You know what’s crazy? I’ll tell you what’s crazy™
Elk Vandals.
They are like cat burglars but with a lot less stealth.
I am covering a story about domesticated elk that have escaped from their owner’s farm.
For weeks they have been on the loose, doing what elk do.
Foraging and humping and walking and scratching their antlers on stuff.
They are elk. They are four footed miscreants with a penchant for mischief.
They look big, walk big, and by and large, have a consistent jealousy for reindeers with red noses.
I don’t even know what that means.
People have snapped dozens of photos of these elk trouble makers. They have snapped pictures of them crossing highways and walking through fields.
On film, standing on a hill with the sun set behind them, Elk are majestic creatures, reminding one of the Lewis and Clark and the final frontier.
They are indiginous to Tennessee but they are not that prevalent here in the Volunteer state.
“They’re not like deer,” the Tennessee Wildlife Resource Agency will tell me. “They can weigh up to 700 pounds. They can have racks up to 6 feet.”
The elk escaped in mid July. A Facebook page quickly described the animals as harmless and having all their shots and being raised in captivity. It describes them like horse or cattle. The page admonishes people not to shoot them and to report their where-a-bouts so the owner can round them up.
I get a tip that a woman’s yard has been vandalized.
A heavy stone picnic table is turned over. It weighs hundreds of pounds. I can’t budge it a bit.
Her sun dial made of granite has been rolled through her tomato patch.
“That’s odd,” she says.
Her swing set has been knocked into the creek.
“I like to sit here and read in the mornings,” she says.
At first she suspects kids. But then she thinks, what kids could move this stuff? It’s heavier than hell. Not to mention she lives off the beaten path.
She calls the sheriff’s department. They say they’ll be right over.
Right Over? She lives out in the booneys.
Yes. They are only 1/2 a mile away.
Apparently one of her neighbor’s had some bee hives turned over. He reportedly saw 3 elk walking from the crime scene.
When the deputy arrives he shows her hoof prints in the garden.
“It’s the missing elk,” he says.
That’s my story. It Ain’t brain surgery, right?
An APB for missing elk who are now allegedly vandalizing a bucolic community.
It sounds like fun. It’s not every day you do a story on elk accused of turning over pic nic tables and going on an elk related bender.
The woman walks me around her yard pointing to things that should be here, but are now over there.
It’s fun. It’s tongue in cheek.
The property owner is actually relieved that the damage is caused by four footed creatures and not two legged bad guys.
Then I call the owner of the elk for his side of the story.
I figure he’ll be happy to hear from me, to get an update on where his animals were last spotted.
I’m wrong.
It turns out the elk owner, a country music artist, is less than thrilled to be getting called from the news.
He is pompous, arrogant on the phone.
Suddenly I’m being challenged on every level.
“It’s a slow news day,” he says.
“How do you know my elk are responsible for the damage?” he says. “what proof do you have?”
“Once you do this story, every person with a swing set in a creek is going to be filing insurance claims against me,” he says looking into his arrogant crystal ball of B.S.
He drones on and on and on.
I listen and hold my tongue.
I’ve coverd a lot of stoies.
Elk slander is not one of them.
I was planning on doing a “tongue in cheek” fun story.
That idea is dead on arrival.
Now I’m concerned about slandering the elk, slandering the elk owner, misrepresenting that the damage is his responsibility.
The investigative deputy says it’s his problem in the sheriff department narrative.
I suddenly need elk CSI before I write so much as a sentence that his elk did anything to anyone.
Do I need a fecal sample to proceed? Is it possible to dust for elk prints?
OMG
is this for real?
Elk man is telling me how to do my job, what is going to happen when I do my job. He calls my newsroom and talks to my bosses.
Are you freaking serious?
I’m getting pissed. I wish I could walk up to his country music house and bang on his country music door and stick a camera in his country music face.
“How you like me now?”
Write a song about that?
“I got a news man on my door and my elk ain’t breaking nothing.”
I’ve been doing this since 1987. I have told thousands of stories.
People die. People raped. People burned. People drowned. People lie cheat and steal.
If people can do it, I have covered it.
And now this country music man is going to tell me how to cover a minor vandalism story?
He tells me he and a possee of idiots has tracked his elk to a specific farm. He tells me that they will go out with tranquilizer guns and they will reacquire the elk and bring them home.
He talks like it’s a special OP involving seal team 6.
S T F U
I feel like saying. Instead, I listen.
He eventually hangs up on me or we both hit a bad cell zone, either way neither of us calls the other back.
I walk in the newsroom and the assistant News Director eye balls me.
“Got a call from the elk owner,” she says with a smile.
“He told me he called,” i say putting my gear down.
“So where do we stand?”
“I was going to have fun with it. then he called. Now? Now I’m going to treat it like a murder case.”
“I think that is a good plan,” she says not too concerned.
Been doing this more than a 1/4 century. Never been sued. Not once.
I’m sure not going to let some elk vandals spoil that streak.
Deer season starts tomorrow.
Sure hope nobody mistakes country music boy’s elk for deer.
Stick that tranquilizer gun where the sun don’t shine country music man.
Life’s Crazy™