliance would assure me of his favor. He took me to the library to get my first and explosively important library card, soon confiscated by my mother.She said, “Don’t let me catch you there, you little nothing.” Dr. Olsson quietly got me another, and I soon began to lead a covert life in the library, establishing the excitement that would attend the sight of books for the rest of my life.
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