Balloons

Bright colored or pastel, round or sausage shaped:

floating,

fleeing,

wondrous orb of youth.

Slipped uninflated over the end of a water faucet, filled with water and tied off:

threatening,

soaking,

wondrous orb of youth.

 

One weekend when my parents were out of town (after they either believed that my brothers and I were responsible enough to leave home alone or more likely couldn’t find a formidable enough babysitter to make any real difference), the three of us raced down and bought several bags of party balloons at the Rexall Drug store in our small town.

In today’s world, where spray paint is locked up and dynamite isn’t sold without a permit from the ATF, it may seem strange to you that back in our day, weapons of mass confusion were readily available; underwater fuse by the foot through the mail, various chemicals that could be compounded together with spectacular results at the Army surplus store, and party balloons at the Rexall.

 

 As the heat reached its peak that late summer weekend we set up an assembly line in the bathroom.  Opening bags, filling balloon after balloon with cool water from the sink faucet, tying them off, and stacking in the bathtub for storage until darkness fell.  Slowly, balloon after balloon the tub was completely filled with grapefruit sized water balloons.  Skin stretched to translucence, small “bubble” of air slipping back and forth with the undulations caused as each new balloon was added to the stockpile.  

As night fell, we gathered up as many of the colorful orbs as we could carry and we set out to wreak havoc around the various neighborhoods in town.

I wouldn’t want you to get the wrong idea; it wasn’t all “fun and games” as they say.  You might be surprised how demanding it is to sneak around a town, throwing water filled balloons at unsuspecting dogs, cats, cars, garage doors, patios and porches without getting caught by a police department that has nothing else to do on a boring Saturday night other than chase three fun-loving teenaged boys.

Not only is ducking the cops tiring, but it takes a special commitment and true dedication to throw 300 water balloons in a single night.  Not a goal that the faint of heart should reach for.   But our years of throwing newspapers every morning proved to be perfect training and conditioning for this particular sport.

As the night wore on and the stockpile in the bath tub seemed to barely subside, the radius of each trip slowly and inexorably began to contract.  Trip after trip, shorter and shorter afield, until we were reduced to throwing balloons from the same block we lived on.

We were down to our last double handful each, well almost, and had snuck through Mrs. Peterson’s backyard without waking her chickens, past the edge of the convent’s fence line without the Mother Superior noticing, and were hidden in some large bushes between two small old row houses.  These two houses were twins, each no more than 20 foot x 30 foot, with detached garages out behind the house, and a common driveway between them. Like most older houses in town, the floor was raised up off of the dirt by 3 feet or so, and that put the bottom of the windows about 6 feet off the ground.  Although I know the builders never considered it, the design was perfect for sneaking past without being seen.

Right at the front corner of each house, along opposite sides of the driveway were large Camellia shrubs.  Sized just right to hide behind while scanning the approaching traffic to be sure there wasn’t a roving police car in view.

 

Barry, exercising his rite of supremacy by virtue of age, had decided that he would stand on the sidewalk and be the lookout, picking the car that we were going to unload on.  Seemed like 100 cars drove by one way or the other and as each approached Barry would state; “Nope, too many people in this one”.

 

Now I have no clue how many people were in any of those cars, ‘cause I was pressed up against one of the houses out of sight.  But by judging from the final results, each of those first 99 cars must have been clown cars.  Cause when Barry finally said: “This one, there’s only the driver”, we all leapt out to the sidewalk and lobbed our balloons.

We were quick, we were practiced, we were dead accurate. 

All 6 balloons hit that car. 

The brakes locked up, squealing protests from rubber against asphalt ripped into the quiet of the night. 

All four doors of the car popped open expelling a college football team. 

Well, okay, maybe only the front line. 

But those were four big, I mean really big, college guys looking for some heads to knock.

Now, perhaps I do them a disservice, you see, I didn’t stick around long enough to truly determine if they were going to knock heads together, instead I beat a hasty retreat and simply malign their intentions in the retelling.

But I can tell you, that if knocking heads wasn’t on their agenda, they sure spent a lot of time and effort chasing us around a couple blocks, over a number of fences, through several backyards and didn’t sound too happy when they lost us after we ducked into a pigeon coop and “roosted” off the ground for a while.

© Copyright 2014, Marty K Vandermolen, All Rights Reserved

 

 

Golf Banging

What a pleasing sound a golf ball makes when it is thrown against a garage door.

There is no other “thunk” sound quite like it.  

Wooden tilt up, metal skinned roll up, side to side slider; it doesn’t matter, the contact of hard small hand thrown golf ball against the door rings with the peal of joyful bells.

Yes, I know, as an adult, knowing what I know today, of dents, scuffed paint, and chipped trim; I am supposed to find the sound repulsive.  And perhaps I do, for I haven’t heard it in decades.  But, in my memory at least, golf ball on garage door peals with the bright joyful gong of freedom and exhilaration.

I remember the summer my brothers and I first learned that sound. We were instantly smitten. 

We would get together after dinner, sometimes just the three of us, sometimes with a few friends, and we ventured out into the quiet neighborhoods of town each with as many golf balls as they could carry.  We would spread up and down a block, or two, and throw those hard dimpled white rocks at garage doors.  Then we’d race up the sidewalk, past other boys doing the same thing, laughing and racing to stay out of trouble with the enraged homeowners.

The only limitations were the speed of our flying legs;

the darkness of the night;

and our supply of golf balls.

Having little “free-money” we had to scrounge our little white missiles. 

We used to find one or two out in the tall grass at the high-school, lost and left behind by someone using the football field to practice their driving I suppose; or outside the fence line around the miniature golf range outside of town; sometimes at garage sales; and once in a while lying in a gutter among a damp pile of leaves that didn’t quite make it to the drain grate.

Being the youngest, I tended to often find myself needing to justify my place in the rat pack that was my childhood.  

Especially as along with being the youngest, I was built a bit more solidly, not quite as lithe and fast as my two older brothers. Not as handsome, as strong.  So whether it was securing golf balls for throwing, or any other task, I just naturally felt that I had to outdo my brothers; just to be as good as they were.

Imagine then my joys one day while out scrounging golf balls to raise my head up and find an entire field strewn with the little white treasures.

I had been sneaking around the newly opened Las Positas golf course.  First working the area between the fence and the freeway, then around the parking lot, and finally along the narrow creeks and waterways that crossed the property.

Pickings were pretty slim as you might expect at a newly opened course.  Not many lost balls to be found yet.  And then, I raised my head.  And before me stretched a green grass area that was literally covered in white golf balls.

I looked to the right and could see the fence line next to the freeway, and while the cars along the road could see me, none of them was going to care. 

I looked as far to the left as I could and saw just the brush that had been planted along the watercourse sweeping outward away from the creek.  

I deciding that it was safe, I ventured out above the berm and started to scurry around picking up golf balls.  I got one, two, five, ten and still there were hundreds more.  I became so engrossed in grabbing golf balls that I forgot to keep checking to my left and right as I moved further and further away from the cover of the creek.

I was gonna be rich.  

I would set up a little “Used Ball” stand in the parking lot on Saturdays, and still have more than I could possibly throw.

I kept gathering balls until…until…until balls started raining down around me and I became aware that several people were yelling.

Looking up and left, I found myself staring straight at the back side of the Clubhouse and a row of golfers standing on the driving range firing golf balls in my direction.

Some guy was jumping in a little VW that had wide sweeping arms on the sides and wire mesh over the windows and I heard the engine fire up.

Panicking, I realized that I had walked right out onto the driving range about 180 yards from the tees.

I ran for it.

It was a muddy, wet, escape route.  I had to throw myself into the water, and several times duck my head and hold my breath for ever so long.

But I got away.

Because of my narrow escape, I never set up that used ball stand.  No extra spending money for me.  It just didn’t seem like the smart thing to do all-in-all.

But boy, did the visions of garage doors stretch into the future as far as I could imagine.

© Copyright 2014 Marty K Vandermolen, All Rights Reserved

Simple Pleasures

Perhaps I was too inspired by Peter Pan in my youth. 

 

Possibly it was the vast quantity of Science-fiction and Fantasy that I read. 

 

Or maybe it is just a natural outcome of being the youngest of three fairly rough and tumble boys that led me to a personality that walks a fine line between reality and fantasy.  And while the connection may not be immediately apparent, believe me, when you are the youngest, and being regularly pummeled, fantasies are quite common, either from induced brain damage, or simply frustration.

 

 

Be that as it may, I have often wondered how children who revel in the simple joys and wonders that surround them somehow all seem to grow up and “unlearn” pleasure.

 

Watch any baby;

they giggle wondrously at the touch of a cat’s tail, or dog’s ear; smile when they feel a puff of air cross their cheek; gaze rapturously at the colors of light fracturing through window panes. 

 

Watch a child at play;

rolling in the grass just to feel the individual blades against their skin and to draw in the vibrant scent; chasing soap bubbles in the soft air currents; stomping in mud puddles. 

 

Watch early teens as they run;

skipping; jumping; and race everywhere. 

 

Or watch late teen couples;

constantly in contact, hands, hips, shoulders, heads; lost in the thrill of another’s presence; engrossed in the warmth and nearness of each other.  Hearts racing, breath shallow, just from being close.

 

No baby needs to be taught that the tactile is soothing. 

 

No child needs to be taught how to have fun. 

 

No teen needs to be taught that besting a challenge carries untold joy. 

 

Nor any late teen that the greatest treasure in life, is another human being to share with.   

 

 

And yet, somewhere along the line, most adults have un-learned these simple, joyful, wonders.  Tossing them aside for what?  Money?, Power?, Turmoil?, Hectic days?, Lonely nights?

 

How many 50 year old women skip in the springtime?  Weave friendship bracelets out of flowers? Or have pajama parties?  How many 50 year old men throw water balloons?  Strap cards to their bike spokes?  Or “Double-Dutch Dare” their friends in fun?   

 

How many 60 year olds worm down into the warm beach sand and just listen to the rumble of the waves on the shore?  Or “fly” a bike down a long and winding hill to feel the wind in their hair and the freedom in their soul?

 

How many 40 year olds can still say that the very best time of each and every day is the time they get to hold their partners hand?  Nothing more, just hold hands?

 

I know, most of you are thinking “Oh, grow up, things just aren’t that way, that’s childish”. 

 

But is it? 

 

Do you remember each day of school, or each school dance better?

 

Do you remember falling off your bike, or riding your bike better?

 

Do you remember kissing your teddy, or kissing your first love better?

 

 

Well, if giving up those simple pleasures is what it means to grow up, than like Peter before me; “I’ll never grow up, ‘Cause growing up is awfuller, than all the awful things that ever were, I’ll never grow up, never grow up, never grow up, no sir”.

 

Life is too full of joy to just exist; Joy that is free to each and every one.

 

I will remember as many of my childhood activities; revel in the sense of adventure; relive the sense of challenge; re-feel the joys that came along. 

 

I will continue to leave work early; to walk the edge of the ocean, throw driftwood back, and watch the sunset; to come in late after watching the moon set; or to skip work completely to add another unusual experience to my collection of treasures.

 

I will continue to grow a beard at Christmas time each year, cause fat old guys with gray beards should; and to shave it off every January just to feel the air currents in a still room play across my cheeks.

 

I will continue to drive a silly old car that makes people smile; and decorate it for the holidays, and the summer surf days, simply because I have the imagination to do so, and because doing so spreads smiles and joy to those around me.

 

 

When the day comes that I can no longer do these things.

 

When I settle into the day-to-day existence of the plodding souls.

 

When I can no longer smile at my memories, be stirred by adventures, awed by the world around me, or remember the pleasures of days past;

Then mourn for me,

For I will already be gone.

© 2014 Marty K Vandermolen, All Rights Reserved

Phony Pizza Parlor

I was born in small-town.

The town was so small that there weren’t enough houses and businesses to even use an entire prefix.

 

You know of course that a phone number is made up of 10 digits. The first three digits are the area code, that was used to help the old phone company computers understand where to route the call. You see, the phone network back then was a large collections of medium sized Area Systems. An area system would provide services to up to an entire state and more depending on the number of phones. That area system was a single “Area Code”, the first three digits.

 

And each Area System was broken down into a number of local systems. Each local system originally had only one Prefix (the next three digits in a phone number). Because some people didn’t have phones, and hardly anyone had more than one phone, so only one phone number.

 

No faxes back then. No Internet connections. No cell phones.

 

Each local system could support a maximum of 10,000 phones.

 

The town I was born in didn’t have that many.

 

So for the first ten or twelve years, every phone in town started with the same three numbers. In our case, 447. Right around 1970 the town had finally grown large enough that the local Ma Bell decided they needed to expand the local system. When they did, someone made a logical, but strategically poor decision. They added 443 as the next prefix in the area.

 

This caused no end of confusion in town for a while. I mean everyone who had been in town for any length of time, well, their fingers just naturally dialed out 447 when they started dialing a phone number. Of course, if the number they were trying to dial was new, and thus 443, they actually got connected to a 447 number by “mistake”. I remember many adults being frustrated with the new phone numbers until their heads and fingers got back in sync.

 

My brothers and I were frustrated too. Frustrated as only three teenage males can be.

 

One late Spring Friday night, shortly after the new prefix had been added, our parents were off playing Bridge with their friends, and my brothers and I were home alone. Left with my eldest brother “in charge”. The second poor decision that lead to the upcoming travesty.

 

My brothers and I were down in the basement watching F-Troop on TV when the phone rang. Well, that started a free-for all (as most things did back then) with the three of us all racing to get up the steep narrow stairs and into the kitchen first so that we could answer the phone.

 

I am sure that bruises were involved, and wouldn’t be surprised to know that blood flowed either.

 

Well, it turned out some fool had miss dialed and called our house in an effort to reach the newest pizza parlor in town to order a pizza.

 

Frustrating.

 

Not that we hadn’t enjoyed the fight across the basement floor, the general trampling that occurred on the stairs, setting the kitchen table and chairs back upright, and re-gluing the tile knocked loose from the counters, but, the call hadn’t even been for us.

 

After glumly clumping back down to the basement and setting in front of the TV again, the phone rang a second time.

 

More bruises were collected.

 

More blood was shed.

 

My memory tells me that in that first Friday night, we got several such misdialed phone calls.

 

Saturday night was the same. A few Sunday, and then hardly any more…..until the following Friday.

 

Another Bridge night. Parents gone again. Brothers and I watching F-Troop on TV. Phone ringing.

 

Bruises.

 

Blood.

 

Yep, we boys developed a short fuse when it came to those pizza calls.

　

 

Looking back, it is relatively obvious of course that we could have chosen to ignore Friday night and Saturday night phone calls…..but then this wouldn’t be much of a story, would it?

　

 

I can’t tell you who to blame. I know it had to be one of the three of use boys, since we were after all the only ones home. A line of reasoning that Mom and Dad fell back on often as I recall.

 

And I am sure that I was much too polite, kind, and generous for it to have been me. So I am going to arbitrarily blame Barry.

 

After-all, Mom and Dad had left him “in-charge”.

 

Of course, there are any number of elderly childless spinster ladies today that used to ply their trade as teenage babysitters back in the day who will enthusiastically tell you that being “in charge” of my brothers and I was akin to tossing three angry ally cats in a single gunny sac and trying to keep them apart at the same time.

 

In any case, since we have all come to agreement that we are going to blame Barry; Barry answered the phone only to hear someone ask to order a pizza….AND HE POLITELY TOOK THEIR ORDER!

 

I stood there with my mouth hanging open. Barry thanked them, told them that the pizza would be ready for pickup in 20 minutes and hung up.

 

I remember asking him; “What happens when it isn’t ready”. To which he said; “What do we care, they will be at the counter then, not here”.

 

Well, that was the beginning. And the beginning of the end as it turned out, though my brothers and I never considered it. After-all, our only thought was we were getting “even” with the people who couldn’t even dial their phones right.

 

Call after call, we politely took orders, suggested add on sales, and promised pickup times.

 

Funny thing, in a town that only ever saw one or two snow flurries in the 20 years that I lived there, things kinda snowballed from that point on.

 

It wasn’t too long before someone (okay, someone on our end of the phone call) offered our new pizza delivery service. Promising that if the pizza wasn’t in the customer’s hands in 35 minutes or less, it would be free.

 

It’s amazing, really, how many home deliveries you can promise to people before the first person’s patience runs out and they call back irate that their pizza hasn’t arrived.

 

It’s even more amazing how apologetic an irate person gets when they think they messed up dialing the phone.

 

But, before you think too badly about us, we didn’t keep that up for very long.

 

But before you give us too much credit;

 

I suppose I should admit that the pizza parlor didn‘t last out the summer.

　

© 2014, Marty K Vandermolen, All Rights Reserved

Traffic Counters the Criminal Justice System

I expect that you all have seen them.  Two rubber hoses nailed down in the street.  One that runs from curb to curb, the other that only extends to the middle of the street.  And both of them connected to a medium sized metal box.  Typically chained to a tree, metal sign post, or telephone pole.

 

Traffic Counters.

 

As kids, my brother’s and I were fascinated by them.

 

I mean, how can it be that they count cars driving on the street?  And how do they tell which way the car is going?  And more importantly, how do they do it all without electricity?

 

We had “inquiring minds”, we just naturally wanted to know.

 

 

Now-a-days, a kid that wanted to know something like that could just sit down at the computer, heck even the phone, and find out.  But not when we were growing up.  Nope, back then, knowledge came only from personal investment.  And while truth be told we could likely have learned how they worked by going to the library and doing some reading…..my brother’s and I were more “hands on” kinda guys.

 

We used to sit on the curb in the summer, right next to one of those things and try and figure it out.  We’d listen to the thing and see if it whined; they never did.  We’d listen to see if they made any noise at all; the only noise was a quiet “click” as a car drove by.  Heck, in all truth, we weren’t even sure if those were hoses, they could just as easily been electric cords nailed out across the road.

 

Yep, Traffic Counters were a mystery. 

 

And worse.  They were a mystery that came and went by magic.  We never saw one laid out, never saw one picked up.  One morning going to school they wouldn’t be there, coming home later and there they were, all laid out and chained to a big old elm tree. That part we figured was being done by some guy while we were in school, but it added to the mystic somewhat none-the-less. Even questioning the retired people in the neighborhood didn’t help, no one had ever seen a traffic counter put in place.  Just all of a sudden, there it was, chained down.

 

 

Our curiosity got to be too much one time, and while I won’t I won’t say who done it, I will say that one day after school there was a traffic counter gutted like a fish lying on the dinner table.  Metal case open like a clam, panels and parts spread all over the table.  And people were rooting through the internal organs.

 

Pretty interesting device. 

 

Those are rubber hoses by the way. 

 

And the way the thing worked was that when a car drove over it and flattened a section of the hose, it pushed the air down the hose and into the metal box.  The air pressure and volume did two things.  First, it caused a small paper strip to roll forward, and second, it caused a pin to make a mark on the paper.  One mark every time the long hose is run over, a different colored ink mark every time the short hose is run over. 

 

Let’s say blue ink for the long hose and green ink for the short one. 

 

Total up the green marks, and you know how many cars drove down the side of the street that the short hose crossed (say the eastbound lane).  Total up the blue marks and you know how many cars drove down the street either way.  Subtract the number of green from the number of blue, and you know how many cars drove the side of the street that the short hose did not cross (westbound cars).

 

Yep, pretty ingenious. 

 

Oh, nowadays they are probably battery operated; computer controlled, with digital counters, and such.  But you have to marvel that someone figured out how to do that before electronics and computers.  Pretty smart them old guys were.

 

 

But, back to my tale.

 

 

So, spread out on the table is a thousand and one parts.  All removed, although not necessarily gently removed, from the traffic counter’s metal box.  Wheels and cogs; levers and cams; pistons and pens; screws and bolts; nuts and washers; metal plates, and bearings. 

 

It was pretty obvious that there was no way that that thing was going back together.  Certainly it was never going to work again.  And of course there was the little problem of the fact that the thing had been liberated by using a pair of bolt cutters so the chain and lock looked a little worse for the wear.  And then of course, the hose had been torn up from the street, rolled up and carted off too.

 

In broad daylight to boot.

 

 

Yes indeed.  Wasn’t going back, so the only thing to do was to dispose of the evidence.  Fair is as fair does, and so the two boys who had nothing to do with the acquisition decided that it was up to the third to dispose of it.  Only thing that wasn’t taken into consideration was how little consideration was going to be given to disposing of the evidence.

 

Let’s face it, splitting the parts up in to three roughly equal sized groups and chucking those groups over the back fence into neighboring yards isn’t exactly the plan the mob used with Jimmy Hoffa.

 

 

A few days later, and while sitting in class (arguably a rare event) a Vandermolen got called to the Principal’s office.  Well called isn’t really the right term.  Escorted is more the truth of the matter.  By the Principal himself. 

 

I suspect that the principal had previous experience on his side, indicating that the best way to get a Vandermolen to his office was to drag them there personnally.  In any case, there was some discussion in the hall about needing to go back into the classroom and getting a coat, and hat. 

 

A discussion that the Vandermolen both won, and lost.

 

For on getting to the Principal’s office fully attired, there were a couple of cops there, and an eyewitness.  The eyewitness blurted out; “yeah that’s the boy, he’s wearing the same coat and hat”.

 

Now, one could argue “due process”, after all, there was no line up of similar looking suspects, and the witness had been told they were going to get the boy who did it and bring him in for identification.   Yep, no doubt about it, due process was short changed.  But then this was in the days before the Miranda decision, and the Law was more concerned about arresting and punishing guilty people back then, at least more so than they seem to be these days.

 

And while that argument may have broken “new judicial grounds” and may even have held up in court….it would have brooked no headway with our dad, so there was little reason to try and go there.

 

Nope, best thing to do was throw oneself on the mercy of the court….cause there was no reason to expect any at home.

 

Copyright © 2013 Marty K Vandermolen

The Wedding Pig - Part III

The three of us came back together for a late lunch at the cabin on the ranch. Barry and Jerry had spotted a pig during their morning hunt, but were too far away to get a shot at it and as they were trying to stalk in closer, the pig crossed a stream and moved up a hillside into what was likely its daytime napping location.

I related the story of my morning’s hunt and we worked up a plan for the evenings hunt.

The cabin sat directly next to the stream that flowed through the property year round, the same stream that Barry and Jerry had watched a pig cross some mile or so downstream from the cabin site.  The stream flowed away from the cabin site about a third of a mile, then swung to the left through a full 90 degrees and continued on. 

As it happened, the pig I had scouted was uphill from that bend in the creek, the pig that Barry and Jerry had seen was downstream from there by a quarter mile or so.

We decided that the evening’s hunt plan would be to watch the water, one or both of those pigs would have to be coming down to water after a long hot day.   I stationed myself near a game crossing of the creek between the cabin and the bend.  Barry settled in just around the bend where he could glass the entire stream from bend downstream for a good half mile, and Jerry moved downstream a bit over a quarter mile and settled in where he could watch the main stream, and an empty stream bed that cut through a meadow.

I had slipped down into the stream bed which cut down about 8 feet from the valley floor.  There, with my back to the cut bank, Snugged up leaning next to a Live Oak tree, I settled in for the evening.  I pulled a bit of camouflage net out of my pack and hung it from the drooping oak branches in front of me.  The netting helped to mask my feet and legs, which I often shift for comfort while sitting on hunts.  Directly across from my hide was a narrow flat area along the stream covered in green grass and then a rising hillside.

Settled in and waiting quietly, as the temperatures began to drop out of triple digits the land around me began to stir.  Sparrows and blue jays cruised through the skies, often dropping onto a rock in the creek to stop and drink, then back on the wing.  A couple of ground squirrels began a sweep of the bank on the opposite side of the creek, nuzzling here and there among the dry grasses and dead tree limbs seeking their evening meal.

I had been in place about 30 minutes when the same cow elk I had seen earlier in the day stepped up to the edge of the cut bank about 30 feet to my left.  She stood for a minute, scanning the stream bed and the air currents for any signs of danger.  She slowly walked down the trail and forward until her front hooves just slipped into the edge of the stream itself.  There again, she stood still, nose flaring, right eye roving, searching the area around her.

After assuring herself all was safe, she “mewed” and the calf I had seen earlier came tripping over the cut bank and down into the stream bed.

For 20 minutes I was able to sit quietly and watch the cow and her calf drink, then wade the stream, browse the grasses on the far side, drink again, and then move off up the game trail on the far side of the stream from me.  All in all, she and her calf had passed within 30 feet of my hide, and then spent 20 minutes drinking and eating ranging from 30 to 75 feet away from me.  A treasured memory I will hold all my days.

After the elk left, the evening continued to drift towards dark.  Little was happening in front of me until about 20 minutes after the elk had moved on when I heard a single rifle shot from down around the bend.

It turns out, that at about the time that the cow was gathering up her calf and moving up the trail opposite me, the pig that Barry and Jerry had seen earlier in the day was drifting down off of the hillside down towards water.

Barry had spotted the pig coming down off of the slope opposite and downstream of him roughly half way between his position and Jerry’s position.  Knowing that pigs have fairly poor long distance eyesight, and having the wind in his favor, Barry predicted where the pig was going to cross the stream and began to move down to be in position for a close up shot.  His plan was to let the pig cross the creek, climb the near side bank, and shoot it just as it stepped onto the dirt road, thus making game recovery a simple matter of driving up to the downed pig and lifting it into the pickup.

Barry successfully slipped down the road, positioned himself behind a large oak tree, and settled in to watch the pig that has moved by now down to the water’s edge and is drinking.

Jerry noticed the pig just as it reached the far bank and began to drink.

Jerry knew the importance of harvesting that pig, and was excited that the hunt was going to be successful.  He was hunting with my 7mm Mauser and lined the cross hairs up on the pig’s side, right where the heart should be. Just as he was taking up pressure on the trigger, he remembered that the Mauser was sighted high at the range the pig was, dropped the cross hairs 4” and promptly put a round right through the pigs heart.

The pig dropped instantly, falling directly into the stream just off of the far bank.

By the time I walked back to the cabin and drove the truck down, Barry had stripped down to his shorts, wadded the stream, tied on the pig, and he and Jerry had hauled the pig across to the near bank.  We carried the pig up to the road, into the truck, and back to the cabin for skinning.

That was the most pleasant skinning job I have ever done.  There is nothing quite so nice as skinning a clean pig that all the fleas, ticks, and other vermin have abandoned while it was being drug through a cold water bath.

 

Copyright © 2013 Marty Vandermolen