Most coons - and all drunk ones - are a menace to polite society
One almost killed me back in 1980. I was coming home (a bit late and 16 years old
) at a high rate of speed in my new trans-am when one had the gall to step out in the road. Fearing for my airdam, I took evasive action. I would like to say it was my Dale Sr like skill that saved me, but truthfully it was blind luck/the Good Lords intervention. Had I been in my ole F-100 the Coon's imediate fortune would have been different.
Uh-oh, now you’ve done it.
See if I can’t spin a bit of a yarn this morning.
I went broke in 1986 during the “oil crunch” on the Texas Gulf coast. I was actually broke a couple years before, but wouldn’t admit it. Lost my house, cars, business, even self esteem. My wife did stick with me though.
Took me 10 years to recover, and about 15 before I started doing pretty good. During those years I drove absolute crap vehicles.
Anywho, from about 1997 until June of 2000, I was driving an old beat up, black, 5/8 ton Chevy (heavy half) long bed pick-up with a faded out aluminum camper-shell. NO A/C.
If you’ve ever lived in or around the Gulf Coast of Texas, the humidity factor is usually 85% or higher. On days when its 95 degrees F and above one can go through 3 shirts before lunch.
This old truck was so ugly that when I took my kids to school in the morning, they would ask that I let them out about a block from school, so none of their friends or teachers would see them getting out of my truck.
So around June of 2000 I made a good hit and went an paid cash for a 1997 Ford F-350. It had only 38,000 miles and had “COLD BLOWING AIR.
For 17 years beginning in 2000, my main vehicle was a Ford f-350 pickup
In reflection this truck was part of my identity. In day to day conversations folks will ask “how are you” or how are you doing” One of my standard replies is “ for a short, fat, bald, old man, I doo pretty good. So with that in mind, an anecdote………
Seems there was this snail that went to the new car store. He wanted to buy a new car. Not just any old car but something really special.
Well he negotiated with the salesman and then the sales manager to hammer out a deal. However before he would sign on the dotted line he had a final request, and said that if they couldn't do what he asked, that it was no deal.
OK sez the sales manager, what is it.
Well the snail tells them that he wants a big red "S" painted on both the driver's and passenger doors.
No problem sez the sales manager. Come back in a couple days and we/ll have'r done.
So the snail signs and departs. Two days late the car is ready and he comes back to pick it up. As he is getting into the car to drive off, the salesman inquires of him, Sir, I've had a lot of strange requests, but never to paint a big red "S" on the doors of a brand new car. What gives?
The snail replies, when I drive an ordinary car I"m just a snail. But when folks see me in this ride, they will exclaim "look at that "S"-car go.
After driving Schitt cars for about 15 years I knew how that snail felt. I’d get up in the morning, get a big glass of tea put it in the center console, turn on that COLD air, and just ride around on the freeway. A short fat bald guy in a big red truck.
If memory serves, during the 17 years I drove this truck I took two good whitetail bucks, a pretty nice ram and a turkey several squirrels and a couple of rattlers Come to think of it I also ran over a "Mercury Cougar" a couple of years back, but that is another story.
Amazing what a welded-on Ranch Hand front bumper at 70 mph will do. A Ford F-350, tipped with a Ranch hand bumper welded to frame with four 1/2 x 4 x 12 steel plates. Lots of penetration, but not much expansion.
Which brings me to the subject of this story!
Although from time to time I hunt with a bow, pistol, or shotgun, I am basically a rifle looney at heart. However, I do have one trophy hanging on the wall that wasn’t brought down by a bow or firearm. It actually was killed by a Goodyear Wrangler tire mounted on my ford f350.
I was hunting in Rocksprings, Texas at the time. Some years earlier, my brother married into a family of deer hunters (one of the daughters, not the sons). The patriarch of the clan wanted to get my brother on the lease so his grandsons could grow up hunting deer. His sons did not want my brother on the lease, as my brothers’ main focus is making money, not working to improve the lease or hunting. Consequently the “pappa” and the sons were at loggerheads. However, in time they figured out a solution to the problem. They called me and said that they were thinking about inviting me on their lease. However, they wanted me to know up front it wasn't because they liked me. Rather they knew that I loved to hunt and knew that I was well acquainted with Senor Manual Labor. So, they told me if I would carry my “lazy ass” brother, he and I could be on their lease. I've been hunting with them now for 18 years. My brother got off one year later. Each year they remind me that they still don't like me but they put up with me because I bring the steaks, cigars and Patron
Anywho, opening weekend of the 1999 deer season in the Texas hill country was a washout. I don’t remember how many inches it rained but the trip that normally takes six hours took fifteen hours. We started out at six AM and after taking numerous detours and fording several rivers and streams arrived at nine PM. We sure could have used an air boat or hovercraft that day. It rained so hard that weekend in the Texas hill country that deer hunters were being pulled out of trees with helicopters. Well, I hunted that whole weekend in the rain and cold with no success. On the way out I saw a group of Aoudad sheep going straight up the side of a hill. I stopped my truck and grabbed my rifle. An easy 200 yard shot at a running target (yeah). As it was cold, wet and rainy, I had the defroster/heater on in my truck, and when I took the rifle out to shoot, of course the scope lens totally fogged up. So, no shot on the Aoudad.
Needless to say I was pissed. I had traveled 350 miles over the course of 15 hours, to get to the lease, gone through water up to my driver’s side window in my new F350. Then I had hunted in the rain and cold for three days and finally when I had the opportunity to take a shot at game, my scope fogged up.
Well I threw the rifle back in the truck and took off and was cussing like a sailor. I hadn’t gone up the hill a quarter mile when I felt a bump like I had run over something. As my windshield was still fogged up, I hadn’t seen what had run in front of my truck. I got out and looked back down the hill.
I had run over a double curl ram. He was lying there gasping and most likely dying as he had been run over by a 9,600 lb truck.
I hate to see any critter suffer, so I pulled out my Ruger new model Blackhawk in 41 mag. and finished him off, then drug him off to the side of the road. I went back to the truck to get in when a thought struck me.
I’d hunted hard for three days and I wasn’t in any mood to go back empty handed. Since he was such a nice ram I decided that I would have him mounted.
I backed the truck up and tried to load him up. However I was by myself and he was heavier than I could lift . As it was getting late, I didn’t want to take the time to cape him out. Well that’s where the chainsaw came in.
I grabbed my saw and went to work. Well within two shakes of the proverbial sheep’s tale I had him cut in half and loaded in the truck.
The ram in the picture below is the only animal I have on my wall that was killed by a truck rather than a pistol, rifle or bow. One of these days I am going to add a backboard and an engraved plate with a piece of tire tread stating that he was killed by a Goodyear Wrangler A/T tire.
As a coda, I have a good friend from Ireland that has a saying that “ a lie well told will serve as good as the truth anyday”.
But if I’m lyin, I’m dyin.
Ya!
GWB