Gather round my children, here behind the barn
on this beautiful summer's morn---
Pull yourself up a log and set with yore Pepsis...
or coffee ...and I will tell you a tale
in the shade of this here old elm tree
(which has seen better days....)
Whittle...iffen you got yore Barlows...
I'm gonna tell you a tale you won't never forgit
about a grizzled old-timer hunting-and
fishing guide---who has spent a good deal
of his life in the Yukon and Far North
parts...teaching greenhorns about the
great outdoors and bears and such...
Now then, he's up there right now...
way up there in Alaska and fact is---
nobody never knows just whar...I mean
look deep in the wildest parts...
and then deeper...there he will be...
Oh they say,
----You can find him out in the middle
of the wildest, fastest, scariest rivers---
happily floating his Rio Grande Kings---
----He can hip shoot an elk at 600 paces,
gauging the wind speed in his head
----That he goes out hunting mean grizzlies
middle of the night, with nothing but a
Randall 'tween his teeth, and his track shoes
on...
----He's got his choice of a rack full of pieces
but always carries an old beat up .270 Win.
-----That he sleeps with a slab of bacon right
in his tent, while on a hunt in grizzly country,
just hoping a bar will show up...
----That he chews something while on an intense
trail, and spits...some say it is Spark Plug
"baccy,"--- others that it's Copenhagen--- and
then we hear he chews on unlit Swisher Sweets
cigars...
----Get this, he can cook better than most chefs,
and can smoke a turkey right there in the field...
----He can wrangle your horses and pack mules
on a hunt and has stories galore of jumping
precipices ridin' for his life outta storms...
----His fans and admirers and satisfied customers
like to speak of his sense of humor, congeniality,
and a "soft-streak"---how he has been known
to hep little lost baby ducks back to water...or
put an eaglet, back into its aerie on a cliff, or pour
a can-'o- Carnation down the throat of a little
bitty fawn....or a bear cub...
----Ah...but they say---you CAN rile him up iffen
you don't follow directions...and to the nearest
airport you will go !! Bye, Bye.
When you're setting around the campfire at night,
git him to telling you stories...of which he knows a
thousand---many of them even true...or ask him
to play an Irish jig on his harmonica and maybe...sing
an old ballad...
And my my, I haven't even broached the subject of
him chartering planes to remote places up thar in
the North ...or his prowess out on the ocean bays
around there, deep-sea fishin'....
My, just thinking about this skilled outdoorsman
makes me want to head out up thar and find
him and spend the rest of the summer fishing...
I'll always remember advice I heard him tell
a bunch of tenderfoots one day (in humor)---
He said:
"Always remember, very old and experienced
bear hunters have learned a principle---and
always adhere to it, without fail:
'When bear hunting, go in pairs...and
always take a friend along, who is
slower than you,' "
------Good luck to old Bubba, wherever he is.
-------------
BY MIL
8 JULY 2018
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