John Comito of Hunters for the Hungry. COURTESY PHOTO
When Alfred Lord Tennyson wrote his peerless poem, “Ring Out, Wild Bells,” from a collection called “In Memoriam,” he’d never imagined a New Year called 2025.
His lines “Ring out the old, ring in the new… ring out the false, ring in the true,” may fall a little short this time around.
Why? Because they’re words, not actions.
They are, nevertheless, powerful words. I’m sharing them all, below, because you might not get another chance to lay eyes on them unless you’re a lover of literature.
You’re also unlikely ever to encounter anybody else quite like John Comito and his companions at Florida Hunters for the Hungry. There, they enact Tennyson’s words — especially words like “Ring out the want, the care, the sin.”
In short, they take action, jump-starting the compelling words with their skills and tools.
If ever a New Year was the child born with a special need, the need to be jump-started, it’s probably 2025.
Comito is a stoneworker by trade, a skilled craftsman and founder of Elemental Stone and Waterworks, based in Fort Myers. But he’s also a highly skilled, widely experienced Florida hunter. He hunts for food, not trophies — deer, turkey and wild hogs, a hugely invasive and unchecked creature that devastates native flora and fauna all over the South, not to mention agricultural lands and crops.