Last week’s mention of the deer camp at Mass City has opened the flood gates of deer camp stories. Most of them are like fish stories; hard to believe the details but the story itself seems plausible. I won’t bore you with all of them. It’s like many other stories, you just had to be there to see the humor. But I will pass on one story and it wasn’t the proudest moment of my life.

Many people hear the term “deer camp” and it conjures up thoughts of a bunch of guys going up north saying they’re going hunting, when all they do is go to the bars, drink too much, and chase women. Not so with our group. Not that we didn’t have a drink or two, but never during the day before going hunting and rarely more than we should at night. Of all the years we went, I don’t remember going to any of the bars at night. As for chasing women, one of the guys brought his wife, who was an avid hunter, so that never happened either.

We hunted hard each day and at night would talk about what we saw and would tell stories. Some of the stories were new things that had just happened and some were from other years, and they were often repeated year after year. But that was the way deer camp should be, it was  a great group of people, and it created a lot of good memories.

The first year that I went it was just the guys and I was the newbie. The newbie had two jobs. One was to bring magazines that would provide new, more risqué centerfolds for the walls. The second was to knock the tops off the piles of turds in the outdoor john and sprinkle what was in there with lime. They called it “stirring the shitter”.

I don’t really have a sensitive stomach as a rule, but after a couple of beers (honestly, no more than that), some tortilla chips dipped in a mixture of Velveeta cheese and Hormel chili heated on the woodburning stove, and a big bowl of white chili (very hot and spicy) that one of the guy’s girlfriend, now wife, made and my stomach was, at best, unsettled. I went to bed knowing that I could have problems in the night so I had a flashlight at hand.

Around two in the morning I awoke with a rumbling in my guts and the instant knowledge that if I didn’t hurry to the outdoor john, I would have a terrible accident. I made it and was relieved, pun intended. Just when I thought I was finished and started out the john door, I realized there was more on the way and it too was in a hurry. After the third time, I knew that I was in for a spell, so I waited the process out.

The next morning, C.R. said he had heard some noise outside and saw me going into the john. He fell back asleep, awoke 10  minutes later and still saw my light in the john. He fell back asleep, awoke 10 minutes later and, again, saw my light in the john. He laid there awake until I came in the door about 10 minutes after that. He was poking a little fun and asked “What the hell did you do; fall asleep in there”? Without batting an eye I said “No, I was taking a powerdump”. He laughed so hard I thought he would fall out of his chair. From then on, he nicknamed me powerdump. I had always wanted a nickname like Butch, or Sonny, or some other cool, mysterious name. Powerdump wasn’t what I had in mind.

It was a great week for training. The long run yesterday was the first loop of the marathon relay. I didn’t have a team, but paid for Jean, Becky and I anyway (Jean and Becky were in Lake Placid) and ran for 100 minutes, then quit. It was a perfect day for running. Diane’s team won the prize for the most unique baton. I didn’t know what it was but the girls all seemed to know and get a big kick out of it. They said it was a speculum decorated with a feather to look like a duck. The duck’s mouth would open and close and it looked to me like there was a smile on his face.

I decided to go out on a recovery bike ride after the run. I fell at the corner of Heath Road and M-37. Don’t ask!! It was a momentary “rectal cranial insertion” and I didn’t get hurt. Three miles down the road I had a flat. When I put the spare tube in, the rectal cranial insertion reared it’s ugly head again and I pinched a hole in that tube. I put in my last spare tube and decided to call it quits for the day.

Today I did a four and a half hour HR 1-2 ride. I went out Chief Noonday (M-179) to A-42 through Hopkins and all the way to where M-40 turns right to Hamilton. I sat there for a couple of minutes until the gnats drove me crazy then came back. I was ready to do the 30 minute T-run after the ride when the former owners of the “cottage” said they were out and I could come right down, so I did.

If you pay attention, you can learn something new every day. If not new, at least you can be reminded of what it’s like growing up with brothers and sisters. If you didn’t delete last week’s e-mail from sheer boredom, you probably saw pictures of “sweets” that Jean puts around the house to tempt me.

The day that Jean left for her Lake Placid triathlon camp, I found what’s in the attached picture sitting on the counter exactly as you see it. I’m sure it’s a way of marking territory, much like male dogs peeing on every mailbox during Becky’s Sunday morning run. Sibling rules are, in order to keep others out, take one bite out of each end and leave it out uncovered to either dry out and be petrified, or get mushy, stale and moldy if it’s humid.

So here’s the problem. You all know I have some slight memory problems from what I say is the bike wreck but probably is from advancing age. Before I complain about “advancing age”, I remember I almost didn’t advance in age last September 7th, so I mostly stop whining. I don’t remember taking a bite out of that roll, but that doesn’t mean I didn’t. I’ve always had trouble keeping my weight from going literally “off the scale”, but I’ve tried to eat sensibly. Maybe I am eating in my sleep, packing in the calories, then not remembering. Interesting!

Time to go to the lake,

Just (Happy New Cottage Owner) Jack

 

This one is long and boring, so if you’re having trouble sleeping, save reading for just before bedtime.

Bill, Larry and I had a good bike ride on Saturday. We all took turns holding each other back so we didn’t turn it into a race. After all, it was a 2-3 hour heart rate 1 ride (easy) for me. The strangest thing happened. We rode out M-179 like we often do on our way to do the Wayland loop. After we passed the Shell station, there is a small stream that runs under the road between Gun Lake and Payne Lake. An animal had been hit and was lying about six feet off the road. I could have sworn it was a beaver (O.K. Junior High boys, knock it off! Not that kind of beaver). It was large and I thought I saw a flat tail. Shortly after that Larry rode up beside me and commented that he had never seen a beaver that had been hit by a car, so he thinks it was one too. I went back there later in the car to take a picture and it was gone! Eerie!!

It reminded me of two things. My bunk mate in Air Force basic training was from Norfolk, Virginia. He thought everyone from Michigan either worked in an automobile plant or trapped beavers for a living. The other story has to do with a hunting cabin in the Upper Peninsula near Mass City. It was as far from the Mackinac Bridge as we are (250 miles), so it was way west.

Steve Youngs and I had taken our sons for freshman orientation at Michigan Tech in Houghton. It lasted three days, and the boys were busy all the time, so one of the days I took Steve 30 miles down to the cabin to show him where we hunted. The cabin was an old log cabin with the logs squared off. The outside had been covered with “Inselbrick”. It’s that tacky fake brick that’s really tarpaper that you see on half the places in the U.P. It was one large room with a loft and, being a man’s hunting cabin, had Playboy centerfolds all over the walls. There was one poster with a large man with a scowl on his face with his hands out holding a pile of feces. The caption read “Tired of the same old shit? Try Bouncers Bar”.

If you know Steve, you know he is not a hunter and doesn’t believe anyone should own a gun. When we got to the two-track leading back to the cabin, we talked to a guy named Dean who lived there and kept an eye on who was going back on what he called a road. Yes, his house was covered with Inselbrick, and he had the requisite old car with no tires up on blocks in the front yard. He was mowing the lawn (the grass had to be a foot high) and, when we parked the car, stopped mowing, walked over to the junk car and pretended to fix another mower that just happened to be sitting on the hood (that mower had no handle). 

We walked over and he recognized me right away. I introduced him to Steve and we talked about the hunting trips and the guys that came up year after year. Earlier, a beaver had built a dam over the road and flooded a pretty large area. I had arranged to have the dam taken out by one of the locals but the beaver was still around trying to rebuild. Dean had been nicknamed “The Runt” by the guys I hunted with, not because he was small, but because he always talked about the bucks “runting”. He meant the bucks were in the rut, or breeding season, but always mispronounced it and it drove us crazy. He would always show up at the cabin during the day while we were out hunting, eat all of our food, and drink all of our beer. He would stay around at night until we told him it was time to go home.

Dean had tried to trap the beaver out so he wouldn’t build another dam. He had trapped three of his feet off before he finally got, in his own words, “That one-legged bastard”. I thought Steve would have a stroke. Not only did he not believe in trapping at all, but trapping the legs off any animal was cruel and disgusting. I didn’t disagree, but steered him away from making Dean mad. After all, “the Runt” was sort of the caretaker.

All the way back to the cabin (it was half a mile and we walked) Steve went on and on about trapping in general, then on to anti-hunting, then on to anti-gun laws, then on to the Michigan Militia. I argued with him on all points except the Michigan Militia, but there was no convincing him otherwise, and I was having fun needling him.

On the way back to Hastings we stopped with the boys for dinner at a great Italian restaurant in Indian River named Vivio’s. As we walked in Steve was telling me how he couldn’t wait to have their Veal Parmagian. It was the best he had ever eaten anywhere. I said that, after our conversations about hunting and trapping and animal cruelty, I couldn’t believe he would eat the flesh of a calf that was put in a pen so small it couldn’t move so the meat would stay tender and then was killed weeks after it was born. Sheepishly, he ordered the fish and chips. 

I went to the doctor Thursday for a post bike wreck check-up. It was one of those “good-news/bad-news” things. He said, for the good news, I’m below the therapeutic threshold on Dilantin, so I’m “weaning off” well. He said it wouldn’t be any problem to have a beer or two or a glass of wine if I wanted. I take that as doctor’s orders, and patients always obey their doctor, right Diane?  For the bad news, in six weeks it’s time for my annual (no pun intended) prostate exam. Just when I thought things were looking up, they head the other direction.

Dr. Weatherhead and I talked a bit about lingering memory problems, forgetting people’s names, and losing common words from the bike dive head injuries. I know that they are things that happen to everyone, and I really don’t let it bother me except last Friday, but let’s not go there. As I left the exam room, and was out at the counter scheduling my prostate exam “date” (again, no pun intended, but it is my turn to bring the wine and candles), he poked his head around the corner and said “Drambui” which was his lost word of the day when we were talking about what a mutual friend, another doctor, liked to drink. So that raised a question in my mind. Did he do that on purpose to show me that it does happen to everyone and to make me feel better? Or, since Jim is my age, did he really forget the word and all of us 57 year old geezers are in the same boat? (No voting on this question, please).

My running partner, Bill Bradley, stopped by Tuesday thinking that he would see a blimp by the sound of the last e-mail. Not really so. I’m 2.5 pounds heavier than the lightest I’ve weighed since this whole “healthy eating” thing started. I showed him the temptations I have to overcome and have attached pictures of what I’m up against. I’ve often said that if I was a recovering alcoholic, Jean would have shots of whiskey scattered around the house. I’m guessing that these items in the pictures aren’t on the weight watchers list (1 sweet roll = 3 days worth of all food exchanges).

Since I have no self control, I sent a check for $80 for my 40th St. Joe High School class reunion. You all know I’m “thrifty” (my deceased friend, Dave Kruko, used to say, “If you found a cough drop, you’d go sit in a draft just so it wouldn’t go to waste”), and I wouldn’t want to skip my reunion just because I didn’t weigh what I weighed in high school and lose the $80, so that should push temptation aside. We’ll see.

Just (on the way to svelte) Jack

P.S. Bill wanted to check my breath to see if I was the one who ate the roll and left the package open on the counter. I had just finished a glass of Interphase Whey Protein and milk after my bike trainer workout, so he was really sorry!

 

Many of you know by now I made it back to Florida driving by myself. The first day I drove to Monticello, Kentucky to my cousin Heidi’s. She and her husband Tom (his family calls him Tommie Lee) had twins in June (Hannah Elizabeth and John Lindsay-but they call him Jack-where did that come from?) and they were Christened on Sunday the 30th (the twins, not Heidi and Tom). Heidi and Tom are married and, although from Kentucky, are not each other’s cousins. Luckily Heidi was born and raised in Michigan.

So here’s the question:

Since Heidi is my first cousin are Hannah and Jack-

a) My first cousins

b) My first cousins once removed

c) My second cousins

d) No relation

e) All of the above

(Hint-don’t choose e)

If any of you have driven to Florida on I-75 you probably remember that there are advertisements for several strip joints like the Risqué Cafe, Club Erotica, etc. They all serve food and have tease lines like “Totally nude-breakfast, lunch and dinner”. You probably also remember from my e-mail a couple of weeks ago that I don’t think that sex and chicken wings (or any other food) go together. I decided to stop into every one that I saw and let them know exactly how I felt. I lectured at 8 of them until my credit cards were maxed out. It must be from buying so many Christmas presents for Jean and the kids.

The rest of the trip was uneventful except for food poisoning at 1AM in a motel in Forsyth 60 miles south of Atlanta on my birthday. I won’t go into the gory details and won’t name names but the initials are Pizza Hut-Meat Lovers Pizza.

I’ve told many of you about our trip up to Michigan for Thanksgiving. There were tons of trucks and I couldn’t remember what those strings of trucks were called and finally remembered “convoy”. Jean had never heard of that term and I said it was also a popular song in the 70s or 80s but I couldn’t remember who it was sung by. I woke up at 4:30 AM the next morning (we were leaving at 6AM and I was thinking about the route we were taking) and C.W. McCall popped into my head out of the blue. After a couple of minutes I realized that was the guy that sang the song “Convoy” (I looked it up and I was correct).

On the way back down to Florida I went through a small town in Ohio and a sign at the city limits said “jake braking” prohibited by local ordinance. I didn’t know what jake braking was. I could have been doing it and not known, been arrested and thrown in jail. The arrest would have been embarrassing and the body cavity search would have been very unpleasant since I had stomach cramps and “digestive problems” for 5 days in Michigan over Thanksgiving.

So here’s another question. How can I remember tons of useless information like “convoy” and C.W. McCall and don’t know the important things like jake braking that can keep me out of jail. I think I need psychiatric help. If you think so too and are planning an intervention, don’t tell me. I love surprises.

Things have been a little lonely around here without Jean. I took my wedding ring off to lift weights and swim and the widows and singles wouldn’t leave me alone. I finally put a stop to it by dressing in a pink panama hat, an aquamarine tank top with sequins, ballet slippers and a pair of leather pants with the butt cheeks cut out. The singles and widows left me alone but a couple of “boys from the other team” would follow me downtown. They asked me why “landers” was written on my butt cheeks. I told them that my partner (I didn’t say running partner so I wasn’t lying) had “tri” written on his and together we were the Trilanders. They now leave me alone too.

Speaking of Trilanders I’m sure you are all waiting on the edges of your seats for the results of the Trilanders magic marker printing contest. The final two contestants (there were 150 in all) had 6 ties in a row in the playoffs. Jenifer Ivinskas finally won beating out Anna Kornikova by writing tri twice and landers twice-there was plenty of room. The judges’ scores were 10, 10, 9.9, 9.9, 3.4, and 10 for Jen. The Russian judge was the 3.4-sounds like an ice skating fiasco doesn’t it?

Attached is a picture of the winning artwork. If you are eating you probably shouldn’t open it. It’s not a pretty sight. I’ve gained a few pounds since the accident but I’m working hard to lose weight. Bill has been working out hard lately and has slimmed down quite a bit. Quite a while ago, on one of our long runs, I said I had some tightness in my glute and jokingly asked Bill if he would rub it out. Of course he refused and we have been bantering that back and forth ever since (we are both a little sick in the head). With Bill’s recent workout results I’m reconsidering my no answers.

Ta Ta. Only 384 shopping days ’til Christmas 2004

Just Jack