red, white, blue . . . and green?

now to preface my 4th of July entry, i should start a few years ago. once upon a time in my life, i worked at dinosaur national monument. now, this was a very enlightening experience for me. i met a lot of people and established a few opinions. my father went so far as to declare me politically as a "conservative green". is that really possible? that's a bit beside the point. wait, back to the 4th of July. i decided, at the invitation of a good friend, to return to my small town roots for the holiday weekend. i grew up in a small town, passed many holidays in even smaller towns, and have spent most of the time completely amused and entertained by the activities found there. this year, i found no less in richfield. they have what is called the "fish grab". (if you want a visual, try http://youtube.com/watch?v=xEBNBvtPbEA&feature=related.) basically, kids 0-11, are given the opportunity to catch a fish with their bare hands. fascinating, no? yeah, that's what i thought. i'll admit i found it quite amusing for about 5-10 minutes until i saw what was actually happening to the fish. as displayed in the youtube clip, the little kids walked while the fish swam. my view was of the other end of the scale, the 9-11 year old kids. i saw one of the older kids with blood smeared across his chest and a rather large fish hooked on his finger. this picture, which will be forever ingrained in my mind, could be interpreted a few ways: 1) the kid picked a fight with his best friend when he tried to rip off the prize trout; 2) the poor fish was beaten to death (i'm telling you, the 9-11 year old kids have a pretty violent streak in them!); or 3) it was actually a mercy killing rather than letting the poor fish suffocate (if they can really do that) in his hands. really it could have been any of the three choices, but the thing that hit me more than the fish or the blood occured after i saw it all. i turned around and said two things, "i can't watch this anymore" and "those poor fish". as i made the "those poor fish" comment, something happened that surprised me and resurrected my green streak...someone agreed with me!?! not that i have anything against richfield, but that shocked me, especially considering the source of the consent. it was the stereotypical middle-aged-white-male-in-a-texas-ball-cap who surely spent everyday of his childhood summers fishing and tormenting small animals. really?!? i suppose all of us have a little green in us, whether we believe it or not. kermit the frog probably said it best, "it's not easy being green."