Chiggers and boys

Bonnie and I got to talking about chiggers last night. Why we got on to the subject of a tiny red insect is not important but it did remind me of the period of time when I was armed with precise information on what to do about chiggers.

You see, Boy Scout literature is filled with detailed instructions on how to deal with this tiny Red Menace. They are a scourge, painful, a health risk; but to my knowledge do not exist in Montana. We have things like wolves, mountain lions, rutting elk, black bears and grizzly bears (both bears often complete with immensely cute cubs), coyotes, rattlesnakes, even the occasional rabid skunk, all in startling proximity to town. But alas, no chiggers.

Of course, these threats pale in significance to Pete and Mike, loggers, in the woods for a couple of weeks, heading into town for Friday night, lights out, wrong side of the road, pulling on a bottle of Jim Beam, encountering a family of tourists from New Jersey on a dark highway. Now there's a menace!

Still, I was ready - bring on the chiggers, they shall not pass. I knew what I had to do, Scout knife in hand, to defend my innocent family against this Terror of Deep Undergrowth.

Kind of reminds me of the parade of threats we have had over the years: godless Communism, the Yellow Peril, Russian missiles, Cuban missiles, Socialists, illegal immigrants, Muslims, Iraqis, the Taliban, Democrats. Each one dealt with by a group of boyish Patriots, ever at the ready to spend money to buy toys infinitely more expensive than a Scout knife but curiously about as effective.