I, Nature Boy

An excerpt from an article by David Rakoff about Tom Brown's Tracking, Nature and Wilderness Survival School from the October 2000 edition of Outside magazine.

Finally, we are warned about ticks and their dreaded Lyme disease. We are to check for the small black dots twice a day all over our bodies, particularly in those dark, warm, hairy places ticks apparently love. A proper self-scrutiny is demonstrated by one of the (clothed) volunteers, who takes to the stage holding a small hand mirror from the shower stalls. He moves it over and around his torso and limbs like a fan dancer, looking into the glass the whole time. As the coup de grâce, he shows us how to check our least accessible, most unwelcome potential Tick Hideout. Turning his back to us, he bends over, bringing the mirror up between his legs. "Ta-da!" he says, holding a triumphantly abject position. Everyone applauds.

You can read this at http://outside.away.com/outside/magazine/200010/200010natureboy2.html