Spring WILL Come & A Thought on Bloomberg

I am now starting to believe that this North Dakota winter will finally end!  The temperature has been creeping up by just a degree or two each day and in response the snow pack depth has been dropping by an inch or two each day.  Eventually green will replace white and I’ll be reaping the rewards of North Dakota’s long summer days.

Yesterday I heard the snow geese flying over but the fog was so dense I never got a look at them, but it was good to hear them after a long winter with howling winds carrying the yip of coyotes.  After hearing the geese I did take a short drive into the countryside to see if the snow melt will let me get to hunting fields. Nope. The mud is deep, thick and clinging which leaves me looking for some pass shooting opportunities as snow geese drop into or leave a field. The season is open until early May so I’ve got the whole month of April to get some snows. I am pretty confident I’ll get the opportunity to bring some down for Cookie to bring out of the muddy field so my feet stay dry!

When the idea of spring goose hunting was first being kicked around I wasn’t impressed because, like most other hunters, I had been brought up on the idea of waterfowl hunting in the fall and early winter.  Somehow, I thought that spring hunting was cheating and it gave hunters an unfair advantage. It took a few years to change my thinking but I did and now I look forward to the spring season as a reaffirmation of nature’s bounty and, of course, our position as hunters within nature.

Another Thought.  .  . .

I hope that this insane anti gun hysteria that has flamed across the country is not going to morph into more anti-hunting hype, all because of Bloomberg’s misrepresentation of hunters in his gun-control ads. What has truly vexed me is that he and his crew of malcontent mayors and coattail hanger-ons seem to feel they have the right to influence how North Dakota’s elected officials should vote.  We elected our officials, Bloomberg’s Bums didn’t. What we are seeing from Bloomberg and his followers is another step in the direction of greater class separation, a conflict that is being fueled by those who have the biggest bankroll! In today’s culture of wealth at any cost, as an individual’s bankroll grows, if they spend a proportional amount of time admiring their reflection in the mirror, they will begin painting gilt on the mirror’s frame, adding more gold to the mirror until the frame breaks the mirror, and they then believe thieves from the lower classes smashed the frame to steal the gold. In their minds they are justified in denying rights to others because of the broken frame mindset. Fortunately, not all members of the wealthy class are fooled by a gilded mirror frame and do not align themselves or their business with the paranoid Bloomberg culture. 

glg

Signs of Things?

The other day I was driving home from the Fargo VA hospital and I noticed something disturbing, a proliferation of “No Hunting” and “No Trespassing” signs.  Along one stretch of highway there were posted signs for every field, on both sides of the road.  Frankly, I don’t blame landowners for posting their property because it is one of the few methods available to them for the control of who is hunting their lands because here in North Dakota posted signs are required if a land owner wants to exclude people, especially hunters, from venturing onto their property. If the land is not posted the presumption is that the landowner is allowing access.  There are restrictions, of course, but the point is that unlike many other parts of the country, where privately owned lands do not require posting to be closed, North Dakota’s privately owned lands are considered open unless they are posted. The system works here because more than 95-percent of the state is privately owned and even with the state’s PLOTS (Private Lands Open To Sportsmen) program to provide hunting opportunities, many of the state’s better hunting lands are not enrolled in PLOTS. Traditionally, North Dakota’s farmers and hunters had a cultural bond going back to the state’s 19^th and early 20^th century Northern European immigrants that assured the state’s sportsmen and women a place to hunt.

What I find distressing is that the increase in posted signs seems to be a corollary to the disappearance of lands enrolled in the Conservation Reserve Program (CRP), and the number of tree lines being cleared to add a very few acres of cultivated land to a farm. I understand and appreciate the farmers’ need to profit from their crops but a significant amount of these land losses are being driven by the lure of inflated profits being generated by the growth of the bio-fuel industry. So, what we are seeing is that the sword of our drive for alternative fuels has its “other” sharp side and it too, cuts. In a state like North Dakota, where there is very little publicly owned land, as compared to the western states with vast tracts of public land, there is the threat of huge losses of habitat and the subsequent crash of wildlife populations, if the grasslands, and other private lands once maintained as habitat, are lost to cultivation. 

I don’t know how much of this land loss to cultivation is by local landowners and how much is being orchestrated by absentee landowners giving instructions to farm managers.  I have heard complaints from some locals that absentee landowners, primarily corporate landowners, are to blame for the losses.  I do not know the veracity of the statements, but where there is smoke there is usually some sort of fire.  What I do know is that when Michelle and I moved here there was an amazing amount of game and there was nearly twice as much CRP land. In the last four years there has been a steady decline in CRP and a corresponding decline of wildlife (game and nongame). The declines can be attributed to successive severe winters and natural causes but at the root of the numbers is loss of habitat and its compounding effect on wildlife survival. 

These problems are not exclusive to North Dakota. At writers’ conferences and by email I’ve heard similar complaints, i.e. we are trading lands that had once been marginal for crops or energy production, but ideal for wildlife habitat, for the production of energy regardless of how marginal the production.

A very real result of these losses is something that we may not recognize until it is too late to recover from it, and that is the loss of aesthetic value of the lands and the wildlife as they contributed to the whole of the state and the nation. It is not rocket science to look back in the nation’s history and see where one of the recognized values of wilderness was its “existence” whether a person was able to experience it or simply know it existed.  For some it may be a stretch to compare a wilderness or even a second or third growth forest to a half section of grass covered land set aside in CRP, but the notes of song birds, thrill of seeing a deer or flushing a game bird is exactly the same regardless of location. The presence of lands where men and women could go and restore their connection with nature, even if only in books, magazines and pictures, was a cherished national aesthetic throughout our Republic’s history.

Every new posted sign, or row of trees ripped out of the ground and burned, and each acre of land pulled from the CRP, is a loss. I wonder if we should formulate a miles per acre rather than miles per gallon exchange rate. It should be obvious to everyone that the sword of energy independence that we’ve been swinging has two sides and no one knows that fact better than the hunter who no longer has a place to hunt.

Bummer Year

On occasion just about everyone has a bummer year.  For me, it was this past year.  I lost too many friends, and then my only sister, all in the same year.  Frankly, as the losses were piling up, one after another, and each one unexpected, I wanted to separate myself from the outside world.  Over the course of the year my retreat included letting much of my work slide. But this is a new year and although it has started somewhat slowly I have high hopes for the months to come. Unfortunately, that hope did not include attending this year’s SHOT Show. Although I did register for the show and made my reservations I opted, at the last minute, to not attend. Simply put, I didn’t think I would be in the mood for dealing with people, even though so many of them are friends and have been for many years.  But there are times when we need to take a step back and give ourselves time to catch a breath.  That’s what I’ve done for the past several months.  Now, I am back at work and I hope that I can craft some writing for “The Thinking Hunter,” “The Pines Review,” and my other outlets that will have meaning and purpose.

One aspect of not attending the SHOT Show is that I have time to sit in front of the tube and listen to the various networks’ expound upon the current debate on guns.  There is no surprise that the anti-gun groups seized the initiative and launched their attacks. To me these past few weeks have been filled with the most self-serving garbage that has ever passed through a television camera. About the only thing that the networks haven’t been guilty of is standing on top of the news studio desk and cheering for the madman who murdered those children and adults. Still, New York didn’t waste any time and is the first casualty in what promises to be a long, long winter, spring and probably summer. What we, the men and women of this country who are the gun owners, need to do is keep our heads and avoid being caught up in the emotionalism that will be slung about like dung. Let’s not give the antigun groups room to run rough shod over facts. We need to be aware that in the coming political and legal fight if we allow ourselves to be dragged into an emotional battle we will not win. In the past few years we’ve proven that a slow and honest education of non-vocal gun owners and much of that part of the population that is not gun owning can be successful. It won’t be easy but we can do it--we need to do it--the stakes are too high to fail. 

 

Are we losing the "Fun" in "Fund Raiser" Events?

This is a Blog post that I wrote weeks ago.  I’ve been up to my neck in projects, and a couple of issues, that I simply have not had time to sit and Blog.  I’m hoping to do better and post more often because it is something I enjoy.  glg

 I won a gun. Actually I won a rifle, a Savage .17 HMR to be specific. Now, to say that I won it implies that I got it for free or for the price of a raffle ticket--the latter is true--I got it for a raffle ticket.  The raffle was part of the Finley Wildlife and Gun Club’s biennial fund raising effort and I figure that over the past decade I’ve bought enough gun raffle tickets that I could have bought two, maybe even three rifles of similar price.  That’s also the sentiment that I hear from many of the hunters who attend the biennial fund raiser, but they complain with a laugh and admit they attend the auction and dinner for camaraderie (aka, drinking) and because the Finley Wildlife Club is an active member of the community and the money raised does go to good use, including scholarships, the local school and so on. There is a group of people (men and women), however, that use banquet/auction/raffle fund raisers as a source of products for resale. These individuals rarely care about the end use of whatever money is raised and are seldom members of the organization holding the event unless their ticket price includes membership. They are attending the event for the singular purpose of scoring bargain prices on selected auction goods, and by buying large numbers of raffle tickets, while keeping the amount spent on tickets at an acceptable loss/risk level, their odds of taking home raffle items is increased substantially, all of which will later turn a profit. At an event I attended earlier this year I was surprised when one person won a quarter of the firearms raffled and another substantial prize, plus won the bidding on a number of the more expensive auction items. When I said he “is one lucky S-O-B” I was told it isn’t luck--“he’s a professional, all of those guns will be sold at gun shows and the other stuff on eBay or his web site.”

The comment that struck me hardest came from another hunter who said: “Guys like him don’t leave much for the rest of us, if it wasn’t for where the money raised goes, I wouldn’t be here. If there is a benefit auction or raffle around here you can count on him (pointing to the person under discussion) being there and walking out with an armload of stuff--it isn’t luck. They’re taking the fun out of these things.”

His comments were echoed by several other attendees.

Until Michelle and I moved to North Dakota I was unaware of there being a large group of people who specialize in going from fund raiser to fund raiser and also purchase large numbers of raffle tickets to significantly improve their chances of winning and then selling the prize for a profit. I also learned that many of these individuals are also the auction bidders who carefully study items to be auctioned off, make notes of items’ value, then bid the more expensive items past the bargain price others had hoped would win the bidding yet keeping it low enough to realize a profit later. I have also been told that these bidders will often work in teams to squeeze out other bidders yet keep the final bid at or below a specified price, all of which is frustrating many “average Joes and Janes.” (Readers: FYI: I have helped organize nearly two dozen fund raisers with raffles and auctions and only recently seen this phenomenon emerge so consistently although one retired auctioneer told me it was a common practice throughout his career. At the Finley Wildlife Club’s event this has not been an issue but at other events in nearby cities it has been.)

At first, one is tempted to point out that because the money is going to a good cause there shouldn’t be any problem with having these people attend and pour their money into the cause. I agree--up to a point--that being that when the Joes and Janes of the outdoors begin to lose interest in attending our fund raising events because it is becoming increasingly hard for them to win the bidding at an auction and the odds of winning in a raffle are reduced to a level where winning would be “stacked against the odds” because so many tickets are sold to an individual, then we have a problem. What needs to be recognized by the organizers of the various fund raising events that are held around the country (and that does include me)  is that when the Joes and Janes begin to drop out of these events it brings them a few steps closer to dropping out of the outdoor sports. The demands on their free time are such that they can quickly justify not going hunting, fishing or out to the range because any of the myriad other activities that are pulling at them can replace the outdoors and shooting sports. Yet, even with this problem firmly understood there still exist the fact that if a person has bought their ticket(s) that person is entitled to win whatever they are drawn for or win at auction. Trying to ban them would be a mistake and probably open some legal questions. 

All of that said, I would like to see the organizations that rely on dinner/auction/raffle events to raise money for their cause to post a sign and print on the dinner tickets something like this:
The auction and raffle prizes are intended to be used by the winners to enhance their outdoor (or shooting) experience and not as items to be professionally resold on web sites or other outlets. 
Maybe it is too much to ask because in modern America, profit, whether it is profit to fund Nonprofits, or profit for the individual, has replaced what had been the desire to do good things. Maybe, just maybe, if the Joes and Janes saw such a sign or read a similar statement on the back of their banquet ticket they would feel a little better if they didn’t win that prize they were hoping for.
glg

Summer Project

Project for the summer--find out how true the regulation is on my new Cabela's muzzle loader double rifle.  Once I know their regulation then I can start shoot for best load.  It is a .50 caliber and if any of you have some advice on loads I wouldn't mind hearing them. glg

Surprise, Surprise and What's Wrong With Us?

Surprise, surprise, I am still around but I haven’t posted anything in weeks because--well--I didn’t want to write!  That, in itself, is a surprise because for 40+ years I have always had something that I wanted to write about, but for weeks now I haven’t wanted to write about several outdoor related events that made the national news. I know my reluctance is not writer’s block because when I have found myself on a deadline I was able to get the assignment written, but I couldn’t pen a decent blog post. What makes that reluctance to write surprising is that the issues I have been thinking about, often in great detail and even digging into the issues with additional research, are timely, relevant, and important to all of us who enjoy fishing, hunting and shooting. However, every time I tried to write a draft of a post I became so discouraged that I would put down my pen and turn to working in my yard and garden.

Some might argue that I have been in a slump brought on by the spring weather, or some malady.  I think my reluctance to write has been a response to the sheer idiocy that has been exhibited by so many of the outdoor media’s celebrities, and outdoor professionals (guides and outfitters).   Let’s be honest, a significant number of these people have behaved in ways that are appalling at the very least. If you go online and begin counting up the game violations by these people you quickly realize we’ve got a problem and it is best expressed in the immortalized words of Strather Martin and Paul Newman: “what we’ve got here is a failure to communicate.”  The failure is that too many outdoor celebs and professionals are starting to believe their own press releases and from that they are expecting a “bye” when their actions violate the law.  What is troubling beyond the actual “criminal act” they are charged with is that they have violated the trust between themselves, their fans, and society as a whole. These miscreants have forgotten that the men and women who are the anglers and hunters of our society most often carry out their activity without any other eyes watching over them, and they do so ethically and honestly, exactly the way they expect others to conduct themselves in similar situations. The vast majority of outdoor men and women are aware that society has entrusted them, through the hunting licenses and the premise of a right to hunt, with an honor system that the game laws will be honored. This is the very foundation of the protection of the right to hunt--it is based entirely on the ethical action of the individual. Sometimes there is a collision between what the ethical behavior is and what “needs” to be done, and when that happens we must make a choice that is based on the most favorable outcome. For a person to follow that principle in the field is not a part time choice but one that dictates all of the actions of the individual, but here is the sticking point: the action must be entirely self started and self completed even if others are present to observe the action. If a person will act outside what is ethical or “need,” regardless of the presence or lack of presence of anyone to observe the action, then is it reasonable to assume that person’s actions are not unusual but part of a pattern?  I believe it is, and for evidence of the truth of that belief one needs only to review some of the court documents pertaining to the outdoor celebrity miscreants to see their pattern of game violations.

I am sure that some of you will wonder why I should care so much and my answer to you is that we, all of us who love the outdoors and fishing/hunting, must care because their actions taint all of us in the eyes of nonparticipants.  Then, when the time comes (as it invariably does) for the general public to vote on a hunting related issue, the pro hunting groups must overcome a negative image generated by the miscreants’ actions. When we try to use the argument that more that 95-percent of all anglers and hunters are ethical and do follow the game laws and the principles of good sportsmanship the response is often, “how do we know?”

The fact is that we can only know our own actions and assume the actions of others are equally ethical. We cannot know how often the celeb that makes the news for game violations or other actions violates the law or is unethical. The tragic truth is that the rest of us must bear the burden of “their” guilt and consequently redouble our efforts to maintain our right to hunt. In a time when the politics of hunting is getting more segmented and the anti-hunting/gun elements have an increasingly well funded (although still historically, culturally and ethically inaccurate) argument, we cannot afford to continue supporting the miscreant celebrities of our industry. 

If an outdoor celebrity cannot gather the footage or sound bites they need for their programs within the law and abide by the angling or hunting ethics, but knowingly violate the law to get their bites, then they do not deserve our support, whether it is watching/listening to their broadcasts, or buying their products.  Yet, a sizable portion of the angler and hunter population continues to support them to the point of verbally trouncing anyone who speaks out against the celebrity! Case in point is Ted Nugent. Numerous editors and even the National Rifle Association have all remained silent about Nugent’s behavior and when asked why, we discover it is because Nugent’s fans are ready to rip into anyone who speaks out or writes against Nugent and they are afraid that condemning Nugent’s actions will “rock the boat.” They are unwilling to risk losing readers or members. In short, membership fees and subscribers are more important than the future of the outdoors and Second Amendment!

What is this drive by these fans to give celebrities more room to maneuver, even when those maneuverings are detrimental to all of us? 

I do not have an answer. This much I do know; if we are going to continue giving them “passes” for their misbehavior eventually we’re going to pay a much higher price. These men (and women) may have paid the court imposed prices for their actions, but that price alone does not repair the damage they have done to the nonparticipant’s perception of the outdoor community.

A final thought on this troublesome issue has to do with the notion that a person can pile up good deeds and be forgiven for any of their trespasses. Without burrowing into the philosophy of  “good” and “good actions” let it be sufficient to say that in the real world, regardless of how many times a celebrity reminds us that he or she has taken dying children, or wounded veterans, on hunting or fishing trips, the fact remains that the celebrity has violated the law, the ethics, and the true philosophy of the outdoor sports--a fact that cannot be repaired or erased by the public spectacle of “good deeds” but only by the offender’s public contrition. They need to let their “good deeds” stand alone and not use sick children and wounded veterans as a public bag balm to hide the effects of their actions. glg

Finding and losing the snow geese

The other day I was walking between my office and the house when I heard the geese.  At first I could hear just a few then suddenly the sky was full of them.  I stood mesmerized by the skeins of birds that stretched across the sky above Finley.  Had I been in the field I would have been in easy range for some pass shooting.  From my backyard, however, all I could do was stand and watch.  I glanced at my watch and the show lasted for just under fifteen minutes without a serious letup in the number of birds passing overhead. 

Later that day I went for a drive to try and figure out which of the large sloughs in the area the birds were using at night.  My intent was to find places where I could get under the birds for pass shooting. The geese were not where I expected and I returned home somewhat frustrated.

Yesterday, however, I did find the geese, or at least several thousand of them.  Snows and blues by the thousand with a scattering of Canada geese (including quite a few Giant Canada geese) covered the fields.  I watched them and decided my best bet would be to mark the fields they flew into and then beat them to the field the next morning.  If I did beat the geese then I could get in a few pass shots as they make their approach. The trick to being successful is to be settled in well before the birds pass overhead and that the hide be in a position where the birds have dropped to tree-top height. But, like all things in hunting, sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t.  It didn’t.  

The geese I’d seen the day before were gone.  Easy come, easy go. The spring season is open until May and there are other flocks of snows in the surrounding area, all I need to do is find them again and plan another hunt. 

Therapy Writing & Spring Goose Hunting Might Help

A NOTE: Sometimes the thing for a writer to do is simply start writing.  Choose a word, any word and from that word begin forming a sentence, than another and another.  That is this post.  This is my own therapeutic exercise.  glg

The early spring goose season opened last month and will continue into early May, and I’ve been thinking that it would be good for me to get out and spend some time hunting geese.  I am sure that by getting out of my office and into the fields my mental outlook would be improved.

Since returning from the SHOT Show I’ve had a sort of ho-hum not interested detachment from the world outside my office.  It hasn’t been the usual brutal weather of North Dakota eating at me, because until a couple of weeks ago we hadn’t had any decidedly brutal weather.  In fact, it has been the opposite, which is good because the mild winter, if it combines with a mild spring, will give the upland birds and deer an opportunity to rebound from the depredations of the past few winters.  Nope, what’s been eating at me is a book project that has vexed me for two years. 

As some of my readers know, 32 years ago, right after the Russians invaded Afghanistan, I went on assignment to Afghanistan for Soldier of Fortune magazine.  Although it took some effort I finally got inside Afghanistan along with an Englishman (Peter Jouvenal) and we were able to successfully complete a really wild assignment that actually had some far reaching impact.  I did write about “most” of the assignment and what we were able to accomplish for Soldier of Fortune and some other publications and newspapers, and in fact a grateful US government actually paid us (SOF, Peter and myself) a hefty reward for Peter and my efforts.  But, not all the story was told and a security lid was clamped down on part of the adventure, but now, after 32 years, the whole story can be told and I’ve been trying to write the book--but the story is not cooperating.  Of everything that I’ve written this is proving to be the most difficult.  I know that I will complete it.  I am confident that I will be able to get a full draft written before the end of spring.  Then, once I am sure the Pines Review work is completed and whatever writing tasks I’ve got to complete are filed with the appropriate editors--I am going to go someplace and work on the manuscript, type all the editing and corrections into it and send it off to my agent.  Hopefully, he’ll find it is in shape for publishers to read and I can retreat to the lakes around here and spend some time seriously fishing. Better yet, I will take some time and go to California and see my son and his family and spend some time fishing with my grandkids. 

It is all dependent on getting this book finished.  Fortunately, I am not working just from memory because I’ve got my journals, newspaper clippings and a lot of photographs, plus the published articles, so I’ve got most of the research material. It’s just a matter of doing it.  There is a twist, which is that whenever I would teach a writing class I would tell the students that what they needed was a bottle of glue to glue their butts to the chair so they could write.  It isn’t the glue in my case, it’s the time sitting and looking at the screen and willing myself to revisit those few weeks.  It’s just a world apart from where I now live.  It is an uncomfortable world that was dominated by lies, deceit, and pushing to the very edge of the rationale for a story.  When all was said and done I switched to outdoor writing, Peter, however, stayed on in that war-torn hell to become an internationally famous cameraman of the first order.  Peter is so revered by many correspondents that it is not uncommon to hear him referred to as the “bravest cameraman in the world.” It’s true that Peter is that, and more, and those few weeks when we shared the risk and won a bit of glory by outwitting the Russians, are times that continue to define me.  At the risk of our lives we accomplished something that no one else in the world had been able to do, and in the end we know we impacted the course of history.  There were many others who followed us, and Peter was often with them, but it was a path Peter blazed and allowed me to join him on.  It was not Charlie Wilson, the CIA, Dan Rather or anyone else who first went into that darkness, but three people, Peter Jouvenal, Edward Girardet and myself.  This book is the most stressful writing I’ve ever worked on, but I will bring it all together and the story will be told. 

My therapy session is now over.

Fixing Things That Don't Need To Be Fixed

My fingers have become numb from typing.  Obviously, I haven’t been writing for my blog but I have been writing.  I’ve been trying to get caught up on some article assignments and I am now 2/3 of the way to being caught up.  Of course, being caught up only means that I will then return to other writing projects that are sitting in the wings, which includes two book projects, “The Pines Review,” and a couple of other projects that are close to my gizzard.

I’ve decided to keep the name of this bog as it is.  Why fiddle with something that works?  Too often we are tempted to do exactly that and when we succumb to the temptation to tinker it is the rare person who can honestly say they’ve improved things. That’s a problem that plagues the entire outdoor industry--too many people want to “fix” something that isn’t broken. Throughout the four days of the SHOT Show I kept hearing complaints about different aspects of the shooting and hunting world needing to be “fixed.”  I was starting to wonder if what some of these people were talking about was castrating NSSF because a complaint that I heard several times was that NSSF should not allow the law enforcement/tactical companies to exhibit at the SHOT Show.

When I asked why, the answer was usually that SHOT stood for Shooting, Hunting, Outdoor, Trade and not cops and robbers.  The funny thing is that I can remember when the big controversy in the press room was the presence of “black guns” in the show.  In fact, one day during a past SHOT show, the chief executive of NSSF rushed through the aisles of the show to a booth where the infamous black guns were being displayed and he ordered the guns removed or the company would be evicted! 

The guns were taken down.  Another year there was a controversy over paintball guns and still another one was over the presence of crossbows. All of these disputes have faded and finally disappeared, but I am not so sure the debate over the law enforcement and tactical exhibitors will be so quickly resolved. The disconnect between these exhibitors and the rest of the shooting and hunting industry is one that is too easily fueled by grumbling malcontents who want to maintain a purist approach to shooting and hunting. I think that is an entirely wrong approach.  There is already too much division between various groups of the outdoor industry and grumbling about the presence of law enforcement and tactical exhibitors at the SHOT Show isn’t helping to heal those divisions.

glg

I Have Returned--With a Question

I’ve been “checked out” of blog writing for a number of weeks.  Whenever I sat down to write anything I felt pangs of guilt for not having written for my blog.  I felt as though I was cheating those who have been reading my musings.  The problem is that I didn’t want to write anything and the few post that I have made during these weeks of absence were little more than apologies for not posting.

Not good.

But, I was thinking about something that was troubling me.  When I get into one of these “mood” projects I frequently lose myself in my thoughts and write these thoughts down in one of my notebooks.  The whole process is part of a mental movement that begins with a mental “tick.”  Something that I’ve seen, heard, or read, strikes me as odd and I find myself returning to it and thinking about it.  How long it takes me to resolve the issue to my satisfaction, or at least to a point where I want to present it to others, is not predictable.   I’ve got many notebooks, not all of them full, but into which I write my thoughts whether for something I want to write or a problem I am wrestling with.  A couple of notebooks have notes, jottings, drawings and whatever else seemed to be relevant to a problem that I first started writing about several years ago and I still think about and write on.

My blog issue hasn’t been completely resolved but it is something that I want to “bring out.”  My mental twitch is that writing a blog as “The Thinking Hunter” is somehow incomplete.  Besides hunting I am an avid angler and this spring I will be putting my boat back in the water and hopefully spending more time on nearby lakes.  Should I expand my blog from “The Thinking Hunter” to “The Thinking Angler & Hunter”?  Or, as some of my notes suggest, would writing about both angling and hunting in one blog confuse readers?  The pages of my notebook on this topic seem equally divided with thoughts that adding angling would be confusing pages of notes that explore reasons for making the change.

Now, to some readers this may seem like a trivial topic, but I believe it begs the question of whether there truly is a strong link between angling and hunting.  We know that Wayne Pacelle and his crowd, the sworn enemy of all anglers and hunters, has a life mission of ending hunting and fishing.  That alone should create a strong link between angling and hunting.

I am not sure it does.

At the SHOT Show I had the pleasure of having dinner with a small group of bloggers, mostly gun bloggers, and as I listened to them I realized the distance between the hunter and the gun enthusiast is real and often wide.  That gap is created by the number of issues between the two groups; therefore a similar gap, between hunters and anglers, exists and is equally wide. 

What troubles me, and is driving my question is that by these gaps we are allowing ourselves to become segregated by our activities rather than united by them.  By focusing my Internet musings on hunting I tend to believe that I am contributing to the problem.   There is an old truism about who’s ox is being gored and suddenly all of us in the outdoors seem to be thinking more about our personal ox, that is the ox of shooting, the ox of hunting, the ox of bowhunting, ox of shooting, ad infinitum. 

I believe that those of us who have opted to focus our work on the issues that surround our preferred outdoor activities should consider stepping back from that gap we’ve created by the “single issue” approach to the preservation of our outdoor activities and lifestyle.  The divisions between shooting, hunting, and fishing, are providing openings through which our opponents are driving wedges to weaken us.

This is not a new problem but one I’ve been aware of thought about throughout my career, but it is being exacerbated by the explosion of social media and the gaps are becoming wider. 

When I think about what I value in my outdoor activities I cannot separate my hunting from my fishing as favoring one over the other.  Nor can I separate the values I put on shooting, whether casual plinking or shooting at known distance targets, from my hunting.  I believe the outdoors is a lifestyle that runs the entire spectrum of emotions.  Casting a fly to a feeding trout in a beaver pond produces as much excitement and accomplishment as a center bull’s-eye shot from several hundred yards or finally shooting a deer that I’ve hunted for days.  In the outdoors have too much in common, too many shared emotions, too much to lose, to allow those gaps to grow and perhaps become festering wounds between us. 

Do you agree?

glg

Deer Season and Thoughts on Today's Optics

Winter has arrived.  Deer season is open and I’ve still got to fill my tag. This winter’s first snows, plus the threat of more unsettled winter weather over the next few days, combine for my favorite hunting conditions.   Now I will put a bit more effort into my hunt!

Two days ago I could have probably filled my tag when the doe I was stalking crossed a patch of open ground, just where I’d expected to see her except she was quicker than I anticipated.  I was at the wrong angle.  Had the doe crossed less than a minute later I would have been right where I’d planned and I could have taken the shot.  The difference was the angle to a farm house a half mile away.  When the doe appeared I raised the .270 and by force of habit I was looking behind the deer.  It’s all part of a controlled movement that I’ve trained myself to follow.  I didn’t always look past the target as well as at the target before fully shouldering the rifle and taking my spot weld to take my shot. 

It is tempting to say that my father, or one of my older brothers, taught me to take careful note of what is beyond my target but that isn’t necessarily true.  I think it is a combination of my experiences as a Marine and just the years of hunting.  I’ve learned bullets don’t necessarily stop in the deer and as the shift to non-lead bullets increases, at the same time that velocities are improved, we need to pay more attention to where that bullet could go after the shot is fired.

Not taking the shot might have cost me a few more days of deer hunting but I can sleep easy knowing that I didn’t potentially endanger the neighboring family with a “spent” round.  I know that I don’t always manage to think past the shot, especially when bird hunting (but I don’t think I would pull a Cheney on a hunting partner) but it is a practice all of us should take more seriously.

All That Said. . . .

Recently I’ve heard shots fired past legal shooting time.  The legal shooting time here in North Dakota is ½ hour before sunrise to a half hour after sunset.  I can live with those times but apparently some hunters can’t.  When you look at some of the rifle scopes that are now on the market it is no small wonder that an occasional hunter will take these shots.  Some rifle scopes sold for hunters have only marginally less light gathering capacity than tactical optics.  As for the true tactical scopes, with serious light gathering capabilities, some of the advertisers are aggressively marketing these scopes to hunters. 

Is there a line?  I have to wonder if some manufacturers are starting to push wildlife agencies into a position where certain types of rifle scopes will be banned on rifles being used by big game hunters.  We cannot and should not try legislating ethics but is there a point at which legislation is needed to preserve what is a right? 

This is an argument that has been drifting around in my mind for quite some time.  It’s not a new argument and it has been examined by hunters and philosophers for centuries.  The Persians advocated the spear over the bow to kill game, as did the European kings, all of whom believed that courage could be gauged by how close the hunter was to the quarry at the moment of the kill. Ernest Hemingway, Ortega y Gasset, and a host of other authors and hunting philosophers of recent years have examined the question of technology in hunting and from my reading of their works all of them have cautioned against technology overpowering hunting.   

Are their cautions against allowing too much technology in hunting something we should reopen and give a fresh examination?  Or, as some others have claimed, should the rights of the individual, at all times, supersede any restrictive legislation intended to prevent a possible action by an otherwise law abiding person?

So, should we consider this argument: Should rifle/pistol scopes of exceptional light gathering or amplification capability, or equipped with enhanced reticles, either singularly, or in combination, be banned from use by hunters during some hunting seasons? 

I am not advocating anything other than a question of the technology’s present and future role.

This is not as easy an argument as one might first believe.  Here in North Dakota it seems the law is fairly specific: The use of night vision equipment or electronically enhanced light gathering optics for locating or hunting game is illegal. Is this law specific enough or does it leave the playing field open to scopes that have optics that actually enhance so much light it encourages hunters to take shots after legal shooting time?

I am really curious to learn your thoughts. 

Think about it.
glg

For Max

I hope you don't mind if I venture off the usual topic for something personal, something that I want to share with others.  Perhaps, in some ways, it defines me and what I write.

For Max. . . .

A friend of mine passed away.  Actually, she was much more than a friend she was someone I cared about in ways that don’t make sense--at least to some people.  Her name was Maxine and I called her “Max,” which is what she preferred.  I learned about her death last weekend and it has had me in a slump that has been hard to shake.  Just when I thought I was coming out of it some little memory would be triggered and my mind would insist: “it just isn’t so.” 

I met Max 39 years ago last September.  I was a Marine Sergeant and she was an Air Force Sergeant.  True, I was married at the time, but I was no longer happy in the marriage and I already knew that at some near point in time it would end.  It did.  A few years later I was alone.  Opposites, I had learned, may attract but that doesn’t build a life.

Max and I met at the military’s journalism school, Defense Information School or DINFOS.  It is the same school that Hunter Thompson, the Gonzo Journalist, attended.  A lot of other famous people received their introduction to journalism at DINFOS, and after graduation we were all “DINFOS trained killers.” 

Once Max and I got past the awkwardness of the problems facing us we were together as much as possible, and it was never enough.  There are a lot of stories I could tell, because the time we had we filled with whatever adventure we could find around Indianapolis, Indiana.   Finally, however, graduation came and we were forced to go separate ways, but we made promises to each other.  One of the promises was to try and make my marriage work.  Ultimately, it failed.  It was more my fault than my then wife’s.  When it failed I tried to find Max but didn’t because her father, who had become estranged from the entire family, spitefully lied to me about Max.  He told me she was dead.  Twenty years later, by accident, I ran across her mother and she told me Maxine was alive and where to find her.  But by this time all the chances for Max and me to finally be together had become dust in the fields.  We could only be friends who had a past.  That past, those days we were together, were dreams for us then, and still are.  We held hands and walked in misty rains, we sat in corners of coffee houses and whispered to each other, we went to parks and built campfires and sitting together we shared our warmth and the fire’s heat.  When I had my third operation on my hand, she typed my assignments so I wasn’t dropped from the school. 

Maxine and I were in love.  But for simple reasons we never took our love to that intimate level where you can never have another first.  That’s probably why, when I think of Max, I remember walks in the rain and sitting by the river with a bottle of Sangria, and putting sticks in the fire while we leaned against each other.  One night, in the shadow of a covered bridge, she said, “You talk to the trees.  I think that’s a good thing for you.”

Yesterday, after mourning her for several days, I had begun to think that I should drop this blog, stop publishing The Pines Review and concentrate my efforts on something else.  Maybe I should give more time to my book about Afghanistan in 1980.   Then, with shaking hands I began to read her letters and her email letters that she’d written me after I found her again.  “You always had the passion,” she said.  “I remember you talking to the trees and the birds; you said their answers will always be in the voice of the wind.”

I don’t know about you, the readers of this blog, and the ones you love or have loved, but when I close my eyes I can still feel her hand in mine and our hands wet with autumn’s misty rain.  When I am sitting in the grass of a tree row while hunting, or just walking, I can feel her hair brushing me.  And, now, when I write, or sketch, I remember her, leaning over my shoulder to watch me write or draw, and her hair tickling my neck and face.  “It’s what you are,” she wrote.  “It’s what you were meant to do--to write.”  I now know I can’t stop writing this blog, The Pines Review, or any of my other work.

In her last email letter to me she said, “I hope you are still talking to the trees.”

I am, Max, I am.

Rest in peace, my love.

Love,

Galen (Gale’)

First Blood Pressure Results and "Sport" Hunting

This evening I took my blood pressure cup/gizmo with me to the nearby slough.  Now, the question is whether duck hunting, which is sitting in a duck blind, lowers the blood pressure or has no effect whatsoever. 

I took my blood pressure before leaving and it was 142/76 pulse 68.  After sitting in the blind for 30 minutes I took my blood pressure and it was 136/69 pulse 72.  I’m not sure what to make of it but this is only my first day of my not so scientific study of blood pressure and duck hunting.  What is interesting is that once I was back in my office I again took my blood pressure and it was 136/79 and my pulse was 82.  Now, the only thing I can say to explain it is that I was doing some editing--of my own writing! 

This project is turning into an interesting experiment and the more I think about it the more I think I can turn it into a not-so-scientific article.  I will haul the blood pressure monitor out with me every day I go hunting until I take the results back to the VA hospital.  I am really curious to hear what my physical therapist and my primary care physician have to say about the readings.  I’m sure they will both shake their heads in a little bit of disbelief--but then both of them must consider me a bit on the pixilated side of reality.

ABOUT THINK TANK II and “SPORT HUNTING”

I’ve been doing some work on my notes and ideas from the Think Tank II.  I came away from the gathering wishing it had been at least one day longer.  There was a lot of free discussion about the present state of recruitment to the outdoors but I heard something that was, to me, very important for the future of hunting, and it was the simple statement that hunting would be referred to as “hunting” and not “sport hunting” or have any other adjectives affixed to it.  This is something that I totally agree with.  I believe that we must stop the practice of trying to hide hunting under a pile of adjectives.   I make this argument even after a great deal of research has shown me that the basis for “sport hunting” goes back to ancient Greece when the phrase “hunting for sport” actually appears in the writing of Xenophon.   One probably asks why I dislike the use of “sport-hunting” in today’s language when it has been in use for more than two-thousand years?  My answer is simple--times change!  For most of that 2,000+ years hunting was a very blurred activity.  Subsistence hunting and sport hunting existed side-by-side and often within the same activity.  For the past 100+ years, with only a few exceptions, subsistence hunting has fallen out of use as a “needed” activity leaving only what had been euphemistically called sport hunting in its wake. 

There are many, many people who rely on hunting to provide them with chemical free, healthy meat protein, but to call that true subsistence is to dally about with semantic spooks.  This sort of subsistence hunting is a choice by personal philosophy and not a choice based on true need.   I am not belittling modern meat hunting as a means of providing food--I opt for that with deer and other game--it is not, however, a requirement for our survival in today's world.  There are Alaskan and South American peoples who still subsistence hunt because if they didn’t they would starve for protein.   Could it be that the users of “sport hunting” are drawing a comparison against those aboriginal peoples?   

A brief look at the OED and other word research turns up some interesting information, primarily that “sport,” as was applied to hunting, did not necessarily carry positive connotations, even as far back as the 15^th and 16^th centuries.  In the middle of the 19^th century “sport” began to increasingly be associated with athletics and less with what had been popularly known as field sports. 

The entire evolution of sport and sport hunting is more complex than my quick analysis but the point is that as we move deeper into the 21^st century there is even less to be gained by adding “sport” to hunting as a means of modifying hunting.  We hunt.  We don’t harvest.  We don’t box with, play tennis or football with, or any other organized activity, the animals we hunt.  We don’t need to lie to ourselves or to the non-hunter by falling back on euphemisms to soften our language.  We can start by removing one word and simply saying that we hunt, we go hunting, we are hunters.  There is much more to be gained by being honest with ourselves and others than by trying to soothe the taste of words with imitation sugar.    

Is that so hard to do?

Think about it.

glg

Blood Pressure and Bird Hunting

Today has been a long day.  I was up and on the road before dawn but not to go hunting--I had VA eye doctor and physical therapists appointments.  The eye doctor informed me the eyes are slowly getting worse, which is expected, and my therapists, one physical, one occupational (I can’t keep ‘em straight) try their best to deal with me.  Jody is tall, looks like he should be a Marine (like me) and Vicki is petit, blonde, blue-eyed-cute and quite capable of chewing me out for not following instructions.  Anyway, my blood pressure decided to act up and Vicki made me promise to take my blood pressure several times a day and keep a journal with the results, then bring the journal with me when I go back to the VA next week and show the journal to my doctor.  Not a problem.  But here is what I am wondering.  Jody has repeatedly pointed out that I need to “take it easy” on the hunting.  He didn’t say not to hunt, just change things a little.

I got to thinking about a hunt I had earlier this week. . . .

The other day I took Cookie and drove out to our favorite grouse hunting area.  I wasn’t in a hurry and besides, I’m supposed to be trying to recover from the cardiac adventure, so, I walked very slowly and Cookie ran ahead.  When she got birdy I turned toward her and when that bird flushed wild and out of range I just watched it fly away.  “At least I don’t have to clean it,” I said to the wind.  Cookie was disappointed and was quickly off again.  I called her back then returned to the Suburban so we could try for a duck.

At the little slough where Chas and I had shot several ducks I pulled on my waders (I have got to get some new waders) and after unloading my gear, consisting of one bag with shells, coffee, camera, notebook, pen and goodies, and pulling four decoys from my decoy bag, I parked the Suburban and walked back carrying my shotgun and holding Cookie on a leash.  Back at the slough I carefully put my shotgun down, picked up the decoys and started into the muck.  By this time Cookie was having a good time and when I was about fifteen feet into the muck I noticed Cookie had switched on the “bird here!” attitude and was eagerly working scent on the far side of the slough, in the same grass were she’d retrieved two birds a few days earlier. 

Now, one of the things I am fond of saying is that Cookie is smarter than me and danged if she didn’t prove it again.  Twice she stopped working the scent and looked back at me with the “get your gun” expression that means she is going to be flushing a bird.  I figured she was scenting some ducks that had been there earlier so I didn’t get my gun.  I set the first decoy.  Then just as I was about to set the next decoy a mallard drake burst out of the grass.  It landed on the water and Cookie thought she had a cripple then it took off, scolding her as it climbed into the air. 

Cookie gave me “the look.”

Yeah, I stood stupid.  I set the other two decoys, went back to my gun, loaded it and sat down.  Once I was comfortable I poured myself a cup of coffee to chase away the end-of-day chill.  A little later Cookie tensed up and looked over her shoulder.  I followed her gaze in time to see the geese coming over the trees.   The loads I had were too light for the big Canadas so I sat and watched.  I watched them fly over, they were not seeing either Cookie or me, and I watched them land in a field a half mile away. 

Later, when the sun was getting that golden hue that is a signal to mama earth that for this part of the planet the day is over, a few ducks flew past but I forgot my calls.  Besides, I’d been writing notes for my journal and I’d talked myself into thinking that unless it was a fat mallard drake I wasn’t going to shoot.  The ducks were cooperative and avoided coming too close and in short order it was dark and time for me to pack up and return to my office and get some work time in. 

The evening was a good day.  I couldn’t ask for anything more.  Maybe I did overdo it a bit with the grouse walk, the walk to and from the Suburban, and of course wading into the thick, clinging mud that sucks at your feet and forces you to strain to take each step.  But it was worth it even if I did have to take a nitro pill later that night.  The geese were brilliant, the ducks were just enough to get the juices going and Cookie had a great time.  I am thinking about taking Cookie out tomorrow evening, maybe walking a different grouse field and then sitting on a slough.  Who knows?  I might get a mixed bag of a duck and a grouse.  I’m content with a couple of birds.  There’s still some pheasant hunting to do before the weather gets too cold.  Maybe a couple of pheasant to round out my larder would be a good thing, too.  But, then I am back to Jody, Vicki, my primariy care doctor, and everything about taking it easy.  So, I did promise to take the blood pressure readings and keep a good record.  I am wondering, however, if sitting on the edge of a slough, sipping hot coffee and sharing a sandwich with your hunting dog would really “lower” your blood pressure?  I’m going to find out by packing my blood pressure cup in my bag with the Thermos, box of shells, sandwich and duck calls.  I am not sure how my doctor or physical therapist will appreciate the blood pressure journal having duck blind doodles, probably some dried dog slobber, a little spilled coffee and no doubt it’ll pick up that deliciously thick aroma of rotting vegetation that is common to all North Dakota sloughs, and hopefully a drop or two of duck blood, but at least I’ll have a complete record.  Heck, if I get a shot at a duck or two maybe I’ll take it then, too.  It might be interesting to see the results of the blood pressure in a duck blind and prove conclusively that bird hunting is good for the blood pressure as well as the soul.

Think about it. 

Friendships Forged by Hunting

            I’ve been lazy.  Okay, so I haven’t been “really” lazy, but I’ve been doing things that have a higher priority than my writing projects.  First, and most importantly, my friend Chas (The Southern Rockies Nature Blog, http://natureblog.com/) arrived on October 2 for four days of duck and grouse hunting.  We would have hunted the four days but I had to go to the VA hospital for my post cardiac therapy on one day and Chas graciously went along.  By the time I was through and we were back in Finley the day was shot.  Other than that one trip to Fargo we were able to hunt every day. 

            The great thing is that this year Chas got to take home a few ducks.  Not enough to fill a freezer but enough so he could know that he shot at, and hit some ducks.

            Chas and I first hunted together in the autumn of 1979 and it was a dove hunt that morphed into an elaborate dinner that has become a part of the lore of my personal history with Soldier of Fortune Magazine.  How that happened isn’t the point of this post, what is the point is that from that first dove hunt on to last week’s hunting Chas and I have hunted together at least one long weekend nearly every autumn, and will continue to do so as long as we can.  Of course, there have been a few hiccups along the way and several seasons were lost to work, but there have been more wonderful memories than disappointments, and a few of those memories are the fodder for some of the stories in my next collection of short stories--with names changed--of course.

            Whenever Chas and I have hunted together there has never been a competition between us.  We’ve never compared the number of birds in our game bags or tried to measure tail feathers.  We don’t even compare the number of shots each one of us takes for each bird killed!  Those details are not important to us. 

            I also derive a secondary benefit from our hunts--I bounce ideas off Chas.  I’ve always been pleased that someone of his intellect is open to exploring my zany off-the-wall ideas.  He is never derogatory or dismissive of what I propose and often the nudge he provides is enough to push my idea onto firmer ground where I can develop it more fully.  That’s the power of a true friendship, but more importantly, in this case, it is indicative of the sort of bonds that are often formed between people who fish and hunt together.  Over the decades since Chas and I first hunted doves in Colorado I’ve developed many, many other friendships, but I can honestly say that only one other friendship has the same strength as the one I have with Chas, that is with Robert K. Brown, whom I met just a few weeks before meeting Chas.  Like Chas, Brown and I met outside the realm of the hunt but the strong bonds of friendship were sealed while we were hunting. 

            Most of my other strong friendships (though none to the level of Chas and Brown); were developed because of fishing or hunting.  I believe that it is because fishing and hunting are two basic human activities that were once essential to survival that we form such strong and long lasting friendships with other anglers and hunters.  Every experience in the outdoors, shared with a friend, weaves fibers of trust that are not unlike the long fibers of steel that become the massive cables holding up bridges.  But what happens when competition is added to the experience?  Does competition become a corrosive that erodes the fibers, ultimately weakening them until they pull apart and the structure collapses under its own weight?  Even Hemingway, who thrived on competition, recognized its dangers and it became one of the foundational elements of Green Hills of Africa, his hunting masterpiece.

            Today, competitive fishing and hunting dominates much of outdoor television’s programming.  No matter how much “we” moan and complain about the programming, millions of Americans watch the programs, some of them as religiously as Americans once tuned in to Ozzie and Harriet or Leave It To Beaver.   I am curious as to how many viewers leave their favorite fishing or hunting program determined to catch as many fish (or one as big) as the host, or have convinced themselves they can kill a whitetail buck or other big game animal that will surpass the trophy their much admired host kills every Saturday morning, and are then discouraged to learn it isn’t as easy as they thought?  Does this discouragement turn the neophyte trying to glean helpful knowledge into a non-participant?  

The most recent entry into the competitive world is “Fantasy Hunting,” an online game in which participants select a team of hunters to score points on the game killed and win prizes.  If one were to ask “What’s next?” my answer is simple: “I have no idea.”  Somehow we’ve now gone from the sublime to the ridiculous. (Field and Stream, Fantasy Hunting)

Without the warm campfires, muddy bogs, the smell of wet dogs and the coppery smell of the cooling blood as we dress our game, to remind us how precious each life was that we took on the hunt or from the water, there cannot be truth in hunting or fishing.  Without truth there is no fishing or hunting--only consumption. 

Think about it. glg

Cardiac Adventure

I’ve had several people send me an email asking about my recent adventure with a heart attack.  Well, here’s  the story.

On Wednesday night at the Think Tank I had a heart attack.  I remembered what happened to my friend Peter Capstick when he had his collapse after a speech.  People remember his collapse, not the speech.  I did not want to leave that conference by going to a hospital for emergency care and be remembered as the guy who had a heart attack at Think Tank II.  I self-medicated with nitro tablets and my pain meds.  I made it through the next day’s meeting and then at noon the host of the Think Tank arranged a limo to take me to Union Station in Chicago (more on the whole conference thing later).   Once on the train I managed to keep everything together for 14 hours.  I then drove home (very early morning, before traffic, which isn’t much on the roads here in ND).  Once home I brought in my luggage, computer bag, bag with meds and fly fishing tackle, then collapsed in the living room.  I couldn’t wake Michelle from living room so I went upstairs (really tough climb) and woke her.  She drove me to Fargo (I refused to go to the local hospital because the “only” thing they can do for serious cardiac care consist of liquid nitro drip and stronger pain med (morphine) then send you to Fargo on expensive ambulance ride.)  I still had nitro and oxycodone to treat myself.  She drove to the Fargo VA, I walked in to the hospital, past the check-in desk (they take too long then put you in a line) and straight to the Urgent Care desk, placed my bag of meds on the desk and said, “Are you the folks who take care of vets having serious chest pain—as in heart attacks?”

“Yes,” the nurse said.

“Well, my dear, here I am.”

Within a minute I was on a bed, getting my shirt off, getting an IV with a drip of nitro and blood drawn from the other arm.

“So, on a scale of 1-10 what is your pain?” the male nurse asked (while Michelle frowned at his efforts to get an IV inserted in veins stuffed with high blood pressure.)

“Well, sir,” I said, “last night and yesterday I had it down to an eight or nine but Wednesday night it was at least a ten.”

“When do you think you had this heart attack?”

“Oh, that’s easy, Wednesday night about midnight, that is when I puked and was sweating buckets.”

“And you are just coming in?”

“I was in Chicago and didn’t know anyone there.”

“There is a VA hospital there.  You could have called 911.”

“Figured I’d come home to get it taken care of.  I prefer my doctors here.”

“How’s the pain?”

“About ten, can I have more drugs?”

A team arrived to take an X-ray.  A minute later the doctor came in, looked at some early test results, listened to my heart, watched the BP (very high).  I recognized him because he has treated me before. 

“Galen, I am going to get you an angiogram.”

A couple of minutes later, with the male nurse trying to stop the bleeding of the first attempt to insert an IV, the ambulance guys arrived.  The other hospital, Sanford, felt I should go straight into the cardiac OR for the angiogram, so an ambulance was sent.  Once inside the ambulance they flipped on the lights and siren, great ride!  We went through two red lights! I asked them to go around the block but they wouldn’t do it.  When we reached Sanford hospital the time from the moment the wheels of the ambulance gurney hit the ground to when I was in the cardiac OR was maybe a minute.  Inside the crew was waiting, had everything from the VA (via Internet) including X-rays.  The procedure for angiogram was started, they found one of those little blood vessels that was 100% collapsed.  Took them a bit of time to get the thing back up then get the stints in but they did.  Oh, the doctor who was in charge (not the surgeon who did it) was absolutely stunningly beautiful.  She was leaning over and explaining what was happening then asked me if I had any questions.  All I said was: “How did you get such incredibly beautiful eyes?”

She shook her head and walked away.

The nurses (entire staff, but two nurses in particular--Krista and Jenny) were wonderful.  Best part of being in the hospital!

So, all is repaired.  I need to let it sit without stress for another couple of days.  I’ve been lectured by every doctor and nurse.  Robert K. Brown (SOF) has said he’ll kick my ass if I ever do such a thing again.  He also said he does not know very many people who could do it.  One of the Cardiac Critical Care nurses said I must have been a good Marine because only a Marine could make it through that kind of ordeal, or do something that crazy. She must be a former Marine herself.

I am doing much, much better and I’ve even managed to get out and search for sharptail grouse with Cookie.  Tried to stretch the barrel for a long shot but couldn’t do it so came home with a gun that doesn’t need cleaning.

I’ve got a couple of deadlines to meet and then I’ll tell you about the Think Tank.

glg