Trapping and other various forms of pain.

My brothers and I learned alot of outdoor lore from an old Kentucky woodsman. Lets call him Dennis just for the sake of it. We all wanted to be Alaskan Mountian men and Dennis was said to be an excellent trapper so we took to hanging around him as much as permissable..Meaning whenever he didn't tell us to "git". We learned to trap from Dennis as well as how to hold your breath for three minutes and how not to catch a wild skunk. He was a master at the woods and could walk across any swamp woods or what have you and never have a misstep or even so much as break a stick. We once were told he crept in on a deer and killed it while it slept and it never woke up. Of course he was a good liar too. This story revolves around one Old Maid swamp that we used to trap around the edge of. Our parents not really wanting to be childless never let us actually go into the swamp because it was 6 square miles and about solid muck. Many people had been lost in there and a few never came out. Dennis knew the swamp like nobody. He could go from one end to the other and not so much as get wet. During september one year it was rather cold. Dennis having no real sense of game laws or how to read for that matter decided it was time to start trapping because the fur was getting prime. Having sufficiently begged, my brothers and I were allowed to go along one Saturday with Dennis to check his traps. My parents not having any clue but that we were hanging out with Dennis because hey it wasn't trapping season, how were they to know we were checking traps in the swamp. The day was a cold one for september. 30 degrees over night and daytimes at about 45. The line we were going to check ran just behind a large body of open water along a raised bank. The bank being no more than 10 feet wide before turning to real nasty muck that went on for several hundred yards. Dennis leading the way came to a quick halt. "Traps full" he said. Straining to see we trampled him down to get 5 feet forward. After Dennis got up the rest I am sure is a blur to him. Upon the trap discovery we found a rather large skunk in a leg hold and not to happy about it either. We stopped dead just as dennis after regaining his feet was getting to full stride again. Traffic having stopped and him mad at being trampled caused Dennis to stutter step pitch forward and vault over 3 prostrate boys on his face about 6 inches from a mad trapped skunk who thought we were psyco at best and an old man cussing with a southern accent was about all he was gonna take...wham right in the kisser. Dennis hopped up cussing some more and twirled like a dancing girl just before pitching head first into the muck. We being of the mind to help pulled hi out and turned him 180 degrees. Dennis walked blinded for 10 feet...and fell face first into the water. I am not sure if this washed some skunk scent from his eyes or the skim ice he went through just woke him up but Dennis seemed no worse for wear in about 5 minutes. His eyes watered all the way home but then again so did ours.He refused to let us walk in front of him and holding your breath for several minutes at a time causes your eyes to water. That was no where near our only trip into old maid swamp and over the years i like to fancy i knew it almost as well as Dennis himself. I spent many late nights bow hunting and chasing coon dogs in there...and out running ghost..But hey thats a story for another time.

A letter from Ms. Wixom.... and the reply

From time to time I will find myself in the present with something that just cannot wait. Not that i start reading a book by scanning the last chapter first.ya know just in case, but more so because this blog will certianly take some time to get here and as bad as my memory is now, well you know. Anywho Ms. Wixom is my daughter emmy's teacher now. She started the year elsewhere but the school decided to move elevated 4th graders into a split class and we were approached by the principal to see if we would agree to move her. This was really no surprise because Katie did the same thing when her age. I blame the mail man but hey they do have a smart mother too. Ms. Wixom sent home a letter covering her teaching path and I only made it to the end of the first paragraph before this decision was not looking so good. The end said " I plan to teach (bla bla bla) and that all creatures deserve our respect no matter how small. Enough said. I immediately set out to correct the wrong points of this letter/paragraph. Dear Ms. Wixom, I completely agree with your assesment of treating all creature no matter how small equal. I furthermore deem it cruel punishment to alter their natural biological state as we so often see done. I am really looking forward to meeting you on Tuesday and have a few shall we say surprises I think you will like. I intend to bring Homer the pet Skunk we keep here at home to meet with you. He has been altered in no way and although a bit ripe at times I am sure you will hit it off well with him so long as you are not wearing perfume.Seems to upset him. We will be accompanied by Walter and Stacia as well. They are my pet rattle snakes and although I have been bit several times I don't think it has really hurt me any. Just a few razor cuts and a bit of blood sucking and I am sure you will be fine. To cap it off I am bringing you a class room pet. I recently trapped a problem Beaver from a friends pond and although not quite as tame as the others I am sure you can handle him/her with little difficulty. I have not named him/her as of yet because every time i try to check it slaps me with it's tail and takes a bite out of me. Really I hate to say this but the beaver is taking a toll on my nerves and I am not doing well with respecting it. I hope you appreciate the trouble I have gone through just to get it there and will be kind to the beaver and let it out once daily. I guess I maybe should have asked but you don't have a wooden leg do you? Well I will just risk the gift and we will see how you get along. Thank you,. I was at the open house all night Tuesday but never meet Emmy's teacher. Seems she wasn't feeling well. Anyone in need of a problem Beaver?

Mr. & Mrs Wagner

I had to laugh this morning as i looked at the Fog in my area. Takes me back for sure. Mr. & Mrs. Wagner were our neighbors down the road a quarter mile or so when i was a young boy. I seem to remember Mr. Wagner has some sort of nervous twich that gave him the shakes whenever my brothers and I were around. At first i thought I got dizzy at just being at their house but whenever he left the room the world straightened out.This story revolves around my 9th year when the early spring came. During the old days farmers built their homes close to the road to use all the land they had for planting. Mr. Wagner was no exception as his house was only 50 feet or so from our blacktop 55mph road. The year the spring came early was the year I really came into my own throwing things. We had built an Igloo from those plastic blocks you could get at the five and dime in town and made a large breast works around it. The fort stood until late March it was so solidly packed with ice. Feburary brought the spring. Fog so thick my mom tried cutting it and serving it for dinner.We were playing outer space invasion after dark and as the enemy rocket ships came down the road we would throw snow balls at them. Knowing our chances were slim because our fort was 100 yards from the road we decided to charge the offenders and use Mr. Wagners pine bushes as our forward defenses they being a scant 10 feet from the road increased our odds of killing space creatures to about 100%. One of those Space ships was piloted by none other than Officer Jim whom my father had a long sometimes stressful relationship with. As the ship approached we hid behind the pines not knowing who was even coming. My brother yelled oh crap about 1/10th of a second too late.Remember coming into my own? You guessed it Jim caught one square in the driver window that so startled him he slid in the ditch. Mr Wagner had the pleasure of pulling out his car and getting brownie points with the local athorities but failed to see the bonus in his efforts. As for my brothers and I we were sure they had the situation under control so we ran off in other pursuits. And I mean RAN. Mr. Wagner shortly there after became a white haired gnome...but thats a story for another time.....

How I got this way. A true story... mostly.

First off those trips to the institution are so much fun for my brother. I learned long ago to keep a bag by the door because you never know when he will have an "episode". I need to be ready with the little things like a starter pistol, double edged letter opener etc. He is ALWAYS so shocked to see me and loves the tricks i play on him with my Goodie bag.I can tell from the look in his eyes. Anyway, I thought it best while looking through my library to include this section...How I got this Way. It all started at the ripe old age of 6 months old. We lived in a small house over a basement on Britton Road in Perry Mi. One night while i slept my mom heard a noise from my room and alerted my dad. He got up and came in to see someone opening a window just above my crib.He grabbed me out loaded a shotgun and handed me to my mom.According to the story my dad yelled and the perp swore at him so he shot him. My mom said i woke startled and started to giggle...that maybe was a bad sign but my moms sign reading at the time must have been in shock because she failed to see the warning. The perp staggered to the neighbors yard and collapsed...which would have been bad except he lived there and in his drunken state was climbing in the wrong window! He apperantly thought his wife locked him out and upon hearing my dads voice thought she even had a fling.Shortly after we moved because my dad did hear me giggle and thought perhaps removing me from the memory would help. Alas no amount of moving has lessened my desire to hear loud noises and giggle when i see some idiot on funniest home videos get hurt...They never met my parents because if they had they would have been told not to do that but of course it would have been after i was well into my 20's. Sign reading being what it was back then.

Snippets from a life well led.

This is simply a blog about life. Some folks go through it making memories and others go through it creating memories for others as well. I am of the former voice. I am first of all going to pay a debt of gratitude to those who got me here....Winchester,Remington,Bear,Hoyt...you get the picture....Oh and Mike VanLoon for the previous blogs that have led me here. I will clarify a few details about myself here also.I have a firm grasp of the english language and proper grammer but refuse to use it.If you find yourself stopping and putting periods and headers to my writing please keep them to yourself. However if you wish to read the ramblings of a life well led uninterrupted by 4th grade properness by all means continue. I am the rule maker.I have been at this my whole life. I am the reason all of the younger generations are told "don't shoot that in the house". Also the "don't shoot your brother with that" and the now famous "if you shoot him with that again I'll tan your hide". See before me parents never said these things. Before my time if a child was dumping shot from a 12 gauge shell his parents "assumed" has was scaring birds from the cow barn.Now it is common knowledge that those same shells can be used to scare the crap out of your brother.Well enough for now however please keep abreast of my blogs as i hate to repeat myself. Gotta run the institution just called my brother needs me.