Jasper and the company

Tales from the Backyard…I hate training dogs, but if you know my dogs, as some of you do, they are well mannered (for the most part).  Jasper fit it that category also.  During dinner time his place was to be in the kitchen while we ate in the dining room.  He would lay on the kitchen floor, with just the tips of his toes into the dining room, I guess so he could feel he was not totally left out and wait for us to finish so he could enter.  We had company for dinner one evening and as we were eating and I was expressing my thoughts during the conversation, I noticed in the corner of my eye, Jasper trying to sneak past as my back was turned, the excitement of the evening to great for him I guess.  Without raising my voice or stopping to correct him, I just added “your place is in the kitchen”, to the middle of whatever it was I was saying.  He turned and went back and lay back down in his spot.  The company just shook their heads in disbelief saying, “I can’t believe he just did that”.  They do what’s expected of them, and he was a great dog.

The Woodduck

Tales from the Backyard…  One of the favorite things we used to do as a family was to drive through Carlos Avery Wildlife Sanctuary and look for wildlife in the evenings.  It had Deer, Bear, Pheasants, Grouse and thousands of ducks.  One day as we were driving my dad stopped the car and said “there’s a Wood duck in that tree.  I was 4 or 5 at the time.  After much coaching as to where it was, I finally saw it and after watching for awhile, shouted, “It’s not a wood duck. I just saw it move”.

Spats

Tales from the Backyard…While on the road (working a different park than where I was stationed) I got a kitten, a black Maine Coon with white face, chest and paws, we called her Spats.  She was one of those once in a lifetime cats that was aloof but friendly, all the neighbors knew her.  She would sit outside and watch for people coming up the sidewalk and run out to greet them.  She always came when called and when I was traveling, her favorite spot was around the steering column in the instrument pocket.  One day she disappeared and the whole neighborhood was on watch, but after 2 weeks we gave up hope, thinking someone else probably wanted her more.  Then one morning on my way to work I found her on our walk, trying to crawl home, totally emaciated.  She must have gotten trapped someplace and couldn’t get out.  She died in my arms bringing her inside the house.  But she didn’t leave us; she moved with us to Staten Island and often still jumps on the bed like she used to at our Newburyport home.  The first time was when I went to bed early and I thought Tush, our new cat, jumped up and walked across the bed over to my feet, then began walking up my leg.  When he got to my hip, I reached down and said, “Hi Tush”, but there was nothing there, only empty space with footmarks in the blanket.  She doesn’t come that often anymore, maybe because of the dogs, but I know she is still around.

Powder skiing

Tales from the Backyard…  Skiing at Crater Lake was by far the most fun.  In four feet of the light fluff, the skis would be airborne and you had no control other than bending your knees the direction you wanted to go.  We just had a 5’ snowfall so my skiing buddy and I wanted to do a short but really steep slope we had not done before.  It was a hike into and out of but hopefully would be worth it.  We got to the top and cheered as we went off.  Five feet of free powder up to my neck and no ski control and soon I fell over.  Totally immersed in the fluff I had no idea which was up or down or sideways.  I could breathe if I did so slowly.  Untangling my feet was next, done.  Now what?   My thought was if I began do summersaults, it being so steep, eventually I should pop back to the surface.  It worked, but too soon for me to grasp what was happening and over I went again.  The next time I was ready and popped back on the skis and had an excellent finish to the bottom.  My friend said, “Where did you go, I looked around and no-one was there”.  Life is what you make it.

Talking dogs

Tales from the Backyard…You may have noticed that in my stories my dogs talk.  They don’t really; it’s just my literary license to interpret what it is they would be saying if they could speak.  But any dog owner knows that they do talk, maybe not in human speak, but through their mannerisms or whines or barks; dog speak.  For instance, I feed all my dogs out of one dish, Cady likes to eat late in the evening and sometimes the bowl is empty.  She will come to wherever I am and give low whine growl, telling me the dish is empty again.  Chip, when he needs to go out, or come in, will go to the door and scrap it with his paw, one time and wait.  When any of my dogs want to come back in the house they give one short bark.  I have to laugh at dog physiologists who say a dog can learn 270 words.  We speak sentences to our dogs as we did to our child.  We don’t say come or sit or stay or eat to our children, well, maybe when very frustrated we would say “EAT”!!!  I think our dogs probably may not know 270, but close to it, sentences.  If I am walking and the dogs are going in a wrong direction, I just say “this way guys” and they turn and come.  All dogs know how to communicate in dog language and all owners listen, except for Thai.  If my dogs as a group want to go out, they send Thai to me and he will put his feet in my lap and say  ”awooot”, and I respond by saying “okay”, it always brings a smile to my face, then he will run to find the nearest toy and race off to the back door, the other two already there.  I will open it and he will race to the porch screen door (we have one of those flimsy ones with magnets in it so they can go in and out at will) and if its daylight, scope the back yard for squirrels and if he tenses, I will give him the okay and off he goes, otherwise he will just sit on the top step and watch for hours.  Life is short and too fun not to enjoy it, this is all there is folks.  (Sorry Anne)  

The German Shepard

Tales from the backyard…Somehow I ended up with a young German Sheppard, I don’t remember how, but think she was given to me as a runaway or as often happens, someone just dropped her along side of the road.  I had a friend at work that had lost his dog of 17 years so I asked if he might be interested in taking her.  I said she had been well trained and was smart as a whip.  He lived on a small hobby dairy farm south of Mora MN on the Snake River and I used to fish behind his house.  He said to bring her up on Saturday and he would take a look, so I did.   He and the dog bonded instantly and he said he would give her a try.  He then went into the house and got some butter and put it on her feet.  I said “what’s that for” and he responded that it would keep her from running away again.  On Monday at work I asked how the dog was doing and he said “the first night when it was time to bring in the cows for milking, I said to the dog ‘let’s bring in the cows’ and then we went into the pasture.  Watching me, she knew she was suppose to heard the cows to the barn and did so with little coaching.  The next morning when it was time to round up the cows again, I said ‘let’s get the cows’, she ran out and brought them back, all by herself”.  He also said that he had never let a dog sleep in the house before, but this one was so special he made a bed for her in the kitchen.  Maybe he was getting older and from the little time I had her, she was great company.

Picking up Thai

Tales from the Backyard…Every year our oil company sends out a calendar with pictures of puppies on it.  On one particular years cover there were 5 little puppies, all brown and silver, with their little feet over a log and just their heads and noses sticking out.  My wife said, “How Cute, I could have one of those”, wrong thing to say.  I went on line and found that these particular pups were St. Usuge Spaniels and one of the rarest hunting breeds in the world.  I searched and found a breeder in East St. Louis and he would only sell to a hunter, Dah.   We hit it off and when I went to pick up the pup in early April he only charged me $200, rather than the $1,200 he was charging.  (I did this on the sly, my wife not knowing a thing).  I continued west to see my brother and his wife in New Mexico and I remember the first night after picking Thai up (not his name yet) I had stopped and got the camper all set up and started to feed the dogs.  Since Thai was only 12 weeks old, I had special food for him and set it down right in front of him, first.  Wrong thing to do, I should have known better, Chip just walked over and grabbed him by the back of his neck and threw him about 15 feet.  I thought whoops.

Finding the wooden leg

Tales from the Backyard…  My grandparents lived about 120 miles away in the little town of Exland, in Wisconsin and one Christmas we were going to visit.  My dad had just bought a new car but didn't take the extra speed into consideration so we left at 4:00am as usual.  We arrived at 6:45 and they were still in bed and not happy.  I remember my grandpa stoking up the old pot bellied stove and a little later it began hopping around as he had stuffed it to full and left the draft wide open.  It just began to woof, woof, woof, and my dad and him trying to get it back under control.  It could easily have knocked down the stovepipe and burned the apartment down.  They lived upstairs of a large garage and the rooms were massive.  Us kids slept in the back portion with broken windows and I remember waking in the morning with snow on my feather tic, probably why I still sleep with the windows open whatever season.  The thing I remember most was when my grandpa called for me to sit on his knee, a real treat from such a stern man, and finding something solid around his knee asked what that was.  He pulled up his pants to show me his wooden leg and I jumped down running into the kitchen yelling “grampa has a wooden leg, grampa has a wooden leg”, as if no one knew.  They all laughed.  I recently visited the old town and it has been obliterated from the map, not a building standing, only the sign along the road and the cemetery.

Shrimping accident

Tales from the Backyard…  Generally, Salt water is heavier than fresh water, but when the fresh water is laden with glacier till, the reverse is true.  In Alaska, no-one learns to swim, the water is just too cold, so when a couple of friends went out Shrimping one night and one fell overboard and with water temp in the low 40’s, he was doomed.  When one drowns at the mouth of a glacial stream, he sinks to the stratification layer in between the fresh and salt water and is never seen again and that’s exactly what happened. But that’s the life he wanted to live and he did it to the fullest.  RIP my friend.

The Killer Whales

Tales from the Backyard…  One day while in Alaska, I went down to the marina to check on my boat and saw the dock master watching something through his binoculars, so I asked what was going on.  He said that there was a pod of killer Whales across the bay, so I ran down to my boat to go out and watch.  At that time I was having trouble with the starter and had to start it by hand, but it starts easy so off I went.  I didn't want to get to close so I stopped a couple hundred yards away and watched these magnificent creatures lazily swimming along the shore.  This was the first time this had occurred since I was up there and it was so neat to be able to witness it.  After a while they went down and didn't come back to the surface and then all of a sudden they blew right next to the boat and scared the crap out of me.  I should have known they were as curious as I, but to have six or seven swimming around me and bigger than the boat was more than I could take, so I ran astern and pulled the cowling off the motor and began pulling on the starter rope.  I pulled and pulled in a frantic haste trying to get the engine going but it wouldn't start.  Then they just swam away.  It was then I realized I hadn't turned on the ignition key.

The Radio repeater

Tales from the Backyard... While working in Alaska at the Klondike Goldrush NHS among my various duties was the maintenance of the Historic Chilcoot Trail.  We had Rangers who lived the summer months at the head of the trail just before the last climb to the top and they were without radio contact while there and had to hike halfway down the mountain every time they needed to call out. So the Service Center had sent out a radio expert to find a location for a repeater.  I had scheduled a helicopter for the day and we lifted off and began heading the 17 miles up the canyon.  We were to meet the rangers there and scout the mountain tops.  When we got to the summit, we found what looked like a good location and we were dropped off at the top of this massive cliff which looked like Half Dome at Yosemite and the chopper flew down to get the rangers.  No sooner had he left when a massive storm front moved in from nowhere.  You couldn’t see ten feet.  I told the radio expert that these fronts could last hours or for days, so we had 2 choices, stay here and wait or move along the ridge and connect with the trail, about a mile and a half away and climb down.  He didn’t want to stay and because he thought he was senior in rank, said we would head out this way, pointing in the wrong direction.  I said we could, but it’s about 2,000 miles to the nearest road.  We argued for about 10 minutes then I just said that I was going to go along the ridge and if he wanted to start out his way, when I got to the bottom I would inform the rangers and they would send a search party.  Mind you we were standing on a flat rock with zero visibility, arguing over which way to go, not knowing north from south and heading in the wrong direction meant either going into the wilderness or falling off the face of the cliff.  He followed; along the way we discovered hundreds of artifacts left by the gold seekers more than a hundred years earlier.  We even found the skeleton of a packhorse with all the gear still attached.  Why they had come so far off the trail is still a mystery, but what a great experience.  Apparently we made it down, just as the clouds lifted.  He never did say thanks.

The Programming test

Tales from the backyard…  In the sixties I worked as a machinist at an ammunition factory and because of all the pounding of the machines, I began to lose my hearing so thought it prudent to change careers.  So with the urging of my cousin, I started night school to be a computer programmer and I graduated with honors. Then my cousin said they had an opening where he worked and he would set up an interview.  The day of the appt., the traffic was a nightmare and then I couldn't find parking and running late, had to run to the office and just ran through the door.  I told them I was here to take the programmer tests and they seemed perplexed, but upon my insistence they called upstairs.  After much debate, they finally said to go up, which I did, and took the tests and aced them all.  The interview, I thought, went great but he ended it by saying they did not have any vacancies at the moment, but would surely keep my name on file.  I didn't want to say “but”, so let it go and would call my cousin that night.  On the way out as I reached for the door, on it was the Great Northern RR emblem of the Mountain Goat, my meeting was next door at the Northern Pacific headquarters.  Luckily, subsequently, I failed one of their three tests by 1 point and didn't get the job, as my cousin had a massive fatal heart attack (only 38) shortly after and I thought it might not be the kind of stressful job I was looking for anyway, so became a carpenter.

Paul's big fish

Tales from the backyard…  While working in Alaska I coached my son’s little league team, and on it was one of my sons best friends, Paul, very small for his age but a great little athlete.  One day they asked to go fishing and I said sure as long as his mom said it was okay, it was.  So we loaded the boat after practice one night and began trolling the shoreline.  Almost at once both poles got hits and they dashed back to set the hooks.  My son’s fish got off almost at once, but Paul’s was on for the long haul.  I kept telling him to keep the tip of the pole up, which worked at the beginning, but after about 10 minutes he was tiring, not so much the fish, and his arms began to sag.  He kept leaning back further and further trying in vain to keep the tip up high and I remember at one point, the pole was pointing straight back over the transom and he was leaning back, 6 inches above and almost prone to the bottom of the boat.  He was so tired, he finally let Tom give him some help and he landed the big salmon.  I weighed it at 27 lbs. (almost half of his weight) then hooked it on the stringer I used and flipped it in the water.  The stringer broke, and off the fish swam.  I felt so bad.  We had no other hits that night so I gave him a Mulligan and he did catch a nice one the next time out.

Gone with the Wind

Tales from the backyard…  The first movie I ever went to by myself was ‘Gone with the Wind’.  I was suppose to go with my mom and family but had played to late, so she left me the 20 cents to get in.  The foyer was so crowded that I kept the 20 cents and snuck in.  I went to go to the bathroom like always, and the women threw me out, mom not there to hold my hand I guess.  I had never gone to a movie with an intermission before and I thought the movie was over and left.  It wasn’t for many years that I learned of my mistake.

The feral cat

Tales from the backyard…When we moved to Klamath Falls Oregon, I bought my fishing license and drove out the 25 miles with the family to the Williamson River.  I was fishing a spot where they had replaced an old bridge and the rubble was still there.  As I was fishing the kids found some feral kittens in the rubble and caught one and wanted to bring it home, so we did.  It was young enough and adapted well, and gave our Toy Poodle a playmate.  Soon it became pregnant, so we prepared a cardboard box and showed her where it was under our bed, away from Tiger (the poodle).  When she was giving birth, Tiger just laid beside the box, with head on paws listening to the commotion inside.  When it was over, the cat got up and out of the box to get some food and water and as she was getting out, Tiger was getting in.  I nervously watched but the cat was oblivious or just knew that Tiger was going to be a great baby sitter, as Tiger just curled up with the kittens and that’s the way it went until we gave them all away.

Cady's game

Tales from the Backyard…  Cady, my little female Springer has a game she plays with the two males.  When they are in the backyard she will suddenly look up toward the wayback and then give a small woof and start running that way.  The other two will start their barking and take off all the way back, then racing back and forth looking for the imaginary foe.  Cady already having just turned around will trot back to the porch with a grin thinking, “Suckers.”

Late night swim

Tales from the backyard…One year my sister brought her new beau over to go swimming in the lake behind our house.  We didn't actually live on the lake but had access to it by way of a small alley.  At the end there was a long dock as the lake is very shallow and at the end of the dock the water is only about 30” deep.  As teenagers they were horsing around and Lee threw my sister off the dock.  She landed on her butt, with her head easily out of the water, so she just sat there.  Showing off, thinking the water to be much deeper, mister macho man ran back up the dock and came running full speed to the end, jumped high in the air and came down head first.  Did I mention the lake bottom is hard gravel?  When they got to the house, Lee’s face was almost devoid of skin along with most of that on his chest.   I think my sister married him out of sympathy; it sure wasn't for his brains. 

Mom's driving

Tales from the Backyard…When I was 5, my mother always made me go to church and sit beside her.  Now a kid with what is now called ADD should not be forced to sit for an hour or more, especially in church, so it became a ritual on Sundays that I would go to church, squirm for an hour and then when we got back home I would run and hide until found and receive a spanking.  One day I had had enough and said I was going to run away.  My mom said “good, I’ll pack you a lunch”, knowing I wouldn't.  She did and made me a little hobo stick and bandanna to carry the lunch in and off I went.  It was about a quarter mile or more in any direction to the nearest road so I took to the woods and made my way past the nearest neighbors.  After a couple of hours, my mom realized I was not around and sent all my siblings to find me.  No luck.  What to do now she thought, Dads working and I can’t drive.  Another hour or so and getting dark, worried, she packed the kids in the car and tried to drive.  I use that term ”tried” very loosely because as I remember, when I saw her coming down the dirt road, or should I say, through the fields, over the road through the ditch and other fields, back over the road to the other ditch, I guess you could say she was driving.  The car stopped next to a barbed wire fence and my brothers and sister scrambled out of the car hooting and laughing, better than any carnival ride they said.  We left the car for my dad, and walked home, everyone very happy.  That was the only time my mother ever got behind the wheel.

Snapping Turtles

Tales from the backyard…One year I was fishing on a small bay on Center Lake for panfish.  I had on my waders and was in about 4 ½ feet of water when I noticed something rolling over and over and coming my way.  When it got closer I saw that it was a huge Snapping turtle of about 30 or so lbs and looked to be battling a small Carp.  I love turtle meat so I took my pole to shore and went back out.  When the Turtle got close enough I grabbed it by the tail.  Never grab a turtle by the tail when its making love.  Up popped another, larger than the first and it wanted me bad.  Being bitten by a large snapper is not something I cared to do, so I waited for a chance and grabbed this one also.  Now with one in each hand I began to back out of the water, with the snappers stretching their necks full length trying for a piece of Pete.  I clapped them together trying to keep them occupied.  The closer to shore I went, the shallower the water and the heavier they became.  My arms were aching from the weight but I eventually made it and finding some sheep fence wrapped them up and then rested.  Sitting there I saw another 2 rolling my way in the water, so off I went again.  This time prepared, but the turtles were no less humorous.  All in all I caught 14 turtles that day and put them in the back of my truck and showed them off for two days.  I then took them to Osceola WI. to a lab and sold them.  392 lbs. and all in all they averaged 28 lbs. each, the largest just over 35, that’s after sitting in the sun in the back of my pickup for 2 days.  I forgot to save one for myself, but I did get a hefty check.

Getting Thai

Tales from the Backyard…Every year our oil company sends out a calendar with pictures of puppies on it.  On that particular years cover there were 5 little puppies, all brown and silver, with their little feet over a log and just their heads and noses sticking out.  My wife said, “How Cute, I could have one of those”, wrong thing to say.  I went on line and found that these particular pups were St. Usuge Spaniels and one of the rarest hunting breeds in the world.  I happened to find a breeder in East St. Louis and he would only sell to a hunter, Dah.   We hit it off and when I went to pick up the pup in early April he only charged me $200, rather than the $1,200 he was charging.  (I did this on the sly, my wife not knowing a thing).  I continued west to see my brother and his wife in New Mexico and I remember the first night after picking Thai up, after I had stopped and got the camper all set up, I started to feed the dogs.  Since Thai was only 12 weeks old, I had special food for him and set it down right in front of him, first.  Wrong thing to do, I should have known better, Chip just walked over and grabbed him by the back of his neck and threw him about 15 feet.  I thought whoops.

The shed

Tales from the Backyard…On the farm we had an old shed which had fallen down, the roof half gone, a perfect place to climb, using the exposed nails as footholds.  So up we went, my brother Jerry and me.  I remember him making it all the way across the roof when he slipped and put a deep gash in his foot.  Trying to help, I also slipped and put a 2” gash in my leg.  We made it back off the roof.  Mom could only afford for one of us to go the doctor, so my brother was chosen; I was left with a cloth bandage.  I still have the scar…  Our water came from a well which was powered by an electric motor, which was hooked to the pump via a V belt drive pulley.  This belt was old and loose so when you started the motor, the belt would sometimes just sit there and slip on the pulley.  To get it going, you had to carefully (did I say carefully) give the wheel a push, keeping your fingers free.  Even when I reached six, I was never allowed to do this.  The same week as we had cut ourselves, my brother and I were in the driveway building pretend roads (our second favorite thing), when we saw my sister Helen running and screaming from the pump house holding her hand in front of her.  She had not been careful and had severed her finger clean off, dangling by a thin strip of skin.  Not having a car, my mother grabbed my sister and ran to the neighbors for help to the doctors and there they re-attached it in his office, no ice or anything even after several hours, and except for it being not perfectly straight, you couldn't tell.

Floating pickup

Tales from the Backyard…  One year at Klondike GRNP my superintendent wanted me to research and buy a jet boat for the rangers to use to get the equipment and supplies up river rather the expensive helicopter method.  So I picked out a 20 footer with twin 200 jet propelled Mercury’s for propulsion.  When it arrived, of course it had to be tested so my friend and co-worker Dave and I loaded it on the trailer and took it to a section of beach up river to launch it.  I told Dave to take the truck above high tide line then off we went.  Unfortunately, there were many dead-falls in the river so making headway was difficult and eventually we came to a halt, as I didn't think we could make it back out, going up river is much easier than down.  After many hours we headed back.  When we arrived where the truck and trailer were supposed to be, we found them floating in the bay, with a long line attached to the back of another friends pickup.  The tide that day was over 5 feet above average and had picked the truck off the beach and sent it floating.  Luckily, my friend happened to be driving by and had secured it and rather than trying to get it to higher ground, just sat there to see what would happen.  If it hadn't been a Dodge it probably would have sank it the bay, but it was so water tight that the inside never got wet.  That’s a story that is probably still told in Skagway around the bar.  I know I never lived it down while still there.

Hiking the Chilkoot

The trail goes down the canyon

Tales from the Backyard…  One year at Klondike my friends from Klamath Falls came up to visit.  They had planned on hiking the Chilcoot trail and my wife was going to go along.  I was much too busy but said that I would meet the them on Weds. morning and hike to the border with them, they would then continue on and I would head back.  The plan was for them to hike in to lower camp the first day, then to Sheep camp the second.  Sheep camp was 14 miles up the canyon.  That’s where I would meet them.  So on Weds. Morning I was up early and caught a ride to the trail head and began the hike in.  I arrived about 10 am and them being ready, we continued on and up to the summit, 3 miles ahead.  Once there we had lunch and they continued on as I headed back down the mountain and back to work.   My ride back to town was nowhere to be seen and after 35 or so miles of hiking in one day, my legs were toast, luckily the only cab in town just dropped off some hikers so I caught a ride with him back to town.  When I took off my boots and socks, my big toenail came with it, probably from kicking all the stones off the trail.  It was quite a day. 

The littlest Sea Otter

Tales from the Backyard…  My friends Jim and Bonny came up to go hiking the Chilkoot, but the evening before they went, I took them out fishing for salmon.  The mountains are so steep that you can almost touch them and still be in 400 feet of water.  The salmon like it close to the rocks so we were trolling slowly along when a family of Sea Otters came swimming by.  They then crawled up on the rocks right next to us.  About 15 feet back was the smallest otter with an 18 inch fish in his mouth, struggling slowly along.  When he reached the spot where the rest of the family were resting, the mother got back in the water and started swimming again.  The poor little otter had to just keep on going.  The mother otter swam another 100 feet or so and again crawled out of the water, the 4 pups right behind.  The last, still struggling with the fish, slowly made it to mom and again, she crawled back into the water and swam another 100 feet or so.  This went on for quite some time, them never more than 20 or so feet from us.  Finally, we turned and headed home.  I’m not sure what message the mother otter was trying to teach the little one, but I don’t think he was getting it as the last we saw of then, he was still struggling with the fish.

The wood stove

Tales from the Backyard…  One year my friend Ron’s dad built a new wood stove for his fish house.  We decided we were going to stay out all night and fish Walleyes and his dad said that he didn’t have the draft finished for the stove, so we better take a lot of wood.  We loaded the car and drove out on the ice to the shack and after getting the fire going, drilled the holes and started to fish.  When his dad said we needed to bring a lot of wood he wasn't

kidding.  It ate wood like a blast furnace.  We had no control other than to wait until it was almost out then throw on more wood.  The temp in the house began to sore and we began to shed cloths.  Soon we were down to skivvies and boots, the temp gauge had topped out at 120.  We were wringing wet with sweat.  Soon I had to go out and chop more wood.  It was like a sauna, so I grabbed the ax and went outside in skivvies and boots and began chopping.  A car drove up to see how the fishing was and there I was, outside temp 10 below zero, dripping wet with sweat, chopping wood.  They just shook their heads and drove off.  We ran out of wood about an hour later and went home, fish-less again.

The drop-off

Tales from the Backyard…  My early teen summers were always spent at the swimming beach.  I would stay well into the evenings, its where most of us would be.  One day my friend Ron and I found this section of dock floating along shore so thought it might be fun to push it out to see where the drop-off started, a good thing to know for fishing (this was before fish finders).  So we began pushing it deeper and deeper and as we went, one of us would dive down, find the bottom, turn and kick off to the surface.  We had been doing this for awhile when Ron stayed under for quite some time and upon surfacing said he couldn't touch the bottom.  I said let me try and took several deep breaths than held and went down.  I swam down and down and down but finding nothing thought a couple more big strokes and I’ll turn back.  Finding nothing I turned and headed up.  No big kick to help propel me up this time, it was all swimming.  Soon my lungs were on fire and bursting so I let out some air.  Up and up I went, I could see the surface, always just above my reach.  Again I let out air and by now my legs were useless and it was pulling water with arms only.  They were now beginning to feel like lead weights and had no power left, the surface just right there, I could see it becoming darker and darker and then I just stopped, no more energy to continue, everything gone black.  Just then, Ron reached out and grabbed me, pulling me to the surface where I drew in a huge gasp of air.  I said, I think we found it.

The Bullhead

Tales from the Backyard…About three miles from the farm there was a small creek where we would go fish for bullheads.  I remember one day catching one about 2 inches long and decided I would make it a pet and so started to carry it home.  They can live for hours out of water.  To walk that far alone I must have been six, as we moved shortly after that.   Bullheads have sharp painful spikes at the ends of their pectoral fins so you have to be very careful holding them and not squeeze or they will extend their pectorals and jab you, which has some painful bacteria and the pain lasts for hours if not days.  I remember making it all the way to the yard and in my excitement to show my mom, I squeezed too hard and it jabbed the stinger into my palm, god that hurt, I threw it down and killed it with a stick.  My hand hurt for days.

Chilkoot Trail washout

Tales from the Backyard…  One summer at Klondike we had this hellascious storm that had dumped 6” of rain over 2 days.  The Chilkoot trail was a mess.  The rangers had reported that almost every bridge had been washed out, there were over 100.  I amassed the entire trail crew, along with my preservation crew and hired several of the locals to head to the back country and begin the arduous task to make the repairs.  The crews were split in half, one to work the length of the trail, making repairs as necessary as they went and the other to work on our largest bridge, which was 110 feet long, it being totally washed out, the river actually had been diverted.  The crews stocked up and off they went.  I kept in touch via radio.  Early the next week, the rangers had scheduled a helicopter to resupply the Ranger station so I asked if I could be dropped off at mile 13, the big bridge.  When I arrived, the crew of 13 just stood and watched as I landed and got out.  They were tired, dejected and suffering from lack of sleep from the 18 hour days, but worst of all they were demoralized and had lost sight of the task at hand.  No one was in control.  The amount of work they had already accomplished was phenomenal, having built all the new log and stone filled cairns in the river and had cut all the trees for the walkway and supports (the design is kind of Burmese style).  I assembled them and complimented them on what they had done so far and then assigned the various tasks left to be done and sent them out.  By the end of the day they had completed the bridge just as the helicopter came to pick me up.  As I lifted off I looked down and they all were just staring up at me leaving and from the looks on their pride filled faces,  I thought as I flew away  of them thinking, “Who was that man?”, and later learned that that is exactly what they were thinking.  My thanks to you all for a job well done.

Nibbles

Tales from the Backyard…  My wife had a cat named Nibbles and one year we made our annual trip back home to see the folks and upon our return, found her sick and dying.  She was 20 or so, so we made a bed for her in our bedroom so she could leave in peace.  I went to check on her later in the day and found our daughter Heather (2 ½) sitting beside her, reading.  She had gathered every book she owned and was reading them one at a time.  I had that on tape, but somehow I misplaced it.  When Anna died, Janice had her cremated, the ashes to be buried by the crematorium.  One day as we were driving up the Saw Mill Pkwy, I said “that must be where they buried Anna”  “Where” she replied.  I said “Didn't you see the sign”  “No” she said and I said, spelling out the letters “D U M P”.

The Pine Martin

Tales from the Backyard…  One year the Regional Chief Biologist asked me if I would assist him while he did sampling of the lake (Crater Lake).  Why he didn't ask our park biologist I don’t know, of course I accepted.  While we were rowing along the lake shore we spotted a Pine Martin chasing a red squirrel along the rocky shore and up into the trees they would go, down the other side and over the rocks again to another tree and round and round they went until it was as if one said “Time Out” and they both stopped.  The squirrel was facing down the tree and the Pine Martin facing up, their noses almost touching.  Even from where we were we could see their chests heaving in and out trying to catch their breath.  Then it was “Time in” and off they went round and round again.  We just sat and watched as they must have done this for close to 3/4 an hour, repeating the “Time Out/In” process on different trees until the squirrel decided he had enough and ran into a hole.  The Pine Martin, feeling outwitted, hung his head and left.  I often wonder if this is a game they play every day or if it was a onetime thing.  A game of life and death to be sure for the squirrel.

The Black Snake

Tales from the Backyard…  A friend from Nevada  ( Tony), whom I was in the service with, came to visit us in the park and, as he was an avid fisherman, I told him I had a spot which might prove fruitful.  Klamath Lake is known for some monster trout, I mean in the 10-20 lb class.  We arrived at the lake and scooted over and down the rocks to the lake-shore.  I handed him a lure which I said they were hitting on and he began casting.  He shortly got the lure hung up on the rocks by his feet and reached down to extricate it when a huge black Water Snake of about 5 feet long shot out right by his hand.  He cleared the ten foot bank with ease.  Coming back he hooked into something really big and after a long fight, lost it at the shore.  The look of disappointment on his face I can still see.

Blue Crater lake

Tales from the Backyard…  Like a Geico commercial, “Did you know Crater Lake was not always blue”?  As Paul Harvey used to say; “And now, the rest of the story”.  In 1974 our stupid Superintendant decided he wanted a port-a-san at the bottom of the lake trail and could not be convinced otherwise.  Maybe he thought that people would want their picture taken at one of the world’s greatest vistas, standing in front of a Port-a-san, who knows.  So Ken and I started to make the arrangements by hiking to the bottom and surveying a good spot which was out of sight of the trail and the boats which took you around the lake.  Being solid rocks at the bottom the next step was to build a platform for it to sit on that was accessible but still out of sight of the trail hikers.  A few weeks later we had built a beautiful deck and when we put the port-a-san on it, sitting there you could see the whole lake through the doorway, a real kings thrown.  Unfortunately, in the fall we had to go down and empty the contents into containers which then had to be carried out by hand, the 1 mile hike to the top.  No small job, but we had plenty of help from the trail crew for the process.  I poured a little more water in the tank and made sure everything would flow out the valve under the toilet while Ken got things ready underneath.  The outflow had a single open/shut valve; you pulled it open and pushed to close.  With buckets ready, Ken pulled on the valve, the whole thing came out in his hand knocking over the bucket and before we could rectify the problem, the Port-a-san was empty.  So now you know why Crater Lake is blue.

Grounded

Tales from the backyard…Our neighbors, the Thurnbecks, had kids my older sibling’s age.  They would go over and play and I would tag along.  One day they were watering something; I don’t know what and would collect the water in buckets from a faucet at the side of the house.  I wanted to help but was told not to touch a bare wire which was close to the faucet.  This wire was a ground wire for the TV.  I had accidentally touched it once and nothing happened, but the next time my hand was on the faucet and that’s where I stayed, glued to both the faucet and the wire and could not release from either.  I yelled and yelled for help but every time someone would touch me, they would get a shock and then Mrs. Thurnbeck thought to unplug the TV and I was saved.  It had no ill effects other than burning a hole through my thumbnail and maybe my memory brain cells got fried, I can’t remember.

Holloween

Tales from the Backyard…For some reason our home had always been the focal point for neighbors and family.  Once a month or so friends would come with their kids, to play cards and all the kids would go into the living room to watch a new invention, Television.  We were one of the first families to get one.  Saturday was also the night we all took our baths too.  Out would come the washtub, filled with hot water from the stove and each of us in turn would take a bath, me, the smallest, always last, the water always cold by then.  On would go the clean pajamas for the visitors to see.  It was also the night that the show called “Lights Out” came on.  This show was the precursor of all following creepy shows, somewhat like 'The Inner Sanctum' and 'The Twilight Zone'.  The show always started with a very deep voiced narrator, foretelling of the nights events.  This was done with a flickering candle on the screen and then the narrator would say, “Let the show begin, Lights Out”, and at that exact moment, the candle would be extinguished, leaving the screen dark for a few seconds. You always watched in the dark.  I remember one particular fall Saturday; about ten of us little and not so little kids were glued to the front of the TV, the only light visible was under the kitchen door and from the TV.  The night was stormy and rainy making things very eerie and us very jumpy.  When the announcer said the words “Lights Out”, there was a flash of lightning and a bang of thunder, not only did the TV candle go out, but all the lights in the house went out.  Talk about screaming kids.  We ran to the kitchen seeking the safety of our parents but that room was dark too.  To this day I still don’t know if it was a coincidence or my dad pulling a prank.

Pet Squirrel

We lived on a minimum income in those years and fresh game was a staple for our diet.  But when my older brother was still around, we ate a lot of Spam.

Dad's Boss Cat

My father had a huge Tom-Cat somewhere in the 25 lb range and it ruled the neighborhood.  No dog would come near.  If it did, the cat was on it like a lion on a leopard.  The birds, squirrels and chipmunks lived in fear, it often brought them home alive to give to my mom, maybe to clean and cook it for him, who knows.  It ruled the house also.  If it was in a chair, you left it there, otherwise suffering the consequences.  We came to visit one day and the cat was sitting in its chair, Lori, about a year old then, was placed on a blanket on the floor in the living room amongst us.  After a while, the cat leaped off the chair, landing on Lori's back and then bit her on the neck as if trying to kill a Impala.  Dad chased the cat out of the house, but he never did anything like that again.  On another occasion the whole family was there for a Sunday dinner.  My sister and her husband (Lee)came and wanting to sit down, he tried to move the cat off its chair .  The cat slapped him with its paw and left its mark. Lee, not to bright, reached down and grabbed cat around the neck and lifted it to his face saying something like, We'll show you who's boss.  The cat began pumping his back legs, digging his claws deeper and deeper into Lee's arm.  Lee kept squeezing, the cat kept clawing until the cat finally went limp and then he dropped it, saying with a smug smile " I guess I showed him", at which point the cat jumped straight up and latched to his arm with all four feet and claws digging in and then bit his hand between the thumb and fore-finger, all the was through.  Then just dropped to the floor and walked away saying, 'I'm still the boss here".  Lee's arm looked like it had just gone through a tree debarker. He lived to 20 something before he passed away, and never changed.

The cat hanging

Tales from the backyard...One year my friend Terry and I went hunting up in the Arrowhead region of Minnesota. When we arrived the temp was about zero and by the next morning it was twenty some below. It was so cold I couldn't sit still and began walking to keep warm, looking for deer sign. I pushed a nice doe to Terry which he shot and after I dressed it out we decided it was to cold so drove back home. Terry's wife wanted nothing to do with hunting so I hung the doe, by the neck, in my garage to age. My daughter Lori watched with interest then disappeared into the house. Soon after I heard this terrible screeching sound coming from the back door of the house and turned to look. Lori, 2-1/2 then, had secured an extension cord around our cats neck and was bringing it out to hang next to the deer (she did whatever her dad did). The cat was doing everything it could to escape, feet flying wildly, but apparently Lori knew how to tie a good knot. I ran over and released the cat from its peril and couldn't believe, that Lori had not one scratch on her. The cat was no worse for wear.

Pauly's return

Tales from the backyard…Not to long after we moved to Forest Lake, I couldn’t sleep one night and heard someone coming up the stairs.  It turned out to be my older brother Paul, on leave from Marine Corps. Boot camp training.  I was standing at the door when he opened it and scared the crap out of him.  Had he not had 2 more steps to climb, I think his training might have kicked in and I would not be writhing this.

The Prison

Tales from the backyard…When I was in my early teens, my cousin Clint married a beautiful Native American from the Chippewa tribe of northern Minnesota and moved amongst them.  He began associating with a bad group who thought the day should be spent drinking and to cover the costs, began writing bad checks.  For this he was sent to prison on several occasions.  One day my aunt asked me to ride along for her monthly visit, and with my mother’s urging, I said I would go.  It was out of her way to come down and get me and in reflection, I think mom and her had thought a trip to the prison may do me some good.  Kind of shock therapy and I guess it worked, for out of prison I have stayed ever since.  While visiting I could here in the background different prisoners shouting out different numbers, after which they would all laugh.  After awhile I asked my cousin what that was all about and he said that they had heard all the jokes so many times they gave them numbers and when you heard a number you recollected the joke and if funny, laughed.  Could I try, I said, and he said okay, so I yelled out 27.  Nothing, not a single response, confused  I asked my cousin what happened, was that a bad joke?  He said, no, It’s just some people can tell them and some people can’t.  Alright, the last part is an very old bad joke but being a story teller I have always seen the humor in it.  So sue me…

Jasper gets even

Tales from the Backyard …Jasper loved hunting and I loved to hunt with him.  One season I decided to go deer hunting and he had to stay home.  That he didn’t like, so to get even for me leaving without him, he went to our bedroom and grabbed my down pillow and tore it to shreds.  The room was wall to wall feathers, you can only laugh.  But then I wasn’t there to clean it all up.

a pretty close resemblance of Jasper 

School time

Tales from the Backyard…When I was 4 (almost 5), school had started and I was left at home with no one to play with so told my mom I was going to the neighbors to play with them.  She said that they were at school too, and to stay home.  (Maybe you missed something, I was not 5, yet had on many occasions walked alone to the neighbors to play, it was a 1/2 mile away, try letting someone do that today).  Not to be bossed around by some grown-up, I went anyway.  About ¾ of the way there I thought better of it and began to come back when I see mom coming down the farm road, so I dashed into the woods to hide.  She went to the neighbors and not finding me headed back, furious by now, she spotted me in the woods and what a whipping I got.  On the good side, the next week I was in first grade, she had somehow convinced them I was older than I really was.

Getting Cady and Chip

Tales from the Backyard…My wife (Janice), never had pets while growing up, but had cats after she had moved away from home.  She was once severely bitten (clear to the bone) by a client’s Irish Setter so was not fond of dogs.  I was on the road all the time and I didn’t feel I had the time to devote to a good hunting dog.  When I retired I just said I’m getting a dog and set about finding the perfect one that would be a fun and gentle house pet, but also be a good hunting companion for me.  As much as I searched, one to suit my needs, I kept coming back to the Springer Spaniel, so then began trying to locate one.  That’s when we found Cady and, being a puppy, my wife was able to watch her grow and never felt threatened (how could you).  Chip on the other hand was 7 months old when I brought him home and to say he was a little hyper was an understatement.  Every day my wife just kept saying, “When are you going to find a home for him”.  In reality, I was never looking.  Soon after, it was “don’t even think of giving him away”, they had become soul mates and he was her dog.   One Day we were having sandwiches on the porch and her hand with the sandwich in it, dropped to her side and Chip in an instant grabbed it and started to swallow.  In less than an instant, she grabbed his mussel and yanked open his mouth and reached in, almost to the wrist and pulled it back out, saying “that’s my sandwich” and you could see in her eyes, holy shit, I just did that.  And then we got a third.

                                      Cady

Chip

Passing bonding energy

Tales from the Backyard…After I got Cady my Springer, I joined the New England Springer Spaniel Rescue group and did transport, evaluation and housed other dogs for a day or 2 until a home or foster home could be found.  It was great fun and I met some really nice people and dogs.  One of the dogs that came our way was a huge (I mean Great Dane size) Springer that we had for 3 days.  He was a moosh, what a sweetie.  I got a call that a possible owner might have been found, could I take him to Conn. for the guy to see him.  I said sure and made arrangements to meet him at one of the freeway rest areas between him and me.  I got there early and walked the 2 dogs (Cady and Marmaduke?) around and then sat at a picnic table and waited.  Soon a car pulled into the parking area and a guy got out and headed our way.  Always a jokester, when he had gotten 50 or so feet from us I held up my hand and said “stop”.  Startled, he did.  I told him  that the dog and I had built up this great bond over the last days and that I wanted to transfer that energy to him.  I told him to keep his eyes straight ahead, don’t talk or move.  I then knelt by the dog and released the leash and the dog just walked to the guy, circled around his back to his left side and sat down, then leaned against the guy’s leg, all without me saying a word.  I was flabbergasted.  And kid you not the guys eyes began to water.  He just said, “I’ll take him”. And put him is his car and left.  I stood there to stunned to burst out laughing and actually forgot to collect the $200 fee we charged.. 

Memories begin

Tales from the backyard…in 1945 my dad went to work on the Alaska-Canada Highway.  No sooner than he arrived, he came down with acute appendicitis and was flown back home.  I often wonder if he had gone back and finished the road and then homesteaded like so many others, how my life would have been different.  I know he would have liked it there with all the hunting and fishing and especially the drinking, everyone drinks in Alaska.  But he didn’t and we moved to just south of Wyoming MN to what I refer to as the ‘farm’.  Not a real farm, abandon years before, buildings neglected and not used, but the house stood tall and proud and was kept in good shape.  That’s where my memories began and here is where I will relate them to you.  Living on the farm did have disadvantages, the biggest one, no inside plumbing.  But we did have what was called a 2 hole’r.  To this day I never have never figured that out, maybe a family that poohs together, sticks together.  With so many divorces these days, maybe we should design our modern bathrooms with 2 side by side toilets and instead of reading the paper, we could converse, I mean text or take selfies with our poohing partners.  The big disadvantage of the outhouse was my brother, in a race to it he was always faster and always got there first.  In the winter I think he would miss on purpose just because he knew I was waiting and had to sit down as I wasn’t tall enough to stand and reach the seat top.  On some cold winter days it would be frozen already.  By the way, if we ran out of paper, we did use corn cobs or pages from the Montgomery Wards catalog, lingerie pages always last.

The Bathurst family at the farm, me, I'm the littlest.  From right to left.  Cousins Nancy and Bob, me, Sisters Shirley and Helen, brothers Paul jr and Jerry on right.

The Bike ride

Tales from the Backyard…Walking the dogs on the beach this morning a story of youth came to mind so I thought I would relate that to you….When I was seven, I, being home alone, ‘borrowed” my sisters bike to ride, you know a ”girls” bike, with the crossbar down by the chain sprocket.  It was easy to ride; you made sure the pedal was down, gave a push, stepped on the pedal with your left foot and slid your right across to the other side.  I was too small to reach the pedals while sitting on the seat so I would gain speed pedaling standing up, slide back on the seat, spread my legs and coast.  I came to a curb which I had gone over almost every time riding so thought nothing of it.  I must have not been in the seat right or something ( I can feel the men scrunch already and I haven’t even said it yet) because when the wheel hit the pavement below the curb, I slid forward and down, feet still spread, dead center on the yoke.  Have you ever hurt yourself so bad, you can’t scream, yell or cry????  All you can do is run (thinking probably that if you run fast enough you can outrun the pain), well it doesn’t work.  First I ran in circles than figure eights, then I ran clear around the block and back but when I got there the bike was gone, someone had stolen it.  I sat down to cry, not from the pain or losing the bike, but from the whooping I would get when I told my mom.  A State Trooper pulled over seeing this little boy crying, his name was John Crawford and had in later years the dubious honor of having a shootout with 2 bank robbers and killing them both.  Anyway, upon telling him he left and in about 15 minutes brought the bike back.  I have only told this story once before, because thinking of it makes me want to run. And now I’m too old for that.

The Hammer

Tales from the Backyard…When we moved to Boston, it was time for a new dog, so looking through the want ads I saw a Brittany spaniel for sale in nearby New Hampshire.  From great hunting stock and good on grouse; perfect I thought and gave them a call.  We picked him up that weekend and named him Jasper.  Small for his breed (for some reason all my dogs seem to be), he not only turned out to be a great hunting dog but was an even better family pet.  This one lived in the house with us.    His only fatal problem in life was that the other side of the road was always better than the one he was on. 
 We were visiting my 1^st wife’s parents in Minnesota when from the front lawn I saw Jasper dash across the street up by my brother-in-laws house, not a busy street, so I yelled at him to get back and saw him sneaking his way back to the road, then he started to dash across just as a car was coming.  I could do nothing but watch. (This part is really bad so if you have children around they may want to go into the other room.)  He got nailed and rolled several times under the car.  I ran to him, he was stiff as a board lying on the hot pavement, but still had shinny eyes so I could see he wasn't dead.  He couldn't move so I thought “broken back, nothing can be done”.  I scooped him up, tears in my eyes and started to the house.  All the neighbors had heard the tires screech and were at the side of the road watching.  My wife came running down the road and I said that he’s broken his back, go home and get a hammer.  The neighbors were aghast.  She began to protest but I said, this is bad enough, just get the hammer.  She did.  (Stop! Stop! Stop!  I must confess, I have embellished a bit here.  Firstly I was in shock from just seeing my dog get hit by a car, and secondly,  with no tears in my eyes when my wife ran up I probably would have screamed something like “get the fucking hammer”, but I like the first version better.  Everything else is as is.)  By the time I reached the yard with the dog, still stiff in my arms, she had arrived with the hammer.  Jasper looked at the hammer, just with his eyes, head not moving, moving his eyes to look at me, then looked back at the hammer, back to me and knowing his finality, just jumped out of my arms and ran around the house, not once but twice shouting, “I’m alright, I’m alright” just to be sure.  He was run over four more times before the last one was fatal, by then he was old and I was gone.

Biggest Trout

Tales from the Backyard… I had just bought my 6 yo son his first fishing outfit, you know the one: Rod, reel, line, hooks, and bobber all in a 3 foot plastic package.  Saturday was the big day and we were going early.  Then I heard “can I come” from three different people, my 1^st wife’s sister was visiting, they wanted to lie on the bank and sun themselves.  We got out about 11, so much for early.  We stopped and parked the car by a bridge over the Wood River and crossed the fence.  I put on a worm and cast the little poles line into the water.  Immediately I got a hit from a small trout and reeled it in.  Removing the hook, I somehow pulled out the fishes gullet, so just cast that back into the water.  Reeling it in slowly (all the time my son is yelling “I want to Fish”) I snagged the bottom so I told him when I get it loose he can have “his” pole.  I carefully pulled in line by pumping the rod very slowly and the big log was coming with the current towards shore.  This fishing hole was a big eddy and the log just went by with the current to where the main current was.  I expected it to the catch the currant and swing back to the eddy again and make a circle back to me.  It began moving upstream, now a little thing like that gets your attention.  It made big circles with and against the current several times and finally came to the surface across the river. I shouted “hey look, a small sturgeon” and they all came running down to the shore.  Then it opened its huge mouth, Sturgeons don’t have mouths that can open that way.  My legs began to shake.  This was the largest trout I had ever seen.  Shacking now all over and being a lot more careful, I managed to get it to shore about 15 minutes later where-in the hook straightened out and came out of its mouth, the rig flying past my head.  I threw the pole and dove off the bank and landed on top of the fish and scooped to the higher bank in one fell swoop.  A little over 10 lbs, still the largest trout I have ever caught, and on a 3 foot $1.98 fishing outfit.

The Polish Joke

Tales from the backyard…  One summer my wife’s grandmother passed away and she and the kids went back to Minnesota for the funeral.  Our neighbors (Jim and Donna) who had twin boys the same age as my son invited me over to dinner one evening,” be there at five”.  I was.  Jim, the chief ranger in the park, a real prude with no personality, was not home yet so I visited with Donna (just the opposite) in the kitchen while she made dinner.  Jim came presently and said he would change and be right out.  He came out and then just sat down in his chair and pulled the paper in front of his nose and never said a word.  Did I mention he was Polish?  The family had actually changed their last name from Wigginski to Wiggins.  Polish jokes were the rage at the time.  Whenever I tell a joke, I try and incorporate the listener into them, so while I was left to watch the TV news myself, I suddenly shouted out, “did you just here that”, knowing that they hadn't.  Donna said “what” while coming out of the kitchen, a large pot in her hand, and the paper actually came down a bit from Jim’s face.  I said, “Apparently, they were doing some radical surgery at the University of Sweden by removing a person’s brain and just when they had the brain out, all power was lost and when It came back on, the guy on the table was gone.  Well, it’s been six months and they just found him”, (pause, waiting for the “where”) “teaching school in Poland” I responded.  Donna burst out laughing and dropped her pot on the floor and I could see Jim chuckling under the paper.  Gotcha I thought.  

“Exhilaration”

Tales from the backyard…  “Exhilaration”, doing something that gives you a natural high.  It happened to me when I was undergoing mountain rescue training exercises in the park (Crater Lake NP).  The task was to repel off a cliff, my first time.  I was the last to go and I went off effortlessly.  Upon landing at the bottom I was totally psyched and started running down to the bottom of the slope.  I’m not sure if you know, but as rock debris falls off the face of the mountains, the small stuff stays at the top and as you progress down the slope, because of gravity, the size of the stones gradually gets larger and larger and eventually turns to boulders.  I had miss-anticipated the rate of descent and my speed instantly went from control, to uncontrollable.  My feet went from pebbles, to stones, to small rocks, to large rocks, to small boulders, and eventually to boulders taller than I was.  With each hop my speed became greater.  The sheer terror in my throat was immeasurable.   I was anticipating steps four or five boulders ahead of me in a frantic state to stay upright.  A fall would have brought the whole team back to extricate me from stupidity.  Somehow I made it down and another important life lesson was learned.  I have many onetime events in my life.