Thank you, Mardie.
Probably 40 years ago, I got to see an enormous bull moose from literally feet away in the wild, and it left an impression on me, as you might guess.
I went white water rafting up in Maine some years back, and we went a good distance north, taking a bus the last bunch of miles.
As we approached the jumping off point in the bus, there was an enormous bull moose standing by the side of the road, probably not five feet off the road, and the head was level with the windows, and the enormous, bowl shaped rack went even higher than the windows.
I was astonished, I had never seen a full grown moose up close like that, and it was simply massive.
As we passed slowly we saw a guy with a camera standing only feet away from the moose, snapping pictures as the moose seemed to passively regard him with those beady moose eyes, chewing cud as if it were just a big cow.
The bus came to a stop, and the driver hissed out the driver window at the guy with the camera something like “Get the f**k away from that moose, you damn fool! Those things can kill you!’
Then he put it into gear and kept going, I recall hearing him mutter all the way up to the place, and I could imagine what he was saying. When we stopped and got off the bus, I remarked on the moose, and the driver said something like “Unbelievable. Those things can go from chewing cud to tearing the crap out of something in no time at all if the mood hits them!”
Funny. That trip was also memorable for another reason-when we got there and were waiting to be processed and given equipment, there were photos all over one wall of rafters and instructors/guides.
I saw one picture of an instructor, and the guy was so insane and deranged looking in the picture, I burst out laughing and said to my friends “Hey, get a load of this guy! How would you like to have HIM as your guide???”
When the guides came out and joined up with groups, I nearly choked...you guessed it, that was our man! Heh, it was good, and we did have a lot of fun.
Anyway, when I read that article, I could fully imagine the power of an angry animal that large. Humans who see them in the wild almost always see them stationary, head held high, chewing something ruminatively (or not “ruminatively”) chewing cud, as I said, like big cows. But when I thought of an animal that size angry because there was a female moose cow around, you intruded on its space, or...you grazed its shoulder with an arrow you fired, it definitely made me think of that saying by Machiavelli (or R.W. Emerson) that goes something like: “If you come to kill the King, you must not fail.”
Marvelous! Your writing is extremely visual.
My only trip to upper Maine was for my very first camping trip, and my mother’s. I was in my 30’s then. There was a sign immediately seen about bears. I’m TERRIFIED of bears. Suggested we go elsewhere but it was too late. We all got into sleeping bags and mother went off to sleep instantly. Mother! My supposed protector! I stayed awake the ENTIRE night. Come morning I was able to convince our party to leave. I tried one more time to camp out by putting up a tent next to the house. Managed about 3 hours before I came running in.
When I was searching genealogy, I was shocked to discover my grandfather was an outdoorsman and gold miner, and to find his newspaper stories of his life alone in the desert with his mule pack. Clearly those genes did not descend to me.
Grandfather Jack Bell
https://youtu.be/Dnnb63UEk9c