Lord Byron, Erotic Image For The Hopeless Romantic

The word sycophant (A servile self-seeker who attempts to win favor by flattering influential people.) has, for the first time in history, become part of everyday conversation since the election of President Obama. You might legitimately ask why or how did this fairly obscure word become so prominent in our language. The answer lies in the blatant and continuous servile fawning over Obama by our Main Stream Media and their reliance on the Joseph Goebbels school of propaganda:

“If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it. The lie can be maintained only for such time as the State can shield the people from the political, economic and/or military consequences of the lie. It thus becomes vitally important for the State to use all of its powers to repress dissent, for the truth is the mortal enemy of the lie, and thus by extension, the truth is the greatest enemy of the State.”

Joseph Goebbels

Fortunately, lucid Americans see the parody of the lies concerning Obama and his ‘hard to define or locate intellect‘; consequently, Americans are no longer clamoring for the appeal of the Twenty Second Amendment, those days are over. The truth about the inability of this president to correlate two different thoughts in a coherent sentence or paragraph is painfully obvious.

Our president with his ever present tele-prompters and his verbal stumbling when speaking extemporaneously has led the average person to become skeptical. After all, the teleprompter speeches are nothing more than repeating someone else’s writing: while his spontaneity in ad lib speaking comes off more like the fart, stumble, fall, school of communication. Thus Americans have come to accept the fact that our Commander in Chief as “bumblingly inarticulate”; especially, when he is without his closest friend, the teleprompter. It’s a deficit we can live with, but the question lingers, is this man as smart as the press portrayed him during the campaign? It wouldn’t be an issue, except the state directed media made such a major deal of his intelligence; a man who holds his college transcripts so tight to his chest.

For two and a half years, we have waited for some sign of this brilliance to help in our economy, in our unemployment, in our energy policy, in our foreign policy, and in our wars, we are still waiting; actually, the American people have given up on this superior intellect so highly praised by our media, after waiting two and a half years for just a faint glimmer only the sycophants and some hopeless Useful Idiots are still carrying this less than dubious brilliancy banner.

MEGHAN DAUM, a reporter for the LA Times, has once again tried to promote this lost and forgotten cause or at least has decided to give the dead jackass another sound thrashing, by creative use of weak metaphors. In the true wide eyed form of the typical Useful Idiot that caused Stalin the only laughter in his life that we know of, she explains Obama’s apparent speech impediment without a teleprompter as a true sign of genius. Have patience, the Times actually gives her column space for this lunacy.

Admittedly, the president is given to a lot of pauses, “uhs” and sputtering starts to his sentences. As polished as he often is before large crowds (where the adjective “soaring” is often applied to his speeches), his impromptu speaking frequently calls to mind a doctoral candidate delivering a wobbly dissertation defense.

But consider this: It’s not that Obama can’t speak clearly. It’s that he employs the intellectual stammer. Not to be confused with a stutter, which the president decidedly does not have, the intellectual stammer signals a brain that is moving so fast that the mouth can’t keep up. The stammer is commonly found among university professors, characters in Woody Allen movies and public thinkers of the sort that might appear on C-SPAN but not CNN. If you’re a member or a fan of that subset, chances are the president’s stammer doesn’t bother you; in fact, you might even love him for it (he sounds just like your grad school roommate, especially when he drank too much Scotch and attempted to expound on the Hegelian dialectic!).

So the president’s inability to speak fluently without a tele-prompter and sounding like a drunk, according to Ms Daum, is a direct result of intellectual stammering, not to be confused with the more common stuttering that afflicts many mere mortals. Woody Allen, the man who married his daughter, portrays this genius in comedic form and that should help those of us that aren’t sycophants believe the lie. Well done, Ms Daum, your lies are so preposterous that people may be hesitant to laugh at them.

Still fawning over her messiah, she mentions William F Buckley in comparison and figures Obama would be considered brilliant beside Buckley, but there are many of us who would have loved to see the wit and intellect of Buckley in debate with the great stammerer. She mentions Buckley’s unsuccessful run for mayor and being asked what he would have done if he had won and he replied, “Demand a recount.” We are left to compare that to the moat with alligators wit of Obama.

Still Ms Daum meanders on without a point of view, besides shameless fawning, in a pointless unknown forest of confusion that is unashamedly promoted as journalism.

Obama’s problem is not that he’s an intellectual (for the sake of argument let’s define it as someone who is scholarly, broadly informed and distinguished as a thinker). It’s that he sounds like an intellectual. Unlike other presumed political brainiacs — Bill Clinton or Newt Gingrich, for example — he isn’t able to bury his ideas behind a folksy regional accent or good-old-boy affectations when he wants to. Nor is he effective at “keeping it real” when he falls into traditionally African American cadences that he clearly never used when he was growing up.

By speaking as though he hails from everywhere, he ends up being from nowhere. The result is that people look at him and see not a Hawaiian or a Chicagoan or even a black man, but a university man.

Towards the end of this utterly useless diatribe, we realize that Ms Daum probably suffered from a lack of attention from the dream boats on campus and she is still lost in the romantic dreaming of the perpetually frustrated or love starved adolescent. It was worth a few laughs, but on a more serious note it is good to remind ourselves of the depths that the Progressive press is willing to resort to in order to keep their failing messiah and his fart stumble fall oratory from being dismissed as a dim bulb.

Here is an example of one of Lord Byron’s adulterous affairs that still has hopeless romantic women panting in frustration

But such passion never lasts. Byron was a victim of his own contradictory personality – he loved to pursue women but, once captured, he longed to leave them. Paradoxically, he could not rest easy without their complete adoration. He could not be simply Caroline’s lover, a participant in a scandalous (but tolerated) affair; he must be her grand passion, her true love – she must belong to him alone. But once she capitulated, he grew bored and irritated with her.

Though Caroline was instantly infatuated, she at first refused Byron’s most heated demands. She would not admit she loved him more than her husband William; Byron told her, ‘My God, you shall pay for this, I’ll wring that obstinate little heart.’ But soon she loved him enough to contemplate leaving her husband, at Byron’s suggestion in May 1812. He was probably testing her commitment for it is unlikely he meant to flee England with her. But he needed to know she loved him more than anything, even her very comfortable life, and so he hinted at ‘elopement.’ His friends, particularly the sensible John Hobhouse, were already shocked by the affair; it had grown increasingly open and hysterical. Byron was eventually persuaded to leave London.

His poem of the type that titillates the frustrated romantic female.

To his mistress, one of many, Lady Caroline Lamb

Remember thee! remember thee!
Till Lethe quench life’s burning stream
Remorse and shame shall cling to thee,
And haunt thee like a feverish dream!

Remember thee! Aye, doubt it not.
Thy husband too shall think of thee:
By neither shalt thou be forgot,
Thou false to him, thou fiend to me!

For the hopeless romantic or the fawning Obama sycophant these lines are the stuff of legend: the rest of us can appreciate them in context as endearing verse.

A tip of my Western hat to Nan G for pointing out the LA Times article.

There are those who have stepped forward for us and answered a call to duty that so few of us have ever faced. There are many who will deal with the memories of battle and of loss without noticeable issues; unfortunately, there will be others who suffer from wounds both psychological and physical, some of these will battle with addictions to alcohol and illicit drugs, while they continue to patrol a narrow path between life and death. These are the ones who put their lives on the wall, while we and our Liberals, who rarely show an inclination to serve, have lived in relative comfort and safety back here in the United States, for these last ten years.

We who have lived and prospered owe them so much; especially, those who bear the scars of combat, scars that can be external or internal.

These returning heroes who bear the scars will need help and treatment; unfortunately, the treatment is rarely successful and the veterans often feel they are ignored and forgotten as they try to cope with modern life outside of war. All too often, an early death is the only reprieve from their personal Hell that the war and multiple deployments have inflicted upon them. These men deserve so much more than the counselors who took pysch classes because they were easy. Sometimes the friend who isn’t a trained specialist can provide help or the will to overcome obstacles; sometimes, a horse can provide the therapy.

Now, as a horseman, I have seen the unexplainable healing effects of a horse. They have a unique way of helping lost and damaged souls; they can do it just by using their simple compassion, love, and basic communication. Many people without options find a way to cope, when they look into those eyes and feel the compassion and love that a horse has to offer. For unfathomable reasons, some horses take it upon themselves to befriend certain troubled humans and offer them friendship. I have spent a lifetime communicating with horses and there are some people claim I am one of the best, but honestly, I don’t have a clue why some horses will take on a troubled child or a damaged adult.

To me, it seems as though those who approach a horse with the innocence and naivete of the children who approached Jesus will gain the confidence of a horse and in return that horse will give his life for that particular human.

Years ago, I knew a good hearted outfitter who took handicapped children into his mountain camps during the summer, to help get ready for the hunting season. These weren’t the usual problem kids; no sir, this guy insisted on the most severely challenged. The kids often responded to the remote camp life and advanced in ways that schools and therapists through the years had failed to accomplish. I was proud to have known this man and I can honestly say that a man never stands taller than when he stoops to help a child. These kids had severe emotional and physical problems, but the outfitter had no reservations about trying to help these unfortunate children.

These were often the most severely handicapped children, but the outfitter took them into the mountains and gave them an opportunity they had never had before. One kid adopted an old tractor, took it apart, put it back together and got it running like a sewing machine. Another kid started fishing and provided the camp with the fish for dinner that we guides usually enjoyed catching in the evening, but no one complained about not being able to fish. Another kid started sewing the leather and fixing all the saddlery, most of them did this on their own with no instruction or help and many of them found a vocation for the future or gained the confidence to realize that they could accomplish something in this life. Most of the kids adopted a horse as a friend; and there was interminable brushing, grooming, and riding, the horses responded as if they were taking care of a foal and the horse-human friendships were enough to make old hunting guides and trappers get a lump in their throat

Outfitters usually have very well broke horses and cowboys who can ride a greased pig if they can get a rope around it, but this outfitter had a horse known as Buckskin Jesus and he was a bonafide outlaw. He had come by his name honestly; he was a Buckskin color and the cowboys often said, “Jesus” and other much worse things when they were bucked off this renegade. Usually, a horse like Buckskin Jesus meets an early demise, but for some strange reason Buckskin Jesus was still around.

There was a group of kids that came out for the summer and one of the kids had never spoken a single word. As luck would have it, this particular kid developed a fascination with Buckskin Jesus. At first, the cowboys tried to get the kid interested in another horse, but Buckskin Jesus was the horse he wanted. The horse responded to the kid and allowed himself to be brushed until he was as sleek as a race horse; without permission or supervision the kid climbed aboard and rode the horse all around camp to everyone’s amazement. The kid broke out of a shell he had been in since he was born and this horse became his main motivation in life. From the time he woke up, until it was time to go to bed, this kid was riding or grooming Buckskin Jesus. Eventually, it was time for the kids to go home and it was a tearful goodbye between the kid and Buckskin Jesus; suddenly, the kid said his first words in this life, “Goodbye, Buckskin Jesus”. Needless to say, there were tears even on the cheeks of the most hardened cowboys.

It is this magical healing ability of the horse that I know will work on our wounded vets. I recently met a pair of guys with a dream; Johnny Higginson and Andrew Mikiel, they run the Shadow Hills Riding Club, they have already helped perform miracles like the one mentioned above and many others. They are also working with vets who have Post Traumatic Shock Syndrome and having success. I am afraid this is a disease that we will be seeing a lot more often in the near future.

For those among our readers who have read the bulk of my writing, you know that I support our vets and their benefits. I will always try to help our vets and their causes, but these guys have a good idea and the ability to make a difference. I stand with these guys and their efforts to help our returning warriors. I have already contributed, but they need serious financial help and I am hoping some of you will consider helping these guys to help our vets. Keeping enough Buckskin Jesus type horses is expensive and they need help with feed, shoes, and hired help. If you can help with a check, it is a worthy cause that will be providing critical help to many of our vets in the near future. If you are unable to lend financial help, read about their dream and send them an encouraging email, tell them ol’ Skook referred you.

They are a tax deductible charity and have gone through the requisite training to be “official” horse therapists for the disabled. Let me tell you straight out, these guys have something you can’t learn in a classroom, it is called Love and Compassion.

One of my first meetings with Iraqis in early 2003 was at a town hall meeting in Al Dujayl. I was a medical service corps officer. As such, I wear a caduceus on my collar. We are sometimes mistaken for doctors by non-military types.

My interpreter and I were making our way through a crowd of Iraqis outside of the meeting hall. One man was very persistent. He actually took hold of my wrist and thrust a handful of papers in my face. I didn’t want to be late for my first meeting. (At that time, I was on US time, not Iraqi time.) My interpreter carried on a fast paced conversation with the man. As he did, I looked at the papers. They were yellow legal sized with two columns of Arabic on both sides. There were 7 front and back pages.

My interpreter told me that this was a list of people missing when Saddam imprisoned and murdered hundreds of people in this farming community. I spoke to the man and through my interpreter told him to keep the papers. I assured him that when we helped a new government takeover, we would need him and his evidence. We shook hands and I went to my meeting.

The more time I spent in Iraq, the more I learned about the things that had never been printed in our western media. It seems that in 1982, Saddam was leaving Tikit to travel south. As he was getting into his limo, a woman ran up and placed her hand on the side window leaving a colored hand print. Saddam immediately got out and got into another car. The caravan then traveled south to Baghdad.

As the convoy approached the highway section between Dujayl and Balad, Iraqis ambushed it. The car with the hand print was destroyed, but Saddam survived to carry out his vengeance on Dujayl. The mature date groves were destroyed. Many of the houses were totally destroyed to bare ground. I had noticed that there seemed to be two parts of the town an east and west. What had happened was that whole section was destroyed. Many people were murdered and some were taken prisoner.

The whole town was penalized. Instead of getting their food ration from Sal ah Din, the vendors were forced to go to Baghdad. The vendors were often robbed of the food supplies on their way back to Dujayl. I have no doubt the Sunni bureaucrats were tipping off their friends about the food and where it likely would be. Some of the food vendors were also killed and their trucks taken.

It was about 18 months later during my second tour in Iraq that I became involved in the Dujayl massacre. I was stationed in the US Embassy in Baghdad. After an exhausting day of shuffling papers and composing emails, I decided to go for dinner. As I was looking for a place to sit, I saw this attractive lady all by herself. So, I invited myself to eat with her. It turned out this young lawyer from North Carolina was part of a team gathering evidence on Saddam’s crimes. She was working with a team of lawyers dedicated to this effort. She was primarily looking into the Kurdish gassings and the Shia murders in the south. The difficulty that they were having is there was too much hearsay evidence and little eye witness accounts. (Saddam often killed whole families just for this purpose.)

I asked her about the Dujayl massacre. She had been told nothing about this event. I told her I could arrange Black hawk transportation to an army base near Dujayl. I could introduce her to local people who could find the eye witness to the massacre. Here team went and met up with some Civil Affairs soldiers I knew. One of the officers at the base had been a prosecutor of John Gotti. This young attorney had been taking notarized depositions from the local people for several months. He had no idea what to do with them, but he needed to gather the evidence because he felt duty bound.

The team was amazed with their good luck. They re-interviewed the people who had made the statements and secured their cooperation to testify in the criminal trial. The results of the trial are well known. The team later documented the gassing of the Kurds and the many of the murders of the Shia in the South, but the evidence obtained in Dujayl was rock solid.

All of us had some knowledge of the Dujayl incident. All of us wanted someone to do the right thing. Was it luck or a continuous effort to seek justice?

I wrote a comment for my local newspaper here in Colorado that addressed all of the left wing criticism of what we were doing in Iraq. I mentioned that this could have implications when we return home. It did and will continue. Good soldiers are seeking public office. Many are supporting the tea party efforts. LTC Allen West is only the tip of our impact to take our country back. I have even been elected as precinct chairman!

In the early 70′s, Johnny Nichols, a native horseshoer and brother to the once famous jockey, Jimmy Nichols, was having a beer with red beans and rice at a bar in Bossier City, Louisiana. Unbeknown to him, a professional wrestler was having trouble keeping his younger girl friend faithful during his wrestling travels. He was enjoying his meal and several beers when a large, ugly guy came up behind him and grabbed him by his long hair, kept in the traditional long style that many natives prefer, and pulled him backward from his barstool, knocking off his expensive western hat in the process.

Johnny was a small guy, but not adverse to mixing it up; however, he knew when he was clearly over matched. The professional wrestler had him on the floor and threatened all types of physical damage upon his loin cloth wearing body if he ever came near his girlfriend again. Johnny was physically shaken and once the threats and the assault were over, he came looking for me.

Back in those days, I was 220 pounds of muscle and bone: women made cougar noises when I walked by on the beach, while men looked in another direction and pretended they didn’t notice me. The years have altered the physique, but that was the way it was back then.

Johnny found me asleep in my motel room, I listened to the story of a giant wrestler throwing him to the floor in a crowded bar and threatening Johnny over a woman. I found it humorous that a woman was the cause of the whole incident, because Johnny seemed to be intimidated by women. Reluctantly, I slowly dressed to prepare to avenge Johnny’s honor, such as it was on his more sober days. I had him repeat the story, since it sounded so bizarre, Johnny stealing a professional wrestler’s girlfriend, I almost wanted to find the wrestler just to hear his version of the story.

We heard the wrestler and his girlfriend were at the bar across the road, Gypsies Tramps and Thieves; yes, that was the actual name of the bar. We walked in and I looked at this middled aged man with a lock of long white hair in front, he was sitting with a woman I had met at the clubhouse at the race track who kept asking me about what horses I figured were going to win in the next race. She had a bit of luck and won some money and told all her girlfriends about this dreamy horseshoer at the race track who had all the winners. The girlfriends told their husbands who couldn’t wait to tell her boyfriend when he got back from his latest wrestling tour.

Upon hearing of the supposed infidelity, he figured Johnny was the horseshoer who was entertaining his girlfriend and her friends at the race track with all the winners. He and his girlfriend had talked over the whole deal before we walked in, and when the middle aged, 240 pound, slightly pudgy, wrestler saw me his face dropped and he walked over to apologize and shake our hands. He introduced himself as Sputnik Monroe, I had no idea who Sputnik Monroe was or that I had given his girlfriend a few winners by sheer luck.

It turned out the best for all and it was actually quite amusing, we had several laughs and in the eyes of the world both Johnny and Sputnik felt like they had saved face. Sputnik and I became friends and he took me to a couple of matches and I met several of the guys. I saw how the business worked and even tried to promote wrestling matches in Kentucky later on, it all proved to be a rousing failure, but I have never been one to pass up a chance to lose money.

Sputnik Wins Another One

Last night, President Obama referred to our Sputnik moment, of course he has never heard of Sputnik Monroe: yet, Sputnik Monroe set the segregated world of the old South on its ear when he refused to perform unless the Blacks in the audience were allowed to sit anywhere they wanted. Yes, Sputnik Monroe is a race hero in areas of the South, when racism was very much alive and dangerous. I can attest to this personally, for when I visited Sputnik in his adopted home of Memphis and we called on some of his Black friends and fans, they always had three pictures on the wall, Jesus, Martin Luther King, and Sputnik Monroe. Yes, Sputnik was a hero to Black people when our president was still crapping yellow in diapers. Yet, Sputnik wasn’t playing for political leverage; he stood up for racial injustice out of a pure sense of what was right and what it meant to be an American, for Sputnik was a fiercely patriotic individual.

The term Sputnik as used by our president was supposed to bring up the image of being in a cold war with the Soviets after their leader said he was going to bury us and a year later they launched a space satellite. The Free World was horrified at the though of Soviet Russia coming over here to bury us with an army of bulldozers, for kids and many adults those fears were real, but we, with the help of President Reagan, destroyed the Soviet Union economically. Now, with a rudderless ship of state, we are supposed to destroy China with technology, not the technology we have given them or the technology they have stolen from us, but magical new technology, that the Chinese wont be given. The same China that has been our friendly bank and creditor, controls an ambiguous amount of our governmental policies, while we spend like drunken sailors and devise new stimulus plans to slow our economy even more thus enriching certain business entities and individuals, while most of us are treading water on the edge of a violent whirlpool that is trying to pull us down into economic oblivion.

We must really seem gullible to Obama, he figures to work the crowd like a professional wrestler works the crowd and tell us we must stop spending after he has mortgaged away the farm, all the while making the fans love him: wrestling fans are gullible and the wrestlers are showmen, but at least one of them made a real contribution to society.

“I’m rough, tough, and hard to bluff; 235 pounds of twisted steel and sex appeal, the heavenly body that women love but men fear.” Sputnik Monroe

The mama lion wasn’t ready to give up her cub. She bet her life that she could turn the hungry Grizzly: he figured that she would surrender her cub to the inevitable, but she said, “no, not today, Mr Bruin, if you want my cub you are going away with scars and you might just die for your effort”.

Many of us are facing situations like the Mountain Lion, our savings are exhausted, we face the loss of jobs and businesses, the economy is in an abyss and our government is intent on strangling the economy with entitlement programs and taxes that have proven to be nothing more than an anchor around the neck of a drowning economy. Yes, we feel betrayed by our government and our political parties, where corruption is forgiven by those who are also involved in corruption, but only the weak surrender, to surrender is to die and we who are proud, are not going down without a fight.

Billy McCrae sent word to me, by moccasin telegraph, he needed to see me in Fort St John. I didn’t even think he knew who I was, so I was surprised and a little proud. He was a man of legends. A packer, guide, and trapper of the old days; he was in his 80′s, still had a full head of coal black hair and could easily outdistance me in town with his pronounced bow legged stride. I would be embarrassed to try and keep up with him on snowshoes.

Although he was fit and strong, more so than most men in their 30′s, even most in their 20′s, it was rumored he had some medical issues and wouldn’t be out on the trap line this winter. It was the winter of 81-82 and it turned out to be one of the coldest winters in the Peace Country since they began recording temperatures.

I knocked on his door and Billy met me with a smile and a handshake; although, it is said that I have a strong grip, the power in Billy’s right hand let me know, he could crush my hand as easily as a child’s hand. There is something about that group of old-timers, they are built like men of iron. He invited me in and told me he was so glad I could drop by.

His neat little house was a model of bachelor efficiency. Everything was in its place and cleaner than a dinner plate. There were little artifacts from Scotland and old prints of Highlanders in kilts doing battle with English soldiers. I didn’t recognize the period of the English uniforms and weapons, but I would have guessed late 18th Century. We had a cup of tea, he was a strict teetotaler, a fact that only added to his legend in the Peace Country.

Billy was a WWI vet and had a land grant for a 160 acres after the war. Like many vets, he emigrated to the Peace country, strictly because of the name. He aways seemed to be in a hurry, a rare habit in the North, it might have been a touch of shell shock syndrome: I had no way of knowing and I wasn’t going to ask.

He came right to the point of our meeting, he was worried about the far North end of his trap line. It had an abundance of Pine Marten that were mature and had not been trapped for several years. Unlike many of the views promoted by Animal Rights groups, the Pine Marten and several other fur bearing animals will mature and the old ones will eat the young ones until they are too old to reproduce and then the area will be depleted of Pine Marten for years if not decades. If the area is trapped, there will be a variety in the age groups and a healthy population will be the result. Over trapping like overgrazing will deplete the population also, but if the trap line is mountainous or huge, it is difficult to trap that much area. The older Pine Martens command the highest price on the fur market, but if you manage your resources well, they will represent only 10% of your fur harvest.

Billy had not trapped this area for five years because of the distances and his advanced age. He had planned to trap it this winter, but now, with his medical issues he wouldn’t be able to get there. He talked as if he was going to live forever and he needed to manage the trap line correctly; thus, was the reason he sent for me, he wanted me to trap that area for at least two weeks. It was an adventure to be sure, since Billy’s trap line was at the far reaches of Lake Williston, one of the largest man-made lakes in North America. It really isn’t a lake, it is a resevoir; the problem is water is always moving with the overflow from the hydro-electric damn in Hudson’s Hope and when that is compounded with warm springs beneath the surface, and the continual flow of the Ingenika, Ospika, Manson, Finley, Parsnip, Nation, Nabesche Rivers and numerous creeks into extremely deep water, with steep canyon walls, the ice on Williston has been known to be unpredictable.

I’ve broken through ice on several occasions and I’ve helped pull people out of the broken ice, it isn’t easy. The wet ice is slick, the human in winter usually has several layers of clothing that become soaked and much heavier, and the cold water drains the strength and life force from a person very quickly. I don’t fear many of the things that other people fear, but slipping under the ice has often been a nightmare for me.

Normally, Billy would make several trips in his freighting canoe to stock his cabins before freeze-up, of course those cabins weren’t stocked up with supplies now. He figured I had a snowmobile and could pull a sleigh in with enough supplies for a couple of weeks. Yes, a couple of weeks was no problem, but what if there was a problem. There would be no reliable source of food and a man could starve if there was an accident. There’s moose, caribou, and elk; however, without carbohydrates a man can starve to death while eating ten pounds of meat a day. The men of the Lewis and Clark, Journey of Discovery were eating ten to twenty pounds of meat a day; yet, they were always hungry. Without the carbohydrates, the mountain man can’t break down the protein in the meat efficiently and he will find himself eating more and more. This was a major concern for me, the temperature had been near 40 below for most of the winter and things break and go wrong during extended periods of severe cold.

To be honest, I figured Billy was going to offer me a chance to buy his trap line at a good price, since he was surely too old to be going back in that country. His trap line had been a major producing trap line for decades and had made Billy a nice estate in life.

There was a part of me that wanted to explore this Omineca-Peace Country, but I was also listening to an inner voice that was warming of the dangers of traveling on Williston Lake. They built the damn in the 60′s and tried to log all the timber that would be flooded over: it was a forlorn hope, 60 foot trees were still being launched from the bottom like wooden missiles to erupt through the surface at an immeasurable rate of speed, until the tree reached its maximum height and fell with deadly force in an unpredictable direction. There had been several close calls with boats and there had been several boats that never made it home; did some of those trees come through the hull after their roots gave up or did the trees rise up out of the water and then fall on the boat? Those questions wont be answered until judgement day.

Even though I had a feeling of dread for heading into an unknown area in the dead of winter during an exceptionally cold winter, those trees shooting up from the bottom from depths of over a hundred meters were also a nightmare if you allowed yourself to think about them for any length of time. Billy had trapped the area his whole life and had done quite well for himself, despite the fact that a portion of the trap line was now under water.

I told Billy I’d trap out the area as well as I could and set close to 50 Marten and Fisher traps and snares; if there were coyotes, lynx, wolverine, and wolves in the area, I’d trap them as well. He thanked me over and over and gave me an old hand made pair of snowshoes, we shook hands and I left with a sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach. I had a foreboding about this expedition; it didn’t really make sense to be running off on a wild adventure, I had all the work I could handle on my own trap line. The other trappers probably offered to buy the line and refused the chance to trap Billy’s line.

I drove away thinking a promise is a promise and with a little bit of luck, I might make a handsome profit on this deal: in two weeks, I could probably catch every Marten and Fisher in the area, with a little luck I might get some other high dollar fur bearers and make a handsome profit.

In the early 80′s, the snowmobiles weren’t like the Formula One looking machines of today, they could easily travel at 50 mph, but the opportunities to go that fast were limited. That far north, the skies are usually gray and overcast all winter and snow conditions can be deep powder or solid ice; besides, I’d be pulling a sled that resembled the hull of a small sail boat and that would slow me down considerably. There would be at least 30 gallons of gas in five gallon plastic jugs, traps and snares, a small chain saw, an ax, food, survival gear, tarps, and my blanket roll. The gasoline was a bulky commodity; therefore, I’d need to be careful how much I used each day and use my show shoes as much as possible.

I parked my truck at a customer’s house in McKenzie and took off through town with my snow machine and sleigh. McKenzie is in an area called the Parsnip Reach, it is where the Parsnip River flows into Williston. It was quite the conversation piece as people watched the train like machine travel down the city streets. Once I was on the lake I opened the machine up, I was anxious to leave the city people behind with their finger pointing and condescending laughter. They lived on the edge of the wilderness, but they would die in a few days where I was headed, that’s why their superior attitudes never really affected me, I just felt pity for them. It seemed easier to take the Hart Highway to McKenzie and travel on the frozen lake rather than trying to reach the lake from North of Fort St John on the Alaska Highway. I could spend days fighting deep snow and blind passes. With a topography map and a compass, I could at least judge where I was on the ice and hopefully find the trap line.

The fierce winds had blown all the snow off the ice making the surface rough; the extreme extended cold temperatures and the flowing warm waters of the rivers had created huge fissures that would protrude from the surface almost four feet. Snowmobiles on ice have minimal braking and almost no steering, so the trip was not only jarring from the rough surface, it was way too dangerous to develop any speed, with snow coming down and a high wind there was also very little visibility.

Suddenly, a moose cow and calf passed me on the left, they were flying across the ice and two seconds later I saw why: a wolf pack was loping behind them. I gunned the engine and figured if I watched the animals at this high rate of speed, they would tell me where the ice ridges were. It was a big wolf pack and they were in no hurry, they could run all day at this speed, but the cow and calf were sure to be dinner if they didn’t get off the ice where the wolf had the advantage, they needed to get in the trees and deep snow or on a steep icy hill side, they could then leave the wolves like they were sitting still. There was a hazer on each side of the moose pair to keep them on the frozen lake and the rest of the pack was gaining on them.

I picked out one of the wolves in the back, he was resting before taking his turn on the flanks or biting at the hind quarter. I was gaining on him and thought I might stop this age old tragedy that was playing out in front of me. I looked up to see one of the wolves leap up and bite into the right hind quarter and hang there while enduring the hind leg and hoof bouncing him back and forth as she kept up her momentum. Three strides later the meat tore loose and the wolf stopped long enough to swallow the huge bloody piece of flesh and join the chase once again. At that point, I knew it was hopeless. Foolishly, I pulled up next to the wolf; I put a round in the chamber and held the rifle out to the left with my left hand with my right hand on the throttle. I’d shot this 8 mm x 06, the poor man’s magnum, with one hand before, it is not like the movies, it hurts, but I wasn’t thinking clearly or maybe I wasn’t even thinking. It had a scope, but with the bumpy ice at 35 mph aiming was hopeless. I was only about five feet away, I aimed the barrel at his massive chest and pulled the trigger just as he looked at me like I was I need of professional help. The rifle snapped my wrist upwards with a force that almost felt like it had broken my wrist. The wolf never broke stride, I had missed him. I brought my knees up to the handle bars so that I could put another round in the chamber. This time, I’d put the barrel right next to him and use both hands with my right knee holding the throttle. The barrel was only two feet away and I started my trigger squeeze, just as I was bucked off the machine as high as any horse has ever bucked me off. The rifle was gone and I was airborne for the longest time. Landing on dirt can seem really hard, but landing on ice is even harder. I had a perfect one point landing on my right kneecap. The lightening flased in front of my eyes as I cursed my stupidity.

My machine was still traveling without me and it was imperative that I know where it was headed. Just ahead of me, the wolves were tearing the moose and calf to pieces. If they knew I was wounded and defenseless, I might be dessert. I saw my rifle about ten feet away and rolled over and over to pick it up, I wasn’t crying, but I had tears in my eyes because of the pain. I stood on my left leg with the realization, that if I lost my machine and the sled, I was likely to die out here in the 40 below within a few days. I could just barely hear my sled through the gray mists and it seemed like the sound was coming back towards me. The machine roared past the wolves as they were pulling the two moose to the ice. It hit the ice expansion crack that had bucked me off and started traveling along the ice ridge with one ski on the ridge and one ski on the ice. I backed out of the way to avoid getting hit when the machine hurried past me to turn over about thirty yards past me with the throttle wide open and the drive belt spinning so fast I thought it might come off before I could get there and shut the machine off.

My nice machine was wrecked, but it looked like it could still travel. My left wrist was sprained and my knee was on fire and swelling fast. I could easily shoot one or two wolves now, but I decided I had more important things to consider, like finding Billy’s trap cabin and surviving the night. A snow machine and loaded sleigh is heavy and hard to turn over, but on one leg while standing on ice it is much harder.

Once I had the sleigh upright, I took off at a much slower pace. I shot azimuths of land that protruded into the lake and eventually determined my position in the gray void. I had about twenty miles to go and at 20 mph I would be at the cabin in one more hour, if I was correct with my map plotting. I pulled into a large bay after dark and headed into the bush about a mile. There was the cabin, luckily Billy had placed it on a windswept ridge and the roof was still showing above the snow. I pulled the machine up near the front door and after digging out the door, I started a fire in the stove before unloading my supplies. The thought of a moose steak with mashed potatoes, peas, and a glass of Irish whiskey kept me working through the pain and the thought of crawling between the warm blankets while taking a few more sips of whiskey seemed like a vacation in the tropics at this time.

I only ate about half my meal and figured I’d have the rest of the steak with my eggs in the morning and make a couple of potato pancakes with the mashed potatoes. I didn’t have much of an appetite, but the whiskey was delicious and soothing. I banked the fire and drank enough whiskey to forget about the knee and fall asleep.

I slept through the night and the cabin was letting the 40 below seep in by the time I woke up. I hobbled around to get the fire going and cook some breakfast after yesterday’s near disaster. I felt much better than I thought I would and decided to set a few traps and snares close to the cabin and scout out the terrain for sign of fur bearers and a likely trail up the steep hill sides.

It would be easy to trap the shoreline; unfortunately, there didn’t seem to be much activity near the lake. There were several valleys that I could explore for miles on the snowmobile; however, I’d need to try the higher elevations after a few days. Everything was so steep, I thought if I’d brought cross country skis, I could get some great skiing; of course with this knee that would just be another disaster waiting to happen. I set out a dozen Marten sets and went back to the cabin to warm up and rest.

When you are hurt in the frozen wilderness, no one knows of your situation, there will be no ambulance to rush you to the emergency room. You must use your own ingenuity to overcome your misfortune or give up and die a horrible death locked in the frozen arms of a nightmare. I was lucky, I’d missed having a terrible accident and only suffered a sore knee. The thought of being torn apart by the wolves like they were tearing apart the still kicking moose pair would be a horrible way to die, but at least it would be fairly quick. Laying there on the ice and letting the forty below claim your fingers and toes as the cold slowly but relentlessly works its way through your body while you shake and your teeth chatter until the hypothermia claims your life in a fit of delirium seemed a far worse way to die; especially, if you had lost your rifle and couldn’t expedite the inevitable and avoid the final agony.

I had let the thrill of the chase and the impetuousness of youth overwhelm my common sense; consequently, I had cheated death by a slim margin once again. I had to stop relying on luck, if I was going to live to be an old man; yet, little did I know, my will to survive was yet to be tested.

I managed to get a dozen of the mature Pine Martens over the next two weeks, they were all large, there were no young animals. They had long given up breeding or else they were very efficient at eating the younger generations. Now that there was a dent in the population, perhaps younger Martens would have a chance to repopulate the area and produce a healthy population once again. I managed to get one Fisher, its partner was in the area, but seemed to be trap wise after losing his best friend to one of my traps. The wolves were out on the lake on a regular basis, so I tried an old trick that used to be used to bring in Grizzlies. I walked back in from the shore of the lake about a hundred feet and started a little fire, once the fire was fairly hot, I threw on a chunk of beaver carcase and a scrap bit of beaver fur to barbecue a few minutes. The beaver has a peculiar odor that the animals find fascinating,; especially, when it has been seared over an open fire. I suppose humans in the city find the odor fascinating as well, since the beaver castors are the essential ingredient for those expensive French perfumes. I cooked the pieces a few minutes and nailed them to two trees about six foot in the air. Animals would be coming from twenty miles away to check out my perfume; if the Frenchies could get their perfume to work this well, it would be priceless.

The next morning I had a fine timber wolf. Unfortunately, a lynx had been enticed by the bait, but once he saw the dead wolf he hatted up and left. All things considered, I’d made a nice tidy profit for my effort; it could have been better, but I was handicapped by the knee. That night the wolves sang their sorrowful lament for their lost pack member. Normally, when you hear the odd wolf howl, it is much more melodic than the yipping cries of the coyote, but when a pack member dies or is killed, they actually sing to the night sky and all who will listen. It is not a chorus from a single location, but more like a succession of individual songs from a variety of locations. On this particular night, while sitting back in my bunk and having a small glass of whiskey to dull the pain in my knee, their singing seemed to convey an ominous warning. My communication skills with animals is limited, but I took this as a warning to be heeded, for the wolf is probably the most intelligent of all the animals in the mountains and they are probably trying to communicate; unfortunately, we don’t have the ability to comprehend their language of the mind. Unlike most people, I love to listen to the wolf and his song: tonight the song had a message of warning for me, of that I was sure.

My grub was nearly gone and I had just enough gas for the 80 mile ride over the ice to my truck in McKenzie. I decided to collect my traps and fur the next day, spend the evening straightening and skinning what ever was caught tomorrow and head home the next morning. I was anxious to head home, yet I had just started to become comfortable with my new surroundings. This was a hard country, but a country a man could come to love in time.

I had caught another Marten the next day and gathered up all my traps and snares without incident. That night I prepared to secure the cabin until next winter and wondered whether Billy would ever make it out here again. He was a Hell’uva man, but he was in his eighties: he was one of a dying breed, that was for sure.

I had coffee and oatmeal at 4 AM and headed out into the 50 below morning. I kept the snowmobile idling at 20 mile an hour and listened to the ice wearing away the steel of the skis in front and the steel studs on the rubber track. The drop in temperature was causing the ice to groan and crack with loud noises that were happening all to frequently. Ice expands as it freezes and when the temperature drops, I think the ice must expand even more causing the ice buckles or ridges that were out on the lake. When I’d come to an ice ridge, I had to take it at a right angle or the skis would just slip off and the machine would be pushed away from the ridge. It was a delicate balance to go slow enough to avoid an accident, but fast enough to have the momentum to push the sled on over the ridge. The studs I had bolted into the belt were nearly worn away at this time and I was motoring along with no steering in front and no traction from the belt, it was a peculiar situation. The cracks and rumbles from the ice were becoming louder and longer and I could feel the ice shaking like an earthquake was happening. I wanted to get off the ice, but I was in a section with steep canyon walls on each side of the lake. One of my horse customers was from Norway, he was the CEO at one of the local lumber mills and had been raised on fishing boats. He said he considered the lake to be very safe, until he was caught in a storm in this same area and he thought he was going to the bottom that night.

There was an unusually large pressure ridge in front of me and I gave the machine a little gas to get some extra momentum. I crossed over the peak and started down and on the other side, there was a nightmare. The ice was broken about six foot from the bottom of the ridge and was under rushing water, while the rest of the ice was slowly moving over the top of the ridge ice. I tried to gun the engine and jump to the solid ice, but it was a forlorn hope with the sleigh on the back and the steep angle of the ridge. The machine slammed into the sheet of ice and only the body of the machine stopped it from heading straight to the bottom. I crashed through the plastic windscreen like it wasn’t there and sprawled out on the ice in front of the machine, my upper body was on the ice and my legs and butt in the water. I pulled myself out of the cold water, once I collected my thoughts and figured out what had happened. The front of the skis were bent down and locked under the ice. With the weight of the machine pointed straight down and the sleigh still hitched to the snow machine, there was no way I could save the machine, it was headed for the bottom, that was a foregone conclusion. I needed to get back across the rushing water and salvage my emergency gear or I might as well ride the machine to the bottom.

My lower clothes were already frozen, my feet felt warm inside my moccasins and rubber overshoes, but my long john cuffs and moccasin tops were frozen to my skin above the ankles. I jumped to the machine and grabbed the end of the seat, but the vinyl of the seat and my frozen Carhart trousers caused my legs to slip off the left side into the swirling waters and when I pulled my lower body from the ice, another layer of ice quickly formed over my legs. This layer of ice actually helped because it acted as an insulating layer and my legs felt warmer now, but it was getting harder to move by the minute. As fast as the water was freezing, I figured the temperature had to be close to 60 below now. I untied the ropes keeping my goods in the sleigh and started throwing everything off as fast as I could including about three gallons of gas in a plastic jug. It was slippery working on the sides of the sleigh and I knew I was in a desperate race against time.

The ice roared and sent three great jerks through the ice beneath my feet. I watched as my snow machine and sleigh slowly slid into the blue black water to glide to the bottom, nearly one hundred and fifty meters down. I loaded everything on my pack frame except my rifle and my ax, I carried the rifle and ax and headed to the Eastern bank or wall about a quarter mile away. There was no need in going all the way to the wall because there would be no wood for a fire. I was just waiting for the ice to freeze well enough for me to cross the pressure ridge without getting wet again. The cold was seeping through my body, I was getting weaker and disoriented; unless, I found a place to make camp and build a fire, I was going to die.

The ice was still groaning and moving, but I had to cross that little ridge if I was going to live through the night. I climbed up on the ridge and threw my pack across the ice to be lighter on the new ice. I walked out on the ice and it held. It was clear and easy enough to see that it wasn’t all that thick, but it was thick enough for me to make it across. I kept the canyon wall on my left and kept walking and angling towards the wall. If I didn’t see trees soon, it would all be for nothing; because I needed a fire, and I needed it fairly soon. After walking through the short daylight of four hours, I was walking through the night before I noticed the trees only a few yards off my left shoulder. I walked towards a big spruce and fell into the snow hole beneath the tree. There was an immediate illusion of warmth, the hole was about eight foot deep and about twelve feet wide. There were lots of dry branches for fuel, I just needed to get a fire going. I pulled off my mitts with great effort and opened a 35mm plastic film container. My mind wasn’t functioning properly, I had opened the matches before laying out the fire. I unloaded my pack and looked for a birch bark roll. Birh has an oil in the bark that makes it burn like it is semi-explosive. I scooped some snow out of the way and laid the birch bark on edge, so that it formed a circular pattern, then I broke off some of the lowest branches and started paring off thin pieces. They were going every which way and some were lost in the snow. With my stiff hands, I picked up many of the pieces and tried to place them so that they were leaning against the birch bark. I broke off a few more branches and piled them on and then made a nice little pile next to the fire. It was difficult to get a match burning, but the third one didn’t break and flamed up, I started the bark burning and felt a relief when it started burning and smoking. There was no heat yet, but seeing the fire in the dark gave me a warm feeling. I used the small stuff, until I had a nice blaze. Feeling more secure, I reached up and started breaking off one to two inch pieces and put them around the perimeter of the fire. I used the two tarps I had left and laid one beneath me. There was only tea and coffee left, and a couple of teaspoons of oatmeal. I put the coffee on and heated some water for the oats. At least there was plenty of water, even if it was in the form of snow.

The feet of my moccasins were dry and fairly warm, they had been protected from the water by the tight fitting rubber overshoes, but the socks and leather above my ankles were frozen solid and extremely painful against the skin of my lower leg. The cold was causing the spruce and pine trees to crack and split, they sounded like sporting rifles were being fired all around me. That meant the temperature was close to 60 below. I had to plan carefully if I was going to survive the night. I pulled out the wolf pelt and split the hide length wise along the belly and wrapped the fur around my shoulders and back, then sat on the tail end. I slipped the some of the mature Marten furs over my hands and feet. I cut the Fisher pelt like the wolf hide and slipped it inside my flannel western shirt. My body was shivering so hard, I could hardly drink the coffee or eat the half bowl of oatmeal. The food gave em energy, but the cold was still trying to kill me. It was going to be a long night. My teeth were chattering so hard they were sore: I put a piece of wood in my mouth to soften the blow and to keep from biting my cheeks and tongue, but I quickly had it chewed to slobbered mass of splinters. I drank two ounces of whiskey to help endure the pain of the cold, but the cold was already in my bones and I would be lucky not to slip into hypothermia during the night. I tried to think of holding beautiful women next to me under sheets and blankets, I tried to think of the beach in Southern Mexico and the sun warming my body; it worked for a while and then i’d wake up and need to throw more branches on the fire or I’d have a nightmare of sliding beneath the ice and sinking deeper and deeper into those cold dark watery depths. Needless to say, it was one of the longest nights I have ever been through. I awoke from a torturous sleep thinking that someone was looking at me. I am often right about these feelings, I looked around and just in case but it was a million to one that another human was within 20 miles of my little camp. I stared through the foggy mist on the ice and saw a dark shape on the ice. It was too cold to be a Grizzly, it could be the wolves, a moose, or humans on snow machines. Maybe they smelled my fire and were curious. If it was humans, I’d hear them start their machines and fire my rifle, but it just might be an animal, I needed to eat if I was going to walk the 40 or 50 miles to McKenzie. I pulled my rifle up to the edge of the snow and peered through the gray mist and waited. In a minute or two, I made out two forms breathing out huge amounts of ice crystals. They weren’t humans, no human could breathe that heavily. Soon I saw a cow and calf moose.

I had to shoot the calf, what a tragedy, but the calf wouldn’t survive without the cow and probably half the moose will be eaten by the wolves during the winter anyway. I was shaking too much to touch the rifle with my body, I rested the stock in the snow and aimed through the scope, while hoping it was still sighted in on target. With a painful effort I tried to squeeze the trigger correctly and the rifle took me by surprise when it fired. It was a poor shot, I am ashamed to admit the poor 500 pound calf was shot through the shoulders and fell to the ice in agony in front of its mother. The cow looked at the calf as if she couldn’t understand what had happened. I couldn’t fire a finishing shot because the cow was now standing behind the calf and pushing it with her muzzle trying to get it to stand and run. I stood and yelled at the cow, but she didn’t want to desert her calf. I crawled through the deep snow to the edge of the lake and the cow was still standing beside her stricken calf. This is the only time a cow moose is dangerous, while protecting her calf; I fired over her head from 30 yards away and she finally gave up her vigil. I finished the calf with another shot and started to field dress the calf while the cow watched from further out on the lake.

This was a terrible situation, I have been a hunter all my life and have always tried to treat the animals as humanely as possible, it was dreadful, a situation that would have never happened if it was not a matter of survival under extreme conditions. I skinned the calf, took the hind quarters, the stomach, the heart, and the liver. I wrapped it all in the hide and dragged the heavy load to my fire. There wasn’t anything in the stomach that looked fit to eat, so I cleaned it out with snow and cut up the heart and liver into small chunks and packed them into the stomach and tied the entrance and exit shut to simulate a pressure cooker and put it on the fire. My cooking utensils were sitting on the bottom of the lake, waiting to be discovered by some archaeologist of the future. The stomach would do for at least one meal and it had an advantage over regular cook ware, in that you can take it with you and eat it along the trail.

My simple meal was done in about thirty minutes; although, time had lost all relevancy. There was 20 hours of darkness and four hours of daylight, those were my only references. I had lost my watch somewhere along the way.

The meal revived my strength, but I thought I should spend another night and have another meal of roast moose steak or two before attempting the 40 mile walk home, at least I was no longer disoriented and just as likely to head in the wrong direction. I made a bed from the moose hide by laying it skin side down. The hair was four or five inches long and stiffer than a boar’s bristly whiskers. The moose’s hair is hollow and provides superior insulating qualities for the moose and the odd trapper in a desperate situation. Right now, my new bed felt so warm and comfortable, i drifted off into the best sleep I’d had since leaving my home.

I awoke just as the sun was peaking over the eastern horizon. I knew that I was not alone. I took note of everything around me and heard noises out on the ice. I put my rifle in the same ice groove I used the morning before and looked through my scope into the gray. The wolves were making fast work of the calf carcase. They were done and cracking the leg bones open like chicken legs with just the slightest effort from their powerful jaws. One of them finished early and walked over to my trail through the snow. I swear it was the same one who looked at me just before I crashed my snowmobile. He sniffed the trail left by me and the moose hide and ventured up the trail a few strides before stopping to look directly at me. The hair stood up all over my body, he knew who I was, where I was, and what I was doing. From 25 yards away he stared at me for the longest time and then slowly backed up and trotted over to the rest of the pack and they were gone.

That was one of the strangest confrontations of my life. I swear he knew everything about me and what I had in my hands aimed right between his running lights. The temperature had warmed up to at least a tropical 40 below and it felt balmy. I made up my pack and loaded about ten pounds of prime moose roast. My meal had been so refreshing yesterday, I wasn’t hungry and didn’t want to waste daylight cooking a steak. I figured I could make 20 miles a day easily and be in McKenzie in two days without straining myself. I said goodbye to my little campsite that had revived me and hit the ice in high gear.

I made it to McKenzie the next afternoon and put a propane torch under my ford one ton with stove pipe directing the intense heat to my engine and batteries until they thawed enough to start the truck without effort. I drove home and tried not to think abut my losses; instead, I thought about how fortunate I was to still be alive.

Billy died in surgery while I was out on the trap line. He left the trap line to a nephew who couldn’t have trapped out there if his life depended on it; at least he was smart enough to sell it, but the guy who bought it never got up the nerve to try and trap it; after that I lost interest in the trap line. I was sure I didn’t really want to go back there in the winter. I hunted Grizzlies there in the fall for a couple of years; at night, I listened to the wolves and wondered if one of them was my buddy who was so close to me at least twice.

My ankles feel the cold before the rest of my body to this day and if I close my eyes, I can still feel those frozen moccasin tops tied around my ankles.

A few days later the skin on my ears, fingers, cheeks, toes, ankles, and nose turned white and peepled away. I had been close to having a disaster.

This story is not meant to illustrate my ability to survive difficult situations, for many trappers have survived in that country over the decades and still work that area to this day. If anything, I failed to function in that extreme environment. This is about reaching deep inside and making that extra effort to survive when everything seems like a forlorn hope; how, with effort and just a little luck, the smallest bit of positive reinforcement can help you achieve goals that seemed impossible during those darkest hours.

In all our lives, there will be enjoyment and contentment if we can just put forth that extra effort to push forward and hang in there until fortune swings our way. Then the little things in life will have so much more meaning; the sky will seem so much bluer, the water will taste so much better, and the grass will be so much greener. Thus the celebration of life continues to open doors for us as we continue life’s journey.

Henry VIII IV:2

Finished work on a hot fall day down in Cajun country. It was a ramshackle trailer house and a pile of rubble I wouldn’t classify as a scrap heap, but these Coonasses led out some beautiful horses. They were Thoroughbred race horses and they told me about the races they’d won over the last thirty years at the Fairgrounds In new Orleans and how they had taken a horse up to Arlington in Chicago and got beat by a whisker for $75,000 in a Grade One Stakes race.

Now, I take all these horse stories with a grain of salt, some of them are accurate and some of them get better for the telling. However, these guys had an excellent breeding program and they knew how to take care of a horse. They couldn’t do carpenter work, that was obvious and they didn’t have that innate ranch savvy that enables a guy to build things out of scrap that work as well or better than store bought, but they sure knew how to take care of and condition a horse.

We worked on a dozen, they paid me cash money and asked if I’d like a cold beer. I thought they had some in the house, but then I looked and saw they didn’t have power lines. They told me to follow them to the local club for a cold beer. It was a gray plywood building that had a six foot ceiling and no electricity. There were a couple of oil lanterns for light and the place had a dirt floor. It was primitive but they had the beer cooled down in a galvanized water trough packed with ice. The beer was cold and that was the main thing as I listened to more horse racing stories. The bartender brought us another round and I noticed a tattoo that chilled me to the bone. On his bicep, he had two pitbulls standing on their hind legs trying to get at each other’s throat. Now, I knew why this place had a dirt floor, it was a dogfighting bar.

In my life, I love dogs much more than horses and would never derive pleasure from watching dogs fight. I’ve had Pitbulls and pits crossed with Catahoulas all my life, I have found them to be loyal loving dogs and every time one died, there was profound melancholy in my life.

I became uncomfortable with this place and the people. I wanted to ditch my hosts as soon as possible and never come back. As a matter fact, my dogs had saved my life once and that of my friend Knarley Manners.

Suddenly, the door opened and a man walked in with a burst of glaring sunlight. He walked up to the bar and said, “I’ve got $500. for the man who thinks his dog can roll with my dog, may the best dog win. The place got real quiet, the bartender walked up to the man and said, “We’ll roll your dog, but we gotta see him first.” Now I was in trouble, if I stood up to leave, I might get a knife in my back for the effort, these gents didn’t look like the kind you would meet at church. I stayed seated and tried to ignore the conversation.

The new man walked out and came back in with one of the funniest looking dogs, I have ever seen. It was a short yellow dog with bowed legs and bug eyes. Everyone laughed at his dog and thought he must be playing a stupid joke, but the man laid his five hundred on the bar; chairs were pushed aside and men struggled to get money out of their pockets to cover the bet on the yellow dog. I couldn’t believe that I was trapped and about to watch something I didn’t want to see.

The bartender went out the back door and came back with a large black Pitbull. He had many horrific scars on his body and head; he was a fighter from way back. The yellow dog watched the old black Pit as the bartender put him on the floor. I thought the man must have been nuts, for surely this yellow dog was about to die a horrible death; how could anyone be so stupid? The old Pit was in no hurry, he knew this game well, he walked slowly around the little yellow dog about four feet away looking for an opening. The Yellow dog made sure the Pit stayed directly in front of him by pivoting on his hind legs and slowly shuffling his front legs. Both the dogs seemed wary of what the other one was capable of and they were being very careful while displaying complete confidence and a relaxed poise.

Just as the Pit started his second time around, the yellow dog rushed the pit and grabbed hold of his chest, the Pit groaned and fell, the yellow dog then shook the old Pit and the old dog let out a death rattle and died.

The bartender rushed up to the man, spun him around and demanded to know what kind of dog that yellow dog was.

The stranger laughed, “Well, before I cut off his tail and painted him yellow, he was an alligator.”

If you are like most people, you swallowed this story like Americans swallowed the myth of Obama. Americans were told over and over they were getting the most intelligent man in the world by a corrupt and duplicitous press and we ended up with a teleprompter reader who fancies himself a Marxist Revolutionary. Well, the MSM, George Soros, and the Progressive Socialists hired the soulless harpies of Madison Avenue to concoct the biggest con job ever perpetrated on the American people; in fact, the con was so good that over half of the people who swallowed the lies still believe them. The rest of the world has seen through the charade and recognize his incompetence and those of his bumbling administration, the same ones who are so committed to Stalin, Lennin, Mao, and Marx. He is driven, either by being a complete nincompoop or an evil Marxist bastard, to destroy the economic solvency of this great nation in four years or less. The rest of the world leaders who were once enamored of the myth of Obama regard him as a dithering fool and are about to leave the United States out of serious negotiations and efforts to salvage the world economic situation, so glaring is the incompetence and stupidity of Obama.

Now do you see how several men made a mistake in the dim flickering light and bet against the yellow dog?

The concept of an Elite was described by George Orwell in his book 1984: his portrayal was so graphic it seems our current Socialists borrow as heavily from Orwell as they do from Alynsky. Orwell condemned and ridiculed the Elite: Alynsky described how to use the concept to achieve power and confuse the opposition. Both the authors have been extremely useful in defining the mission for the Elite wannabe, the Rules for Radicals is an effective guide that capitalizes on the absurdity that is the image of the Elite: an image that is still useful in the audacity of the present administration’s presentation of its Socialism and its confusing claims of patriotism enmeshed with the formation of international socialism and the loss of our national identity. Keys to this enigma are scattered throughout the writings of Orwell and if we apply them to our present situation with the Obama Administration, it is possible to almost see through the smoke and mirrors and imagine we are not being enticed down the Rabbit Hole into the abyss of Socialism.

Unfortunately, the story of Alice falling through the Rabbit Hole into the abyss is a seductive story, as a boy I read the story over and over. The imagery was almost a type of eroticism that I didn’t understand, but it drew me into the web of Alice, in much the same manner that the gullible and naive are drawn into the web of Socialism.

To accept Socialism, you must belling to accept the tenet of Socialism stating that you must be willing to accept the concept of Elites. These are people who are preordained by some mystical power to rule over you and your life, they will direct and guide you from the cradle to the grave. If you can’t accept this, maybe you really aren’t a Socialist. To really understand Socialism and the concept of Elitism from outside the perimeter of collective thought, it is helpful to read Orwell and Carrol.

This quote is from Chapter 1, of Animal Farm.

Man is the only creature that consumes without producing.

Of course animals don’t really produce, but the reference here is directed toward the Elite, who most often has never produced anything in this life, yet is qualified and preordained to direct those who actually produce.

The following quote ridicules the Elite, who often has an Ivy League education, yet possesses a limited intelligence. Animal Farm, Chapter 9.

He intended, he said, to devote the rest of his life to learning the remaining twenty-two letters of the alphabet.

Its easy to apply this dedication to any number of appointments within the Obama Administration.

The Elites of the Obama Administration and Elites of the world resort to the following explanation to rationalize why we the common citizen should reduce our “carbon footprint” while they, Obama, Pelosi, Gore, and others fly around in large private jets. Animal Farm, Chapter 10.

All animals are equal, but some are more equal than others.

The true Marxist is an atheist; although, politicians who are atheists, rarely admit their belief or lack of belief. The committed Marxist, and there is rarely any other kind, is described by George in Down and Out In Paris, Chapter 30.

He was an embittered atheist (the sort of atheist who does not so much disbelieve in God as personally dislike him).

Of course Orwell exposes the typical Marxist Atheist as a fraud, for how do you personally dislike someone, whom you don’t believe exists.

When Mechelle Obama announced that her husband was going to rewrite history, the heartbeat of American history skipped several beats; however, Orwell had already laid out the principles of control for the aspiring Socialists, in 1984.

Who controls the past controls the future. Who controls the present controls the past.

Everyone remembers when our President assumed his Chicago Union Business Agent tough guy persona and said he was going to keep his boot in the throat of British Petroleum to make sure this problem was fixed; unfortunately, his bravado was laughable to all those but the most gullible; yet the phrase was lifted from 1984.

If you want to imagine the future, imagine a boot stamping a human face forever.

Although the image of Obama being assertive is humorous, but vindictive and cowardly and paying someone else to do the stamping isn’t hard to visualize.

The bureau for propaganda is brought out in the open by the most blatant stupidity by Nancy Pelosi, “To find out what is in the bill we have to pass it first” still the public and the opposition allows her semi-lucid ramblings to lead our largest legislative body. Her audacity is described in 1984, not that I think she could read or understand the book, but someone probably gave her the line and she is so dim witted she didn’t see the ambiguity.

War is Peace. Freedom is Slavery. Ignorance is Strength.

She has become the epitome of double think, so described in 1984.

Doublethink means the power of holding two contradictory beliefs in one’s mind simultaneously, and accepting both of them.

Of course no one believes Obama has written his teleprompter scripts, judging from his performance at speaking during technical breakdowns; yet we all recognize the ability of his speech writers. However, this was described by Orwell in Politics And The English Language.

In our time, political speech and writing is largely in defense of the indefensible.

Now that we wonder how the literate among us could have fallen for such a scam artist, a man with no documentation except for associations with those who hate our country, we once again can look to Orwell for clues to our own infallibility in Riding Down From Bangor.

The books one reads in childhood, and perhaps most of all the bad and the good bad books, create in one’s mind a sort of false map of the world, a series of fabulous countries into which one can retreat at odd moments throughout the rest of life, and in some can even survive a visit to the real countries which they are supposed to represent.

Thus we are left with why? I suspect for many of the literate, it was a sojourn to that most powerful of nations, the imagination, coupled with the willingness to believe in the goodness of the human spirit. That is why we were able to be duped by the great pretender. A Healthy reading of Alice surely gave Orwell a grip on the absurdity of Socialism and its appeal to the feeble minded. From Chapter 7, Alice’s Adventures In Wonderland, by Lewis Carrol.

“Take some more tea,” the March Hare said to Alice, very earnestly.

“I’ve had nothing yet,” Alice replied in an offended tone, “so I can’t take more.”

“You mean you can’t take less,” said the Hatter: “it’s very easy to take more than nothing.”

Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland was my escape as a child, but I was able to separate the imagination from reality as an adult.

This is why a U.S. military occupation is a thing to be feared throughout the world:

A teenage Iraqi interpreter, code name “Roy,” served with a reconnaisance platoon in Iraq in 2007. (Blake Hall)

Iraq war critic, Thomas Ricks, links to a WaPo story by retired Army captain Blake Hall that tells a different perspective on the narrative of the war:

“One day the Qaeda came to my school. They say, ‘You are not students anymore! Put away your books! Now we show you the path of jihad!’ My two best friends say to them, ‘We are students trying to learn. We don’t want to do the jihad.’ ”

“And then?”

Roy gave me a wan smile. “Then, they gather the school in one place, they kneel them down, and they cut their heads with the knife.”

“They beheaded your two best friends, Roy?”

“Yes, sir. I walk to the base the next day and give them my name to work for you. I hate the Qaeda.”

Read the whole piece. You won’t understand the title of this post until you do. (And here is the NYTimes article referenced toward the end of Hall’s op-ed).

One of my favorite excerpts:

* * *

Roy and I were sitting on a smooth concrete floor with our backs against a concrete wall. We were with one of my sniper teams in an apartment overlooking a four-way intersection. I was thinking about the course of the war, from the early days of the invasion in 2003, when the Iraqis seemed overjoyed and the giant statue of Saddam Hussein toppled, to the most violent days of the insurgency. I wasn’t sure what to make of the shift.

“Roy, did most of the Iraqis always hate us?” I asked.

“No, sir. When the Americans first came, everyone was very happy.”

“And now?” I asked.

Roy shrugged.

“How do we fix Iraq, Roy?”

“Nuke it, sir.”

The snipers and I laughed.

“But Roy, your mom and your family is in Baghdad. You can’t seriously think nuking Iraq is the answer.”

“Sir, the only way to fix Iraq is to nuke it.”

“You’ve been hanging out with the guys too long, Roy.”

“Wehl alraght.” [picked up the Kentucky accent from Hall's driver, as relayed earlier in the article- ws]

The snipers collapsed into fits of laughter.

* * *

If there is one thing the Iraq War did, it was to unite Iraqis and U.S./Coalition forces against the common threat of al Qaeda and expose their brand of Islam to the eyes of the Muslim world.

Iraqi interpreters have been invaluable allies in the war effort, aiding our soldiers at great personal risk to not only themselves, but also to their families. Regarded as traitors by some Iraqis and not fully trusted by our side, most deserve our thanks; not assassinations.

Back in June of this year, one Iraqi interpreter was gunned down by his son and nephew who were part of an AQI-linked group.

For those who missed the 2006-7 60 Minutes segment about the plight of Iraqi “terps” when it aired: Left Behind