Norman talks about his hobby...
Jan. 1st, 2001 09:34 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
scottobearAnyway, I hear the expression 'eats like a bird'--is really a fals- fals- falsity. Because birds really eat a tremendous lot. But I don't really know anything about birds. My hobby is stuffing things--you know--taxidermy. And I guess I'd just rather stuff birds because I hate the look of beasts when they're stuffed--you know, foxes and chimps. Some people even stuff dogs and cats--but, oh, I can't do that. I think only birds look well stuffed because--well, because they're kind of passive to begin with.
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Date: 2001-01-01 06:57 pm (UTC)He was definitely a little on the weird side, but his enthusiam was catching. I was most surprised though, by my feeling of envy. This man spends 10 or 12 hours a day immersed in his passion, doing what he loves. He told me that he never tires of it. The rest of us can only hope to have it that good, I guess.
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Date: 2001-01-01 07:11 pm (UTC)working with your passion is a beautiful thing...
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Date: 2001-01-01 07:25 pm (UTC)Sure... medicine has time to slap an extra decade or three on your bod, by the time you hit 100. :)
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Date: 2001-01-01 08:02 pm (UTC)Yes, I guessed it was from Psycho. I didn't think of that scene the first time I went to the taxidermist, though it was fitting. I did have the feeling that I was in the opening sequence of an episode of "Millennium" though.
I arrived in late evening. It was very dark and there had been a lot of snow, so I had trouble parking on the street. I had an eerie feeling, so I put my cell phone in my pocket before picking up the box that held my frozen owl and stepping out onto the road. The taxidermist was about 45 years old and his name was Jim; he met me at the bottom of the driveway and led me around to the back of the house. There was no light and the walkway hadn't been shovelled, so I was basically following his voice and stumbling in the dark through snow drifts more than two feet deep. We came to a door made from old planks and older hinges and he pried it open and went inside. I started to follow, then realized that it went down into the basement of the house and it was dark in there. So I turned around and waited outside for him to turn the lights on. When the way was lit I went down into the cellar where I was surrounded by more than a hundred stuffed birds, reptiles and mammals. There were two black bears, a black jaguar, a giant wild turkey, ducks, owls, a newborn deer, a newborn lion and a newborn tiger... It was bizarre.
He said that he would show me some of his work, so I could decide if I wanted him for the job. He began to talk about his experience, but was interrupted by someone hollering down the stairs from inside the house. From the sound of her voice, the holler-er was clearly a suspicious elderly woman. She wanted to know who he had down there with him. He told her that it was client and that he'd be up in a while. There was a long pause, Jim looking toward the stairs, until we finally heard her close the door. Jim turned back to me and said "That was my Mother. I live here with her and she can't seem to mind her own business. But she's always happy to get the money".
Heh... I should have made the Psycho connection at some point, non?
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Date: 2001-01-01 08:11 pm (UTC)that's about 12 degrees of cool!
*chills*
:)