The man’s arrogance suggesting stealing my gear pushed me over the edge. People stealing from me had that effect. Someone stole my full stringer of bass on Beaver Lake one time, and I went ballistic. Running from camp to camp, I checked every cooler for a mile around. It was just me, but the show must’ve been enough to keep people’s mouths shut. My fish nor the thieves were ever found. In an hour, I came into focus, reminding myself I’m only me. Presently my switch was in the on position; I couldn’t care less who was out there. Brannan rode to the front of my wagon to supervise the hitch. I am pretty sure those double clicks from my 12 gauge being cocked caught his attention quickly. The same sound got mine more than once.

              Endless Times series; Volume Two: Murphys Diggins, page 54.

              Well readers, I’ve got not one, but two true tales to spin. One concerns my hard-won catch of bass me and my kids caught at the lake. I tied them up on the boat dock and when I came back to clean them, some ne’er-do-well had taken our dinner. They are lucky to have moved on because that phase of my life was ‘move on impulse, think later.’ Oh yeah, I’ve never left that phase, just slowed a little. Anyway, I guess when I’m roaring and jumping around, I look bigger than I really am, regardless, two or three hundred campers were impressed. My wife not so much, my kids, well they’d seen dad lose it before; they were more interested toasting marshmallows. I came back into focus, bit the bullet, walked about smiling and apologizing for making an ass out of myself to a lot of big-eyed silent strangers and ate hotdogs for supper. End of fish story. Story number two, however, was from my own stupidity.



              At the end of a long hot summer day, on a Sunday, a bunch of us headed for the swimming hole. On the way, we passed a hitchhiker and dumbass me, decided it would be great fun to pop off my little pistol with blanks in it to scare him. It worked alright, and the last we saw or him was his feet disappearing into a ditch. We laughed all the way to the truck-stop then went in for Sunday dinner. I was down to a couple of bites when I heard click, click. There was barely room to turn my head before two cannon size barrels of a double-barrel shotgun got my attention. Behind the gun stood a very grim highway patrolman. After making sure my car was mine, he invited me out for a chat. I wanted to finish eating, but for some reason that was a quick no. Turns out the hitchhiker thought I was trying to murder him, and the officer took no chances. They ran me in on first degree assault, but since I had no real bullets, it got dropped to misdemeanor malicious mischief. Oh, my dad was proud of me for that one, and they confiscated my little gun; imagine that! Later in life I became friends with the cop, and educated dummies who did that kind of foolishness, with a fine, as a reminder not to do it again. Yeah, I’ve always been a little crazy.