Letters to Holly

Thursday, December 20

Dog Gone

The writers' strike hasn't hit our TV routine much. The benefit is that we can catch up on shows like House missed during my play rehearsals. But what we watch so often -- Jeopardy, This Old House, Survivorman, football -- don't employ those kinds of writers. "Pro wrestling" and "unions" are rarely uttered in the same breath so those scripts aren't affected by the walkout.

There was an odd thing on the Survivorman we watched last night. Les Stroud is a Canadian outdoorsman who drops himself in remote locations to live off the land for a week. He carries cameras and a few supplies to challenge himself. This recent show had him dog sled through Labrador, in the Arctic Circle. On the second half of the trip, he decides he needs to make the odds worse, and he jumps off the sled and watches the dogs vanish behind the horizon. He then spends the night outside in snow trench. He makes a point to say the dogs will follow the trails back to the rescue camp, about 100 miles away. But the next day, the rescue crew extracts him because the weather is turning the reliable lake ice into sludge. They all helicopter out. But there is no mention of the dogs. We had no idea if they returned or survived in the melting ice.

A quick check of the official Survivorman message boards shows that the dog's owners knew Stroud would separate from the dogs, and they in fact did make it back to camp. No word, however, on how long it took them to make it. I'd wager it was more than two days, and those dogs had no food. That's harsh. Cruel, even. I can watch the show to see Stroud risk his fool neck but not to take a chance with a pack of work dogs. Then again, I know squat about sled dogs. I was unhappy with Stroud neglecting to make overnight shelters for the dogs similar to the ones he made for himself.

My university plays Boise State in Hawaii Sunday night for the first weekend of bowl games. I don't see my guys doing well. I say they lose by 21 points. Your Sis will join me in Asheville tomorrow for what is supposed to be a shot day at our office.

I'm fending off another goddamn cold.

Picture of the Day
I could do Subway for lunch.

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