The Great Outdoors

Gypsy badge requirement 10: Find a poem or story about the out-of-doors or about the way it makes you feel to share with your patrol.

Since, in my incarnation as a grown-up Girl Scout, I don’t belong to a troop or patrol, I’ll share my selections here.

Some of the best out-of-doors stories, which are technically essays, but a well told tale is a well told tale, are those by Scott Carrier in Running After Antelope. There are non-outdoors subjects covered as well, such as Carrier’s difficult time on the job working construction for his brother, or his difficult time on the job administering questionnaires to the mentally ill, or his difficult time on the job reporting stories for a certain unnamed radio personality he wishes to throttle. But interspersed between his hard times are stories of joy as Carrier and his brother try, many times over the years, to chase down antelope in the name of science. Their theory, or rather the brother’s, isn’t proven, but that’s beside the point. The chase is what Carrier seems to be after.