Region
Painted Hills
Painted Hills, Oregon
 

East Oregon High Desert
Dispatch from Smith Rock, Oregon
Text, photographs and web design by Erik Gauger

 
 

I thought about Hanuman, who is worshipped in every Hindu temple in India. Abraham, Mohammed, Buddha, they are all great guys and all, but watching brother Hans with his rope strapped to his back, I wondered if we, as the male species - the modern American male, could learn something from Hanuman. He is the god of agility and dexterity. He is the only bachelor gentleman god. I thought about the American male; growing fat and pasty; obsessed with television and watching other men sweat and throw balls around. Hanuman wouldn't want gossipy brutishness. He believed strongly in women. He believed that man was a sportsman, and a hunter and that his job was to serve woman.

Sometimes at work, the women come to me for advice on their man. They explain a complicated tale; a densely woven tapestry of regret, sorrow and confusion. My only advice is this. Think of man as monkey. We are no more complicated than that. We are simple, we do not think as much as you do. Once you can see your man as a monkey, you will understand him. I think Hanuman would agree with me.

Staring at Monkey Face, my brother pointed out the distance, the places where our grandfather, an immigrant to America, surveyed the Oregon desert as a hunter and a fisherman. Where he brought grandmother.

Although he passed away when I was young, I remember grandfather as that man. The gentleman hunter. As nighttime took away the last light in Eastern Oregon and Monkey Face disappeared, I thought about Grandfather, who always served his woman.

 
 

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Text, photographs, illustrations and web design ©2008 Erik Gauger
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