Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire Bird Watcher: Peace Corps Stud

Just came across some old photos....

July of 1982, me and a buddy hiked north across the Afram Plains, an area historically depopulated due to Ashanti slave raids. Seventy miles of roadless bush, then home to a remnant West African elephant population. This was at the top end, a town of 1,000 people who hadn't seen a White man in five years..

Skinny as a frickin' rail due to the food, climate and lifestyle.



Going on forty years later an actual road cuts along that route we took now, prob'ly not for the better

You can tell how educated a person is just by a picture and that guy in the middle looks mighty stupid.

No worries, here I was 13 years later, towards the end of my Motorcycle Stud period

Thanks Birdie, old pictures are always neat. One of my hobbies is taking pictures of people, printing, framing, and giving it to them. After the years go by, they are priceless.

Sir, it was your recent thread on this very topic that inspired me to post these Just found a box of old photos squirreled away in the house.

Here's another, could be ten years to the day from that Africa pic. Me introducing the Kid to shooting, he uses that same little Savage 24c to go shooting with his own kid now

NPD

You've been a nice guy for a long time Birdman.

Cool experiences Birdy

Naah... we do these things for ourselves, furthermore unlike yourself, I have never had occasion to put myself at risk rescuing anyone from foul play.

Check out this one; a group of students I took camping twenty-five frikkin' years ago.... My Ex was into photography at that time, hence the stellar composition, this one looks to me like it coulda come out of a high school movie. Because this is the "Fire, I gotta point out that every one of those kids was well-raised and polite, can't have problem kids on a camping trip.

what a buncha ragamuffins!

Good stuff!

Nice pics and memories Birdwatcher.

I was in that part of the world around the same time. Brazzaville, Congo, 1982-83.

Back then the Congo and Gabon were known to be unpleasant places to be, in Ghana we had a ruined economy and a military coup and all, but Ghana was and prob'ly still is one of the friendlier and most laid back places in Africa, made all the difference.

Only was ever nervous once, that was on that same trip when a poacher coming the other way purposefully unshouldered his single-shot 12 gauge and broke it open like he was gonna load it, all the while looking at us, me and my buddy separated so as to present two targets, nothing was said, nothing came of it, we just continued on our separate ways.

This was from that same hike, a poacher's camp out in the bush we stayed at one night. That is a Greener 12 gauge built on a Martini-Henry action, they used black powder and reloaded brass shells, loaded with a single round lead ball. To hunt they went out at night using carbide lanterns to spotlight game.

Ya, that moody kid in the back really had the Kurt Cobhain thing going on, all the chicks dug him

Mike those are some cool pics for sure. I dont know if you remember me, but i met you at Ed's campout a few years ago. I was the one with all the grandkids. Next time you're on a bike trip and come through Texarkana stop in we always have an extra bed.

Fella on the left won the daily lotto and got the "girlfriend" for the night, eh?

Cool pics!!

As to the Piece Corps itself Birdie, do you think it was, and is worth the time, and money spent?

Is that you on the left?

A childhood friend of mine joined the Bloods in Detroit when we were about 16, he dealt drugs and a host of other schit when they wanted him to start murdering he couldn't do it and the only way out of the Bloods gang is in a casket. My buddy got smart and joined the Peace Corps to get out of the country and escape the mayhem of the Bloods.

I haven't seen him since. The last time I saw him we were 18 and he was 6' 11" and built like a tree trunk.

He made some bad choices with the lure of easy money, hopefully they didn't get him.

I miss that guy he was awesome.