Hunting With My Father

From an early childhood, I was involved with hunting. I was part of the group, but it wasn’t until I was a senior in high school my father and I, alone, went hunting together.

For many years, he guided hunters and provided horses and gear. This was a critical component of the family finances. Hunting was, for me, work. Pack in gear and hunters. Pack out game, hunters, and gear. We were always subsistence hunters. Guiding hunters was simply an extension of food hunting. No one worked harder, and put in more hours, than my father. I was expected to keep up. Sometimes, it was just the two of us packing, and we “hunted” as we packed, but the packing took priority.

By my senior year, my father had found a good paying, steady job, at the power plant. My mother had a job with the Forest Service. We had a small ranch but it wasn’t large enough to provide a steady living. With the acquisition of the power plant job, my father quit guiding.

We were hunting elk and were sitting on a rock, on the South face of a scrub oak covered ridge, waiting for the pressure of other hunters to drive something past us. At that time in my life, I had acute hearing. I heard an animal moving quickly from our West and alerted my father. He didn’t believe me at first. I got into position, aiming where my hearing indicated I would get a clear shot, and waited with my Model 94, 30.-.30, open sights. The bull came into view, about 150 yards below us at a trot, with a downward angle of about 45 degrees, and 90 degrees to us, i.e, broadside. Now my pride got in the way. Wanting to impress my father with my skill, and not spoiling any meat, I aimed for a brisket shot. Just as I fired, the bull stopped. I saw hair fly, then he was gone. Had I aimed for a neck or shoulder shot, he would have been meat on the table. We checked for blood and only found a few spots. Nothing to indicate a serious wound.

That day some “Sportsmen” jumped a elk herd a few miles from us and started shooting. They wounded more than they killed. We came across some of the wounded and put them out of their misery.
I came across a gut shot yearling cow who was so exhausted she stood bleating and watched me shoot her from less than twenty feet. Made me feel like a mighty hunter - not.

The game wardens managed to catch and prosecute several of the “Sportsmen”.

Turned out my father and I never hunted together alone after that. We hunted with others, but that was the only time it was just the two of us.

I read about other folk’s hunting experiences and wonder if I missed something. I enjoyed the outdoors experience, enjoyed the successes, the tracking and stalking, but only in the context of putting meat on the table. Always, there was an underling tension of not wanting, not allowing, failure. Hunting just for the enjoyment of the hunt I can understand, at a mental level, but I’ve never felt it.

A Cop Created

This is dedicated to the late Duane Laeger, Weld County Colorado Deputy, Chief of Police, Platteville, Colorado and all my PEACE OFFICER kinfolk. Received this as an email.

A Cop Created

When the Lord was creating peace officers, He was into His sixth day of overtime when an angel appeared and said, "You're doing a lot of fiddling around on this one."
And the Lord said, "Have you read the spec on this order? A peace officer has to be able to run five miles through alleys in the dark, scale walls, enter homes the health inspector wouldn't touch, and not wrinkle his uniform."
"He has to be able to sit in an undercover car all day on a stakeout, cover a homicide scene that night, canvass the neighborhood for witnesses, and testify in court the next day."
"He has to be in top physical condition at all times, running on black coffee and half-eaten meals. And he has to have six pairs of hands."
The angel shook her head slowly and said, "Six pairs of hands...no way."
"It's not the hands that are causing me problems," said the Lord, "it's the three pairs of eyes an officer has to have."
"That's on the standard model?" asked the angel.
The Lord nodded. "One pair that sees through a bulge in a pocket before he asks, May I see what's in there, sir?" (When he already knows and wishes he'd taken that accounting job.) "Another pair here in the side of his head for his partner's safety. And another pair of eyes here in front that can look reassuringly at a bleeding victim and say, You'll be all right ma'am, when he knows it isn't so."
"Lord," said the angel, touching his sleeve, "rest and work on this tomorrow."
"I can't," said the Lord, "I already have a model that can talk a 250 pound drunk into a patrol car without incident and feed a family of five on a civil service paycheck." The angel circled the model of the peace officer very slowly. "Can it think?" she asked.
"You bet," said the Lord. "It can tell you the elements of a hundred crimes; recite Miranda warnings in its sleep; detain, investigate, search, and arrest a gang member on the street in less time than it takes five learned judges to debate the legality of the stop...and still keeps its sense of humor."
"This officer also has phenomenal personal control. He can deal with crimes scenes painted in hell, coax a confession from a child abuser, comfort a murder victim's family, and then read in the daily paper how law enforcement isn't sensitive to the rights of criminal suspects."
Finally, the angel bent over and ran her finger across the cheek of the peace officer. "There's a leak," she pronounced. "I told You that You were trying to put too much into this model."
"That's not a leak," said the Lord, "it's a tear." What's the tear for?" asked the angel.
"It's for bottled-up emotions, for fallen comrades, for commitment to that funny piece of cloth called the American flag, for justice."
"You're a genius," said the angel.
The Lord looked somber. "I didn't put it there," he said.

Anonymous

And Another Evil Car Salesman Story

Dirty Al has been bugging me for another car lot story, Too much politics, he says.

Car sales people all have common foes, the buying public, and management. While mainly self centered, they will defend their pack. One young jerk learned this the hard way.

He pulled on to the lot, parked, and got out of his car. One of the black salesmen, Dandy Man, approached him. The jerk said, approximately, “Look, I won’t buy a car from a N____. In fact, I don’t even want to sit in a car a N____ has sat in.”

“No problem”, said Dandy Man. “Hey Sam, come over here a minute.”

Sam, Celtic, freckles, red hair, and pale as a ghost, took over. Two hours later the jerk was driving off the lot in his new, to him, used car. Done deal, he owned it. Dandy Man spots him and shouts, “Shit Sam, you done sold him my uncles trade in”. The outraged look on the jerks face only intensified as every salesman (and woman) within ear shot started laughing.

Somehow, I doubt Sam got many referrals from that customer.

Another blast from the past. Just because I looked like the biggest redneck around, giving me a Klan handshake only meant I was going to hurt you financially to the best of my considerable evil salesman talents.

USMC Birthday

Good friend is a former Marine. Each year I call him and wish him a Happy Marine Corp Birthday. The conversation usually goes like this:

"Happy Birthday, Jarhead".

"Thanks, Ditch Boy, now go spit shine your shovel".

Watch the Circus

Link to a service that will send you emails on how your Congresscritters vote. You can specify your Congressional District and your Senators will also be reported.

What is interesting, to me, is how damn few votes are taken.

http://www.congress.org/congressorg/megavote/

Country Folk (Redneck) Funeral

Recent humorous emails themed “Etiquette for Rednecks” sparked a conversation about how my sister, late brother in law, and I acted like we didn’t have “proper fetchins”.

ETIQUETTE FOR REDNECKS...

DRIVING ETIQUETTE:

5. Do not lay rubber while traveling in a funeral procession


Our extended family has a history of taking care of funerals for our members. Professional mortuary service are usually not used except for preparing the body and placing the remains in a casket, or boxing the cremains. A section of the old family homestead West of Craig. CO., has been set aside for a family graveyard.

My father had remarried at the time of his death and his wife wasn’t coping too well. Various family members prepared the grave. I conducted the services at the Community Church, while an aunt played the music.

A step brother and I picked up the body, in a coffin, at a Craig Mortuary in my late father’s GMC pickup for his last ride. We stopped in the small town of Maybell, CO for the service. That is where the trouble began.

The widow’s sister in law tried to take over. We damn sure didn’t need her “help.” My sister could see I was, quite literally, ready to kill. She got between us and put the sister in law in her place, with a hovering throng of kinfolk standing by, and we started and finished the service.

The ten mile procession to the homestead was outstanding. There were nearly forty vehicles. Strangers going Eastbound stopped their cars and trucks, stepped out, and paid their respects (love the Old West people). After a brief Odd Fellows graveside service conducted by a cousin, we closed the grave and everyone left except my sister, brother in law, and myself. We stayed there about an hour, talking quietly, and trying to calm down.

I had borrowed a cousin’s S-10 4x4. As we left, I started roaring around the sagebrush, kicking up dust, and generally raising vehicular hell, i.e. laying down rubber. My sister was whooping and hollering. My brother in law was silently and grimly holding on for dear life. If our father was watching, he was laughing and whooping and hollering too. That is just the kind of irreverent people we are. You can be sober, prim and proper, and solemn for only so long. In fact, I needed to decompress, before going back to town and the post funeral pot luck. I still wanted to kill that bitch.

We Have A WHITE President????

Sure seems Mr. Obama is getting paler. Look at the four pictures.

Received my Democratic Membership letter. For the forth years, didn't send any money.

Like the slogan, "Winning the Future." Easy shorthand, WtF. Brilliant!