I’ve heard this a few times over the past few days, hunker down. I think my grandpa used to say it a bunch. I had a mind to look up the meaning so I did. While I don’t know the validity of what I’m about to type – it seems plausible and as we all know, what is popular usually becomes the history. Hunker, the word is apparently derived from the Scots, or maybe even old Norse. If that’s the case it probably got handed down and thru dialects of Dutch as ‘hurken’ (go figure) and German as ‘hocken’ it eventually came to English as Hunker.
The meaning of those words tends to go like this: squat, with the haunches, knees, and ankles acutely bent, so as to bring the hams near the heels, and throw the whole weight upon the fore part of the feet. As defined by Oxford.
I can remember doing this once with Jamie Redford. We were hunting groundhogs on his property (they’re bad for horses running in a field). So we hunkered down behind a hay bale to hide and get a vantage point where we could shoot the little critters (give me a break, I was like 14 and living in Utah, they do that stuff there). Finally I got off a shot with the .22 I had. I was sure I had hit it. So Jamie and I got up to go check it out. However, we had been hunkered down so long that as we attempted to get up, we both fell over. Now that’s funny.
Right now the idea of hunkering down is over the economy. The situation of the U.S. government forcing banks to take money even if they don’t need it, reeks. It’s our government robbing the poor and giving it to the rich. How insane is that? People are hunkering down and spending less. In turn if we end up hunkering down too long because banks are hoarding cash, we may very well find ourselves having a difficult time getting back up – like Jamie and I did. You can’t hunker for too long without consequences.
With that in mind I wanted to continue in the Christmas tradition of a classic song. A character that doesn’t hunker down, though he can melt. That’s right, Frosty the Snowman. Brought to us by another classic, Bing Crosby. It’s a magical tale. One that would be perfect for right now. We could all use a little magic in the world. Especially after some of the stories I’ve got coming from friends. I’m really looking forward to 2009 and seeing that it brings a completely different view from the year we have had. Don’t you?
Have a great weekend!