[sprainedankles]

Interesting...I've collected and read a lot of old Maine books over the last few years, and now I'm trying to remember if any of them mentioned this sort of behavior in passing. The qualities of lumberjacks that worked deep in the Maine woods were fascinating (and surely, at times, exaggerated), and I know at least a few descendants of Northern Maine Frenchmen...perhaps I need to give them a shout (ha).

Purely speculative: but I wonder if the daily lifestyle of a lumberjack, which was largely built around routine, rhythmic work and minimized social interaction (spending months in the woods at a time), coupled with shy tendencies to begin with (lots of lumber camps were completely male and had French/English language barriers = minimal small talk with coworkers), could've resulted in those kinds of reactions. I know that for me, it's easy to fall into a "trance" while doing manual labor for hours at a time, so I'd be curious if the amount of time they spent in that trance could've dampened their...social skills? Social reaction mechanisms? I don't know. Either way, pretty interesting. I'll have to search for some more references!

[marcinzm]

I wonder if reacting instantly to a command was also a positive survival skill when large trees could fall on you. People further away could see danger that you were too close to properly notice. If you didn't instantly do what someone said then you could end up dead.

[msrenee]

I thought about the survival aspect too. I'm a very jumpy person, especially when tired. I like to think it's due to heightened survival instincts. When I get surprised, there's often a 2-3 second period where I'm not consciously in control of my body. Usually all that happens is that I jump and take a couple quick steps the other direction before I come back into control. I have, however, found myself on the opposite side of a fence more than once and recently came around in position to vault a 5-foot tall barrier. During those few seconds, I've usually already identified who or what it was that startled me, but I'm not able to process that information or stop moving away. It's weird and a huge source of entertainment for friends, family, and coworkers.