Drunk And Wild : Beasts Hit The Bottle

They found him there the next morning, passed out. It was clear what had happened as the evidence lay strewn all about him on the front lawn of the Baker Lake Resort. So when Lisa Broxson, bookkeeper for the Baker Lake, Washington resort arrived in the morning for work, she did what you'd expect any normal person to do, she called Sgt. Bill Heinck, the local Fish and Wildlife Agent.



It seems a bear had gotten into a camper's cooler and had used its teeth and claws to open and drink the beer. But not just any beer, for this was a discriminating bear.

"He drank the Rainier and wouldn't drink the Busch beer," said Broxson.

Heinck said the bear did try one can of Busch, but ignored the rest.

"He didn't like that (Busch) and consumed, as near as we can tell, about 36 cans of Rainier," said Heinck.

Another Agent tried to chase the bear off, but succeeded only in chasing it up a tree where the bear proceeded to sleep it off for another four hours.

"We've all been there before," said the Agent who requested that he remain anonymous.

--

My In-laws were on their way to church one Sunday morning when they came upon a dead cow in the middle of a shopping center parking lot. It was strange enough to find the cow, dead, in the middle of a Safeway parking lot in Central Florida. But what seemed particularly odd, was that the cow was surrounded by empty beer bottles. Quite a scene.

Now you can look at this like my daughter, who wanted to know if the cow drank itself to death. Or you can take my wife's tact, who commented that it must have been a hell of a party to have involved that much beer and ended in the death of a farm animal. I just want to know what kind of beer it was.

I began to wonder if this was some kind of phenomenon. Was it limited to this country or did other countries struggle with wildlife alcohol abuse? I mean are yaks getting wasted in the Sierra Madras, or tigers cutting loose on rice wine in Penang?

This definitely deserved further research. Forget life on mars. There could be a party going on in a forest near you.

--

According to the world wide web, animals getting drunk, is a world-wide nuisance. In Sweden, normally a bastion of conservative behavior, drunk and disorderly elks roam the streets come fall after having eaten fermented wild berries. One such miscreant attacked a woman in the village of Karlshamn, in broad daylight no less. Obviously the elk in Karlshamn start partying fairly early in the day.

Moose, too, become belligerent and occasionally attack villagers after eating apples that fall to the ground and ferment, creating what local authorities called "a potent fruit cocktail."



In Guwahati, India, a herd of drunk elephants trampled three people to death after guzzling local rice beer in a village. According to local authorities, "a dozen elephants entered the village of Marongi in Assam state Tuesday and helped themselves to long swigs of rice beer brewing in casks outside the homes of local residents." They then went on a rampage, killing three people, and seriously injuring two others.

Bet they don't invite any elephants to the block party next year.

Even in merry old England, the Queen mother herself is not safe from inebriated animals. The Birmingham Post reported that Matthew King, 28, lost his job as one of the Queen's two personal footmen after it was discovered that he had been adding whisky and gin to Queen's corgis' food and water as 'a party trick.'

Also in England, "a movie boss had apologized for allowing a pig to get drunk on an Irish film set."

I'm really quite surprised this made the news. It was an Irish film.

"Animal rights activists were furious that the pig- which was starring in a new live action version of George Orwell's classic Animal Farm - somehow consumed alcohol during filming."

I had to wonder if the animals right's activists saw the irony here. Of course it was the pig who got drunk. The sheep would never have taken to man's worst vices. Besides, if the pigs were going to wear pants, why shouldn't they have a good snog?

Finally, scientists at Ohio State University have been busy getting bees drunk in order to study the effects of alcohol on human behavior. The study stated that the scientists placed the bees in "harnesses made from pieces of drinking straws." Huh?

Remember that the next time you're complaining about your job. Some guy in Ohio spent his Monday morning trying to get a bee into a harness. I wonder if it was easier or harder to get them out once they were drunk?

It wasn't clear what the scientists expected to find at the conclusion of their study, but they did report that, "the bees who received the most [alcohol] spent the least time grooming, walking or flying. Instead, they spent the most time on their backs."

Well, as the Fish and Wildlife Agent said, "We've all been there before."

Power Tools

Up until quite recently, my entire tool collection consisted of a few mismatched screwdrivers, a circular saw my mother gave me, a power drill my wife bought me, and various tools we had given Ricky, my seven year-old step-son, for Christmas. Ricky's tools weren't even toys, they were real and I had actually chosen them with the idea that I might someday need to borrow them. The old bowling-ball-bag-gift theory. They included a hammer, a tape measure, and a little patch of leather with a metal ring that allowed you to carry your hammer on your belt. All told, The New Yankee Workshop this was not.



It wasn't just my lack of tools though; it was my history with the ones I did have that caused my wife Jane to look at me with concern when I talked of building anything. The drill, after all, had been my first real power tool and she had been the one to give it to me. It was a decent one. A quarter-inch, variable-speed Craftsman. It even had reverse.

My first project, other than hanging a few shelves was to drill some holes in two oak barrels we had purchased to use as planters. They were old whiskey barrels that been cut in half. Old as they were, they were still quite water tight and needed drainage holes drilled into the bottom. No problem. Because I was a man with a drill.

So one sunny Saturday afternoon I rolled the barrels over by the back of the garage door and turned them over to begin drilling. Power tool in hand, I knelt on the first upturned barrel and began drilling. The progress was slow. Due to, I assumed at the time, the strength and age of the wood. I had to stop every once in a while to check my progress and I began to wonder if I had the proper drill bit since the bit had begun to smoke more and cut less. I was pushing so hard at one point that I feared I might plunge the drill right through the bottom of the barrel. I stopped and looked at the three holes I had made. It had just taken me fifteen minutes. I was standing there thinking there must be a better way when Jane came out to check on me. She stood next to me looking down at my measly work and wondering, not for the first time, what she had gotten herself into. I explained that I was having a hard time and was thinking that maybe I had the wrong type of bit. (what type of bit I thought I might have needed is beyond me. Cement? Stone? Oak barrel?) I was looking at the drill as if there might be instructions and Jane pointed to a switch on the back of the drill and said, "What's that?"

There's nothing quite as embarrassing as having your wife, a self-proclaimed mechanical idiot, prove just how worthless you are in the role of handyman husband. The switch she had pointed to was the Forward/Reverse switch and it had, at some point, been set to reverse. I flicked the switch to forward, pulled the trigger, and the previously hard as stone oak immediately turned into butter. I had been pushing so hard before that I practically slammed the drill into the wood. I released the trigger and stood up and surveyed the neat, clean hole.

"Hmmm," was about the best thing I could come up with.

Jane handed me the lemonade she had brought me, patted me on the back and mercifully left me alone with my shame. Needless to say the rest of the job took the better part of three minutes and soon I was looking for things to put holes in just to show the world that I was capable of handling a small power tool. The cat, which had been sitting nearby, just looked at me with disgust.

Now you would think that after that episode, no one would have let me man the blender, let alone a power tool, but a few months later my mother sent me a circular saw.

It's important to understand that unlike me, my father realized early on that he was no handyman. My father rarely got involved with what he called "my mother's projects." He considered the house her domain and was happy to support whatever my mother felt needed doing as long as he wasn't going to be the one doing it. If a room needed painting it was my mother, and whichever one of us kids she recruited at the time, that did it. It was my mother who hired contractors to re-point the house, or surface the driveway. It was my mother who had the electric garage door opener installed and had the wood floors refinished. It's not that my father didn't appreciate the improvements, he just never would have thought about doing it. He would have rather owned a really nice car and lived in a cave.

So why was my mother sending me power tools? She had hired a young man to do some work in her kitchen and after agreeing on a price, gave him a down payment to start the work. What she didn't know was that this young man had a bit of a drinking problem and a few days after he started the work, he disappeared, with the money my mother had given him, leaving my mother with a half-finished project and much of the young man's tools. I got the saw.

The saw arrived in a cardboard box that had been reinforced with what looked like an entire roll of electrical tape (no doubt my father's contribution). The blade had been removed for safety and there was a wrench included to allow for the easy changing of blades. I'm not a patient man by nature, so the first thing I did after removing the saw from the box was to replace the blade. It was a general-purpose blade with fairly large, widely spaced teeth so it was easy to figure out which way it went. I was now ready to cut something and if it needed holes, by golly, I had that down too.

At the time, I was the Creative Director for an advertising agency in the Olde City section of Philadelphia. The building was built by Alexander Hamilton in 1763 and had been restored with great care. Our agency was in the bottom two floors while they were refinishing the top three floors. The project had been going on for months and we often had to deal with what sounded like a wrecking crew just above our heads. But one day as I was arriving to work I noticed that they were throwing out a large pile of wood "scraps." They were beautiful 2x6's and many of them were four to five feet long. They were scraps if you're renovating an Eighteenth Century townhouse, but if you're looking to make your wife a couple of planters, they were fantastic. I scooped them up and put them in the trunk of my car. I would begin building that weekend.

Again, come Saturday morning, I positioned myself outside the garage and laid out the pieces of wood. I only wanted to build a few rectangular planters so I measured a few boards, made some pencil marks and scored the pieces using a t-square. (Lest you think I was excluding tools in my earlier list, this was a thin metal t-square designed for doing ad layouts.) I was now ready to cut.

Positioning the saw at the beginning of the line I had drawn, I depressed the safety, pulled the trigger and the saw roared to life. Slowly, but firmly, I pushed the saw into the wood, spitting sawdust onto the ground beneath me. I got about halfway through the first cut when the saw began to choke, then preceded to cut out altogether. This happened no matter what I did and soon I had cut most of the boards by cutting first from one side then again from the other. The problem with this method is that invariably you never quite meet in the middle. So when I was done, I had six boards that were all cut to about the right length but none were flush on the end. Eventually, I got the boxes built and although they weren't the picture of craftsmanship, they were sturdy as hell and we're using them still.

Yet, it bothered me that the saw hadn't worked like it should have. I wondered if maybe I didn't have the wrong kind of blade for the thickness of the wood I had been trying to cut. Several months later, my brother-in-law, who is a real-life carpenter and all around handyman, was visiting. I told him about my problem and we went to the garage, beers in hand to look at my saw.

I had not yet acquired enough tools to rate a toolbox, let alone a workbench, so my tools sat on a shelf at Jane's workbench in the garage. It was here that she made dried flower arrangements and other craft projects. So there amongst her hot glue gun, green wire and scraps of felt, sat my drill and saw - looking, I thought at the time, a little embarrassed to be in such unmasculine company.

I picked up the saw and handed it to Ed, offering him my earlier thinking about the blade.

"The wood was pretty thick," I told him, "I even thought maybe I had the wrong kind of blade. " Ed grabbed the saw, took one look at it and put it back down again.

"So, what do you think?" I asked.

"You've got the blade on backward," he answered matter-of-factly and put his beer to his lips and took a long, slow drink.

I took a drink as well and stood there looking down at the saw.

"Hmmm," was about the best I could come up with.

Prior to meeting Jane and moving to Goshen I lived in the Queen's Village section of Philadelphia. I had a great apartment with new appliances, central air and enormous ceilings. I rented, so when something broke, I called the landlord's fix-it guy and he would take care of it. He even changed light bulbs. So up until this point, I'd never actually been in a Home Depot(r). I'm assuming that nearly everyone in America has at least heard of Home Depot(r) even if they haven't actually been in one. Even my old neighborhood in Philadelphia has one now. Regardless, I'd never been in one. Hadn't really felt the need.

If you ever question whether or not men as a group have an innate attraction to tools, take one to Home Depot(r). It's Toys R Us(r) for adult men. I didn't even know I wanted tools till I went there!

The sheer size of it screams masculinity because, as all men know, size really does matter. And don't listen to those who'll tell you that women have cornered the market on shopping. The men that claim women shop to excess do so simply because they don't see a logical need for what women buy. But let them loose in a Home Depot(r) and all is lost. You see them wandering around the store mumbling and drooling with a kind of stoned look on their faces.

Their helplessness isn't lost on management either. They position bright, young co-eds at the front door hawking Home Depot(r) credit cards.

"Gee honey, look," we tell our wives, "They're giving away a free ratchet set if you sign up. So what if they're charging 23% interest. That set's got to be worth, oh...I don't know...what do you say?"

Your wife, thinking about the ten or so department store cards she's carrying at this very moment, is in no position to argue so she smiles encouragingly and walks off to the garden department. You fill out your form, get your ratchet set under your arm and walk off to start at the beginning of the store and take the store systematically, aisle by aisle, so as not to miss anything important. The problem starts when your wife is done looking at potting soil because at this point it's over for her. For your wife, wandering Home Depot(r) is the equivalent to you spending large amounts of time in a department store. As soon as you're done looking at the electronics you're done. It's not like you're going to start wandering around Petites for kicks.

Sooner or later, she's going to come looking for you. If she can find you at all, she's likely to spot you standing in front of a wall of tools and parts that you have no idea how to use but are fascinated with nevertheless. If she can't find you in a quick pass, she'll have you paged.

Next time you go to Home Depot(r), find the customer service center. Invariably you'll find a group of women standing around waiting. They're not waiting to return floor sanders. They're waiting for security to find their lost husbands. Every once in a while a clerk will show up with a dazed man in tow, his arms full of junk he doesn't need, looking like a lost child. His wife will look at him sternly and say, "I've been looking everywhere for you!"

It's not a pretty sight. When they found me I was looking at mailboxes and we pick up our mail at the post office, which happens to be across the street.

Truth be told, I did fill out an application for a Home Depot(r) card, but they didn't give me a ratchet set. What they offered me was a chance to win a gas barbecue. So if you think about it, I didn't get anything but a chance. Not really that big of an incentive come to think of it. Nevertheless, a month later, they called and told me I'd won a barbeque grill. They wanted to know when I'd like to come pick it up.

I showed up that weekend and told the young woman behind the counter that I was, well, me - and, you know - where was my grill? She pointed to the one they had been displaying when I was last there. It was right where I had left it collecting dust. I asked if she had one in a box and she looked at me blankly.

"No, that's it," the woman told me.

"I don't think that will fit in my car," I explained.

"What kind of car do you have?"

"An Audi, why?"

"You brought a Audi to pick up a gas grill?" she asked surprised.

"That's the biggest car I've got."

I explained that just because I filled out an application for a credit card at Home Depot(r) did not mean I owned a pickup truck.

"Well, I know that," she replied.

"Can you take it apart? You know, not all the way. Maybe just the legs."

She said that they didn't actually put them together there, but outsourced that to another company. Besides, she pointed out, the grill was all sort of attached to itself. You couldn't just take one part of it off. I realized she wasn't going to be much help. I asked her if she could maybe loan me a screwdriver and a wrench and I would do it myself.
She actually had to think about this.

This is a store that has every kind of screwdriver and wrench known to modern man and she was trying to figure out where she might be able to dig one up; a junk drawer behind the counter perhaps.

While she went off in search of a screwdriver, I decided to go ahead and bring my car around. After waiting for a couple of minutes, I went back in to see what progress had been made. The grill sat where it had before with no one in sight, so I started wheeling it out to my car. (Let me point out that this Home Depot(r) is in the South Jersey suburbs. I've since been to the Home Depot(r) in Philadelphia. They check the items in your bag against your register receipt, then frisks you for loose screws.) Anyway, no one even looked twice at me. I just wheeled it right out the door. And this is not a door near a cash register either. People are only coming IN this door, not out. Yet no one said boo about a man wheeling a fully assembled gas grill out the door. I got it to my car and began looking at ways I might be able to get it in. I also thought about going back for a rotor tiller.

After a few minutes, a helpful-looking young man approached asking if I needed assistance. For the record, he didn't ask for a receipt either.

Together we looked at the grill, then at my car. There was no way this was going to fit. He then offered to help me strap it to the roof of my car. I checked to see if he had a crack pipe sticking out of his back pocket, but he looked clean. I told him I wasn't about to scratch up my new $40,000 car for a free gas grill.

I then asked him for a screwdriver and he provided one. I began taking the grill apart piece by piece, trying to get it into the trunk or at least in the back seat. By the time I got to where I could get all the parts to fit, the entire grill was in pieces at my feet and I had two pounds of screws in my pants pocket. I closed the trunk, thanked the young man, (I'm not sure why, all he did was watch me take it apart.) and drove home where I put all the parts in the basement. It's still there. The thing is, I now have a grill I didn't need in the first place, sitting in my basement in about thirty pieces. I just hope I can find all the screws.

I don't really have any motivation to put it together either. I told Jane, that the next time I need a grill I'll just drive to Home Depot(r) and wheel out a floor model. Of course, I'll be sure to borrow a pickup truck first.

Lost And Found : A True Story

There it was, on the front page. The big news of the day, "Lost Items Collected In Lost And Found." I actually had to read it several times to make sure, but there it was, "Lost Items Collected In Lost And Found." It was hard to believe.

I was visiting my parents and happened to pick up the local newspaper off the kitchen table. Apparently, someone in Hatfield was collecting lost items and putting them in a lost and found. Hatfield is the small town where my parents live and as my father likes to say, "Everything's up to date in Hatfield!"



This had to be a joke. Like one of those articles found in The Onion, or National Lampoon. But no, upon further investigation, it was a real news story.

Michael Rocco, a staff writer for the North Penn Reporter, wrote in the article that A.M. Kulp Elementary School had not one, but two, lost and found locations. He went on to quote Gemma Geigert (I swear I'm not making this up), the principal of the school as saying, "For some reason, kids go home without their coats. These are expensive coats, but no one comes in and says, 'My child came home without a coat.'"

Outrageous!

Apparently, there was also a large shoebox for smaller items, "like fake hair, pens, books and change purses. Announcements for a lost set of keys are made twice a day, but still five sets of keys sit in the shoebox."

Lost keys? How about the fake hair? How do you just gloss over fake hair? How can you just group it together with pens, change purses and keys like this is something you expect to find in a lost and found? Who is wearing and then misplacing fake hair in an elementary school? I don't know about you, but I believe this to be a disturbing trend, all on its own.

Ms. Geigert went on to say that the items collected did not include those things left on the school bus. "The bus driver, either on the afternoon trip or the trip the next morning, will display a lost item to the students." Of course, no mention of whether or not this is a successful tactic. Remember these are kids who went home without their coats.

But Michael Rocco didn't stop there. Lunch aide Maria Bujak was described in the article as "the Indiana Jones of the school, collecting lost items from the playground and cafeteria."

"They leave things outside and we'll bring them in and ask the kids," Ms. Bujak is quoted as saying. Bringing lost items in and asking the kids if they belong to them. Indeed. Obviously, she is a hell of an investigator.

"We have something every day, usually." she added.

Every day, usually?

Even more astounding, according to the article, was that AM Kulp Elementary School wasn't the only educational institution in the area dealing with this phenomenon. Mr. Rocco did a little further investigating and found that Bridle Path Elementary also had an active lost and found.

According to Rocco, "First-grader Hanna Rovito said she has yet to lose an item of clothing, but lost one of her earrings shaped like a bat. 'At the end of the day, I told my mom that I was playing a game and it just fell off,' Hannah said. 'I never found it.'"

Which is a lovely piece of information, really, but has little to do with the lost and found, or the collection of said items at either school. According to this account, little Hanna, had yet to lose an article of clothing, but had succeeded in not finding that which she had lost.

Perplexing, indeed.

Hanna's mother, Sue, told Rocco that Bridle Path "is good because it keeps its lost and found by the front doors so if a parent notices their child is coming home with one shoe, they can look for it right there."

One shoe? Is this really a problem, kids coming home with one shoe? I remember leaving a lot of things at school when I was a kid, but I don't ever remember coming home missing a shoe.

To be fair, "Lost Items Collected In Lost And Found" was on the bottom half of the front page. It got beat out by the lead article, which read, "Free Parking Working For Local Businesses." I must admit, I didn't read the article to find out just how well the free parking was working, but then you can only handle so much news in a single day.

The Preacher, The Poker Players and The Poppy

When I close my eyes, I no longer have visions of deer picking their way through the trees, and the voices in my head have completely stopped, but every now and then I believe I can still catch the faint scent of a mesquite campfire off in the distance.

It's been a week now since I've been home, and I continue to be haunted by the memories of my time on a ranch in Sonora, Texas.



There are places in time, I believe, that can have a profound effect on our lives; the consequences not always understood at the time. To sift through the experiences takes time, like an old tin pan, hunting for gold. You must allow for the hours and days of time to wash over the memories so that only the substantial parts remain. These you must chip away at and polish until the true treasure is revealed.

--

"I pastor a small church down in Baton Rouge," said Doug.

We're on a shuttle bus at the Dallas- Fort Worth International Airport, waiting to be taxied over to our "Buddy Holly" plane, which will take us to San Angelo. We've been telling Doug about the evening before, basically trying to justify Jeff's hangover. Doug has been egging us on, asking us about our night, telling dirty jokes and recalling recent drunken escapades of his own. In the middle of one of his stories, one that involved a stripper, a bottle of Jack Daniels and a small farm animal, he turns and notices a gentleman sitting across from us who is sitting with what can only be his daughter. On his right hand he wears a sizeable ring. Doug nods his head at the man and asks, "What kind of ring is that? Where's it from?

"University of _______," the man answers.

"Oh, I thought I saw a cross," says Doug and then without skipping a beat and with no regard to the rather colorful story he's just been telling, adds, "I pastor a small church down in Baton Rouge."

I've only met Doug minutes before and the only thing I know about him is that he used to weigh close to four hundred pounds. Since the previous year when he came on the hunting trip he had his stomach stapled and in the words of Darrell is "at least half the man he used to be." Maybe he does pastor a small church down in Baton Rouge. What do I know?

The man nods and smiles weakly. What can you really say to that? Doug turns back to us and finishes his story with a straight face and absolutely no shame whatsoever.

--

Only in a camp of men could you build a campfire like this. If there were women involved, this would almost certainly be deemed excessive and we would be asked to stop. This is a fire that gets so hot it melts beer cans and glass bottles. Now that's what I call a fire.

It gets started the day we arrive and it doesn't go out until we leave. Needles to say, we go through a lot of mesquite; at least a cord by my calculations. Maybe more. And these are not little logs. Some of them are as large around as a full-grown man. It takes a lot to get a log that large to burn. But once they're burning...

--

"What beats Four-of-a-Kind?" I ask.

"A Straight Flush," answers Jeff, then adding, "Or a Royal Flush."

"No it doesn't," argues Roger. "Nothing beats Four-of-a-Kind."

"How about Five-of-a-Kind?" asks Pat.

"How the hell can you have five?" asks Jeff.

"I've got three threes and two wild cards," says Pat.

"You can't have Five-of-a-Kind," says Jeff. "There's no such thing, wild cards or otherwise."

"Well, there ought to be," says Pat throwing his cards into the pot.

"You can't make up a hand just because there's wild cards," says Jeff.

"So, what beats Four-of-a-Kind?" I ask again.

"Ask Chris," says Roger.

Whenever we have a question about cards, we ask Chris. We used to ask the Huntmaster but he doesn't get involved in poker anymore.

Now I don't know if Chris knows more about poker than anyone else, but he strikes everyone as honest and we are willing to trust whatever he says. He has an honest face, and a wholesome Texas look. He's the kind of person that is sure to say, "Yes, sir." He's a bit quiet, but not necessarily shy. There's nothing boastful about him. You get the feeling that he'd give you his honest opinion on about just about anything if you asked, but barring you asking, he's probably not telling. He even looks like he's from Texas, which of course, he is. And on top of it all he used to be a pilot in the US Air Force or some branch of the military. And he's tall to boot. If he isn't a quintessential Texan, I don't know what is.

"Well," I ask laying down my two Queens and two wild cards. Jeff has a straight flush showing.

"You win," says Chris to me. He carefully spits into a small paper cup and rearranges his chew. "Only thing beats Four-of-a-kind," he says quietly, "is a Royal Flush."

"That's what I'm talkin' about!" I say and grab the pile of chips. "And I'm not listening to you anymore," I say to Jeff.

Jeff smiles and shakes his head and throws his cards on the table. He's not going to argue too much. He already has everyone's money.

I am having a fantastic year at the poker table. Last year, I think I lost every hand I played. I considered the money my contribution to everyone else's fun. Winning wasn't really my chief concern - which I think was obvious to everyone - having a few laughs and hearing tall tales was. The reason I've had such a good year this year is that I'm about even. I haven't really won much, but I haven't lost much either. I'm very happy about this.

--

"So there we were, down in Key West," Jeff says. He pauses trying to remember something then turns and yells, "Dad, what was the name of that bar in Key West? You know, the one that was clothing optional!"

"The Bull," calls the Huntmaster.

"Right," says Jeff with a smile, "The Bull. Anyway, it's this big bar on several floors, but the top floor is clothing optional."
Several of us are sitting around the campfire in lawn chairs drinking beer. It's a mild evening. The sky is clear, the stars brilliant, and the fire warm. So we're drinking beer and telling stories.

"So we walk into the clothing optional bar and there's Robbie, drunk out of his mind, sitting and talking to some people," says Jeff. He's already beginning to laugh and he's the one telling the story.

This is maybe my favorite thing about being in Texas. It's my second year and for the five days a year that I'm here, I laugh harder and more often than the entire rest of the year combined. Maybe I just happened to be with funny guys, but I like to believe that it's a mix of factors that allow us to drop our guard, relax and shed months of stress.

"But here's the thing," Jeff is saying. "Robbie is sitting in a chair with his pants around his ankles, shoes still on, and his shirt pulled up to his armpits. He's so drunk that in his mind, he's naked. He just wanted to fit in with everyone else. As far as he was considered, he was naked."

Jeff has slid down in his chair imitating Robbie. He's rubbing his belly and sitting with his legs spread at the knees. We're all laughing hysterically including Jeff. I have to actually get up from my seat and walk away I'm laughing so hard. I can barely breathe and I have tears coming out of my eyes. It's not just the story, it's a combination of other stories I've heard about Robbie as well. I believe every word of it.

"He looked like he was sitting on the john taking a shit!" laughs Jeff. "We asked him, 'Robbie, what the hell are you doing?'
He just smiled and rubbed his belly."

"Jus sittin ere," he slurred.

--

It's a quarter to six on Tuesday night and I'm sitting in a ground blind, a mix of pine branches and cedar limbs bound together around existing trees with baling wire. One the ground is a piece of shag carpet, put down to muffle the noise. The smell of cedar is strong. I'm sitting on an old metal folding chair, the kind you'd expect to find in a Sunday school class - just a little too short. The last of the setting sun is casting a warm, yellow light across the plains, making the normally monochromatic colors dance feverishly.

Looking out through a makeshift window, I am a voyeur to a world unknown to me. A world that is both wild, in every sense of the word, and absolutely peaceful at the same time. Not seventy yards in front of me, whitetail doe, fawn and young bucks feed and play in the dying light. A gaggle of turkeys makes it's way through like a rowdy bunch of teenagers. They storm in, startling the deer, feed haphazardly and are gone again, leaving the deer feeling self-conscious and timid. Before long, first one, then another buck, comes slowly into view. They stop, sniff the air and proceed with caution. It's a means of survival where there is no chivalry for the women and children. The young and weak are there to be sacrificed for the good of the strong. They feed easily yet warily, snorting and stomping at the slightest change in environment. They rely on their acute senses to recognize danger, but out here, in the middle of seven thousand acres, where they have little experience with man, they are less suspicious of the unknown. They have few predators and are therefore less skittish than their brethren elsewhere. If you make even a small noise, they will all stand up, perfectly still, looking in the direction of the offending sound and testing the air for strange scents. Although they can most certainly smell me, I sit perfectly still, blending in with the landscape, and the deer go back to feeding.

--

"You want him?" The Huntmaster asks.

"Sure," I say.

We're driving back to camp from our morning hunt. The Huntmaster is driving and I'm sitting in the middle with Terry riding shotgun. Terry and I each have a rifle between our legs and I have the Huntmaster's rifle and shotgun on my left. I'm also bundled up, dressed for sitting still in a ground blind for four hours in freezing temperatures. I look like the little brother from "A Christmas Story" only I'm head to toe in camouflage.

The Huntmaster is already out of the cab and is leaning over the hood with his binoculars watching the game on the plains. He's spotted a small herd of antelope with a sizeable Black Buck. Beautiful animals. They were introduced many years back from Africa or South Asia, I can't remember which, and have thrived here ever since.

They're very skittish. You only ever see them out on the plains, never in near our blinds. They like to be where they can see a long way off. Presumably they're keeping a lookout for lions or something.

As I struggle to rearrange rifles and shotguns and wedge myself out the door, I'm trying to move quickly, but with a certain grace. I don't want to do anything that might spook the game. I must be quick, yet smooth. Get out of the truck. The Huntmaster is waiting. He is not a patient man. Get out of the truck. Once out, I must chamber a round, turn and rest my rifle on the hood of the car. Get out of the truck. Don't forget the safety. Get out of the truck. Everything moves in slow motion, like I'm moving under water.

"HHHHHHOOOOOOONNNNNNKKKKKKK!!!!!"

The Huntmaster lifts eight inches off the ground. Everything is still in slow motion and I actually watch him rise off the ground, then turn toward me in midair. There's a wild look in his eyes that appears to be a cross between utter fear and primal anger. His hat leaves his head and his white hair sticks out in all directions. His lips begin to move and while I can't hear him from inside the cab, I can clearly read his lips, "S-O-N-O-F-A-B-I-T-C-H."

I look down. In my effort to get myself out of the truck on the driver's side, I have just leaned on the horn with my elbow. Of course, The Huntmaster was leaning across the hood at the time, so he got the full effect.

I don't even look behind me to see the game. I look at the Huntmaster. There is fire in his eyes and with his hair doing this unnatural thing, for a second I'm afraid he might actually drag me out of the truck, put his boot on my neck and shoot me in the back of the head.

"I guess they're gone, huh?" I whisper.

The spell is broken. He just shakes his head and bends down to pick up his hat, which is lying in the dust.

"Yup, I'd say so," he replies and climbs back in the truck.

I have to say that the rest of the ride back to camp was pretty quiet.

--

I never knew that a deer's testicles were considered a delicacy until I met Smiley. I don't know his real name but we all called him Smiley. I asked once about his name and my request was translated into rough Spanish. They told me of course, but since it had no equivalent in English, I quickly forgot it. Smiley's background was equally unclear. He was most assuredly of Mexican decent, but of some indeterminate mix, and I don't think he really understood English, but he understood me well enough, and I him.

Whenever we would come in from hunting, whoever was driving the truck would pull around back near the shed and honk the horn. Manny, along with his son-in-law and another friend I never got the name of, would come out to dress the deer. Smiley always came along.

Somewhere along the way in dressing the deer, Manny would reach down, cut the buck's testicles off and toss them to Smiley who would snatch them clean out of the air with his teeth and run away on all fours. What do you expect from a dog?

--

There are those who believe, our wives and coworkers for instance, that we rough it while at the ranch. I think I can speak for the group when I say that we're all pretty much okay with that. But the truth is, most of us are happier than pigs in shit. Rarely do I sleep so soundly, eat so well, or laugh so hard.

--

My bags are packed. I'm ready to go. It seems like it took me all day yesterday. I started out as I always do for a long trip, laying out everything on the dining room table. Jane hates this, but it's the only way I can organize everything. Then I'd walk from room to room, collecting bits and pieces. Clothes from the laundry room, gear from the attic, a knife from my desk in the office, camera, boots, almost forgot extra batteries, hat, poncho, tripod, is that thing charged up, socks, gloves, check the weather - how cold is it going to be in the morning, more socks, long underwear, check the weather again, extra sweater, did it say it was going to be near 60¡ one day, short sleeve shirt just in case, camouflage jacket and pants, sunglasses, did I pack enough socks.

And that's how my day goes. Unlike business trips, which I do every week, I'm more deliberate here. Normally, I pack in about ten minutes. Somehow this takes me all day. First, I have to account for wild swings in the weather. When we get up before dawn, the temperature will be hovering around freezing, whereas during the middle of the day, we'll likely be sitting outside getting a tan. But I hate being cold.

Take this morning for instance. I just checked the weather and it now looks like it's never even going to get below freezing. I, on the other hand, have packed enough clothes to outfit me for a polar expedition. My biggest problem will probably be that I'm dressed too warm the entire time. But I leave for the airport in two hours and I'm not about to repack. It also now says that instead of possibly one day of rain, it might rain twice. Maybe even three times. I'm not as prepared for that. I have one poncho. Not raingear or anything. If it's a steady rain, I'll most likely just get wet.

But despite all the pre-game warmup, I can't wait to go. This is the third year in a row I've been asked to go, and I've found that it is the week I most look forward to all year. I travel all over the country, to beautiful places. I stay in exquisite hotels with downy beds, wonderful service and spectacular views. I eat at the finest restaurants and drink the finest wine. I fly first class. But once a year, the place I look forward to most is a small cabin in the middle of a 7,000 square mile ranch, 90 miles off the Texas border with Mexico. I sleep on a cot in a room with eight other men, burping and farting and laughing. We drink beer around a campfire, play poker till later than we should, survive on less sleep than I need, and don't shower all week.

It's true, this is not the Ritz Carlton. There is no wine list. There is no cheese plate. There is no down comforter. But I find I am relax here more than any resort I've ever been.

I laugh more in a week in Texas, than I do the rest of the year combined. And I'm not talking about a chuckle or two. I'm talking about tears-coming-out-of-your-eyes, can't-breath laughter. The kind of laughing you did as a kid at summer camp. And with it, you can almost feel twelve months of stress melt away.

Of course there are a few side effects. By the end of the week, when I close my eyes, I really do see deer walking through the brush. And I swear I can hear the voices of my fellow campers, even when I'm all alone. It's kind of freaky. This is what comes from spending close to eight hours a day staring off into the bush. Sitting so perfectly still that by the end of the week, your shoulders are so stiff, you have trouble moving your head around.

But it's all worth it. I come home refreshed, happy, and relaxed. I never know if I'll get invited back, there's a lot of people who want to come, and I'm not the Huntmaster's only client. But what I've learned is how much I enjoy being outside, of having simple comforts, of relaxing with the company of a few good men who have become friends.

I don't know if I'll be there next year. But if I'm not, I'm going to find a few friends, and convince them that a week outdoors is just the thing we need to set everything right with the world. And maybe, just maybe, I'll be just a little better at packing.