Thanks OT, you are gracious with your kind words.

I plan to expound on the ranch and bush characters in the future, especially the World War I Vets. They are all gone now, I think it is important to record their stories. Many of them migrated to the Peace River Country because of the name itself and to claim their quarter section that was theirs for surviving one of the most horrific events of all time.

I look back on my training at Parris Island with fondness, with the country boy work ethic, I found the training to be a great lark. Being stronger than most, I could do the PT without effort nearly all day. My Senior DI was like a friend, he was a sporting man and liked to challenge other DI’s to stand someone against me with the pugil sticks, a game i was devastating at. I suspect they were gambling, but that was a different age.

One evening, several DIs from our company were gathered around me in my skivies while they were poking fun at me. Suddenly, my Senior DI told me to grab my M14 and lock on my bayonet. He then told me to unsheath my bayonet. The whole squad bay was watching now, because this was strictly forbidden, to unsheath the bayonet. Even the other drill instructors were visibly nervous. He ordered me to port arms and the drill instructors all stepped back, he then ordered me to stick this drill instructor that was always trying to antagonize me. I looked my Senior DI in the eye and he said it again, the DI in question ran out into the road with me in hot pursuit before my Senior DI called me back in the barn. The DI kept running, I was barefoot. Would I have stuck him? I’m not sure, but I could tell by the DI’s talk that my Senior DI had won another gamble.

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@ John Copper I guess thats the story of a lot of old soldiers . My story included building Houses And roads, I finally stayed with roads, It seemed everybody wanted them. I always did the best I could, sometimes it didn’t work out, usually the fault of an educated civil engineer. When the great state of California elected Nancy, Barbara, Maxine, and Mr. Waxman I decided to move on, now I live in the great state of Texas! This is where i’ll be when they come for my guns. May God be with us all!

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Well heck, John, we’re neighbors. I was a builder, as well (now, I just count dirt). Lemme know if you have some Taliban grouse infesting your property, and Maggie and I’ll come visit.

Jeff

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Skookum–

The men Who Don’t Fit In is the story of my life, too. I was never an outdoorsman like you – I was an engineer and a builder. But never once did I say to myself, “John, if you’d just keep your mouth shut and do what you’re told, you could work here for the rest of your life and then retire”. When a job became routine, I figured it was time to move on and try something entirely new. And I did.

I like to tell folks that during my working career I destroyed three entire U.S. industries. When I first got out of the Army I became an electronic technician testing equipment for the telephone industry. After four years of that it was getting pretty boring, but the U.S. electronic industry moved to Japan and that made my decision for me. Somehow I fell into working on nuclear power plants as an instrumentation engineer. (See, this was in the days when if you had a head on your shoulders, they’d hire you – not like it is now where they want ten years of experience doing exactly the same thing.) After having a lot of fun and making some good money building two of those, that industry came to a screeching halt as well, thanks to the greenies. So one more time I moved on and managed to talk my way into aerospace. I spent a number of happy years processing and launching space shuttles downin Florida, but ten years ago decided to get out before the rush to the exits. I was a little early on that, but once again felt the need to move on. The wife and I packed up our stuff and our dogs and moved up into the mountains of NC where the two of us built a really cozy log cabin where we plan to spend the rest of our lives. It’s far enough out that we can shoot wildlife from our back deck . Of course if somebody offered me a job doing something entirely new in a far-away place…

So I guess I never really fit in either, but I sure had a lot of fun. Say, that would be a great phrase for a tombstone, wouldn’t it? “I never fit in, but I had a lot of fun”

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Skookum, another excellent piece of work illustrating the cast of colorful characters that one encounters in the Pacific Northwest. Larger than life characters that add flavor and texture to life’s experiences where the only rules that matter are survival, friendship and self reliance of those that have lived the school of hard knocks. A lifestyle built in the wild and wooly places of the Yukon, Alaska, Montana serves well to prepare folks for any calamity or catastrophe, man made or crafted by nature.

I learned the cattle business from some pretty crusty characters that taught me life’s basic values from an early age. They taught me to ride, rope, tell time by the sun’s position, shoot, hunt for meat for the table, rudimentary first aid and trust my senses. Their word was gold and their work ethic was solid. Tales told around a campfire was their oral history that I soaked up like a sponge. It did me no harm. Those early years prepared me for life’s challenges in later years. While some of my current peer group was watching television I was learning to identify constellations at night, moving cattle to water and fresh pasture by day on horseback.

After that, the Army was easy, Jump School was an adventure, Ranger School was just another chore and not a hardship. College work was just refining a set of filters that I’d been given from real world experience. Dealing with people was easy using the values I was given by those rough old guys that pushed cattle for a living.

Again, Pardner, Thanks for sharing a part of your life. You have a talent for painting mental pictures here. Pleasing ones.

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Thanks PV, I will try to write some stuff to make people laugh in the near future.

G-d Speed to you and your beautiful family.

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M&M thanks you young dude you.

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John Cooper, I will check he Silence of the North out, how could something like that have passed me by? The 81-82 winter was the coldest ever recorded in the Peace River Valley, until last year. I think Al passed that one by.

My favorite Service poem is The men Who Don’t Fit In, if you read it, you will have read my life.

There’s a race of men that don’t fit in,
A race that can’t stay still;
So they break the hearts of kith and kin,
And they roam the world at will.
They range the field and they rove the flood,
And they climb the mountain’s crest;
Theirs is the curse of the gypsy blood,
And they don’t know how to rest.
If they just went straight they might go far;
They are strong and brave and true;
But they’re always tired of the things that are,
And they want the strange and new.
They say: “Could I find my proper groove,
What a deep mark I would make!”
So they chop and change, and each fresh move
Is only a fresh mistake.

And each forgets, as he strips and runs
With a brilliant, fitful pace,
It’s the steady, quiet, plodding ones
Who win in the lifelong race.
And each forgets that his youth has fled,
Forgets that his prime is past,
Till he stands one day, with a hope that’s dead,
In the glare of the truth at last.

He has failed, he has failed; he has missed his chance;
He has just done things by half.
Life’s been a jolly good joke on him,
And now is the time to laugh.
Ha, ha! He is one of the Legion Lost;
He was never meant to win;
He’s a rolling stone, and it’s bred in the bone;
He’s a man who won’t fit in.

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Missy, you should practice talking to the coyotes or calling them in. There are recordings that you can use to practice, but I swear they have different calls and sounds around the country. Tr to practice where no one can hear you, sometimes people are tempted to call the guys in the white coats with the butterfly nets.

One of the ranches I work on has one of those big white dogs for the sheep. They have yet to lose one to the coyotes since he started working. He doesn’t care about humans, just sheep. It is the funniest thing, when I pull into the yard, he comes down to smell my car and my equipment. The rancher family gets upset because he isn’t supposed to leave the sheep, but it is as if he comes down to check me out. He doesn’t get close enough for me to pet him but he watches me the whole time I am working. Strange stuff happens with animals.

G-d Speed Missy.

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I’ve waited to comment because I knew that the Wifey would relate to it, and I needed to wait for her to have the time to do so…

She made time, and by the way she was holding her hand to her face tonight, and wiping away the tear, I knew you had touched her heart.

You haven’t ‘fallen short” old man, you have been given a gift by Him to share with us all, and you are doing His work through your words.

You must have done something to deserve this gift…Never forget that.

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