“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

“As Floyd and I cut across the court I saw that the Brenner’s lawn was despoiled with a mixture of animal and industrial waste, like pollution. ‘What’s that?’ I exclaimed to Floyd, as I saw a large dark shape near the hickory tree. At first shock I thought it was a deer that might have been killed by a car the night before, say. It lay on its side with its back to us. Then to my amazement I saw that the supposed animal was actually the broken remnants of a hollow, life-sized metal statue of a deer that had stood for years in the front yard of a house on Harrison Street, in Sayre, at the other end of town. The house had been owned by the Maynards, who had no children. When my next-youngest brother and I were in grade school, our family had lived a few houses down Harrison from the Maynards. Mr. Maynard had been a carpenter. He and his wife and my parents had been friends. All of us kids in the neighborhood had been fascinated by the deer, which had been painted brown. We had climbed all over it. My father had photographed it.

“Now I saw, again to my surprise, that the deer had been broken in pieces and lay in the Brenner’s front yard, where the hickory tree had stood a moment ago. I exclaimed to Floyd Waterman that vandals had done the damage — young kids that I knew were causing trouble in the neighborhood. They’d broken off the animal’s legs. The Brenner’s front door was open and I saw the warm yellow light in their living room. I knew that I had to run into their house and tell them about the poor broken deer lying in their front yard.”

“The statue of the deer represents that idealistic image of the past; finding it broken in Brenner’s yard connects its real environment where Rob lived as a small boy [on Harrison Street] to Wilbur Avenue where he lived later; meaning that he’d idealized both backgrounds. The statue of the deer, an inanimate animal, contrasts with the waste left by a living animal. Idealized ones, statues, don’t leave waste, but they don’t live either.

(A note: While taking my usual walk on Crestwood Avenue at about 10 PM last night, I saw a herd of eight deer cross the street; they moved into a small patch of woods that I judged to be just below Stamps’ house on Pinnacle; if they continued on that course they might have ended up crossing Pinnacle right by our own house. I spotted the deer, moving across the lighted street like gray-brown ghosts, just as I turned onto Crestwood from Greenaway. [...] The first several deer, crossing the street perhaps fifty feet ahead of me, surprised me so that I stopped in my tracks, unbelieving, seeking to understand what I was seeing. [...]

(I added that a great attraction here in recent years has been my ever-growing appreciation of the glimpses I get of the wildlife in the area, from the deer to the geese, rabbits, chipmunks, ‘coons, dogs, cats and what-have-you. [...]

[...] I told her about the four deer — three bucks and a doe — that I’d seen out back this morning, nibbling away in the so-called wildflower garden. [...]

[...] I think that my appreciation of wildlife has grown considerably since we’ve encountered so much trouble physically in our own lives: the sheer ability to move with nature’s grace and skill has gradually become very important, and to me the animals express this quality perfectly: the ‘coons, the deer, the dogs, cats, rabbits, mice, chipmunks; the birds, and yes, even the insects....)

[...] Deer and rabbits, a special kind, no big tails, gray hares of some kind. [...]

[...] Dogs, cats, manatees, lions, dolphins, apes, bats, whales, shrews, sloths, and deer are mammals, to name just a few. [...]

[...] The cicadas and the katydids still sounded their hypnotic rhythms, I’ve heard geese often lately, moving south in noisy waves, and we’ve had deer in our driveway several times. I looked for rabbits or ‘coon or deer now, but didn’t see any of those creatures.

[...] Nor have I resumed the midnight walks I used to take over the hilly streets of our neighborhood; I used to look forward to seeing the shadowy deer as they moved down into the streets from the woods north of the hill house. [...]

[...] The deer I see in the woods north of the hill house would continue to bound through the brush and among the trees. [...]

“Albert liked to hunt, but he couldn’t get much because the ground was too rocky … deer and rabbits, a special kind of rabbit, no big tails, gray hares of some kind. [...]

[...] We saw deer in the back yard and put feed out for them and the birds. (The deer went into hiding during the hunting seasons.)

[...] I told Jane that my record was six deer at one time. [...]