Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire Life’s Adventures

Everybody has a few, so what left a mark in your memory?

First that I recall had me walking down a dirt road in the Everglades when I was 7-8 years old. Dad and Gramps were quail hunting and I figured to find them. Not quite half stride I noticed a moccasin between my feet. I turned and ran almost supersonic.

Not long after I heard a shotgun blast down the road. Turns out they were on the way back and saw my tracks. They were puzzling about how someone walking could spin without putting the other foot down and take off like I did. About that time the snake struck Gramps’ boot and got an education on terminal ballistics.

So, what’s your story?

I remember this certain young lass in Tropic Utah one summer evening

First memorable one? I was 3. Took a mad ride on a horse named Snort when he jerked the reins out of my dads hands while pop was leading the horse around. Snort saw a group of other ranch horses being driven to another pasture by the hired help and he thought it best to be with them. Sucker ran down the drive to the dirt rode and took a hard right and started the sprint for his buddies when he realized there was something flailing around on the saddle (me with a death grip on the horn) and stopped just long enough for me to bail off into the weeds as he gave me a little shoulder toss to get me moving.

Pics or it never happened!

I remember being about 6 or 7 yrs old and sitting down on a creekbank AND out from between my legs slithered the biggest water moccasin. I had just sat on it's hide hole. From that day forward I always know where and what I am sitting on

I was 10. Dad threw the Coleman lantern about 100' cause he couldn't get it to light. Dad always had a short fuse, but that was the maddest I ever saw. Mom and us 4 kids were scared schitless.

I was about 10, when we spent a week visiting with an old Army buddy of Dad's, near the Dismal Swamp in VA.
Dad and I went to a farm pond for some fishing. There was an upturned rowboat on the edge of the pond, and when Dad turned it over, a big moccasin with a bad attitude came right at him and Dad beat it to death with an oar. I don't remember much else about that day's fishing.

Flying up a blind canyon in a T-28 in Hawaii without enough room to turn around and not enough airspeed to do a loop. Cleared the far end by maybe 50’. Never did that again.
Almost jumping out of an F-4s with jammed flight controls due to a nose tire blowing up in the wheel well at 30k’.

Almost buying it in a T-2 when a flight student got low and slow and I instinctively added power in the back cockpit. He thought I was taking the controls and let go of everything. After the touch down, by coincidence he climbed out and leveled off at the right altitude, etc. and I started taking down my notes. A few seconds later he came up on the ICS and goes, “where are you going sir?”.
“$HIT!!!”, I pulled up at full power and just missed the ground, less than a 100 feet. After I turned to the downwind leg, I can barely breathe and he comes up and says, “ I thought you had it Sir!” That’s when I realized what happened. When I added power, he LET GO of the controls 😳 Soooo, we touched down with NO ONE on the controls, lifted off with no one on the controls and by coincidence the jet leveled off at the right altitude. Fortunately he spoke up just in time. After that I was extremely careful talking about it in a lecture about crew coordination and exchange of controls, and even as a simulator instructor, I was really careful about taking control of the simulator, etc.

MANY years ago the landlady's son came by said, ' bought a motorcycle today want to go for a ride'.
18 and stupid sure. . .
Off we go on a good smooth wide highway, and every time he spit his tobacco, he jerked the handlebars (at 80).
Got back, go off and found his total motorcycle experience was riding it 90 miles home from ABQ that afternoon
During the trip I swore if I made it back alive, unless it had four wheels It had to have wings and propeller that I would not be on or in it.
60 years later I have kept my promise

4 or 5, sent to feed the sow in the farrowing pen, she had evidently rolled over on her piglets and ate them all...when I trudged over the style she grabbed me by the arm about mid upper and started dragging me to the farrowing house, I screamed bloody murder and Pop jumped the fence with a 4 pound shop hammer and beat that bitch to death. Not before she pulled a plug out of my arm. Dr. Porter had to cauterize the small vessels as there was nothing to sew shut, tied off the big ones...I can still smell and feel that, ugly scar to this day, no feeling on the elbow side of the arm.

You're winning this contest so far. 😮

In response to the OP: I honestly wouldn't know where to start.

Wouldn't know where to start either... a common statement by more important/famous people than me is... it's always an adventure when they are around me.

Kent

Round 2: during most of my high school years I lived on Guam. I started diving with friends, one thing led to another and pretty soon we were commercial spear fishing. Few of the locals ventured into the ocean, but they loved to eat fish. 50 cents/pound, head, guts and scales. Early on we used a one man inflatable raft to hold the fish, and when full clipped stringers in the sides. Last guy to spear a fish towed the raft. So there I was, towing a loaded raft when Jaws showed up. Odd part of that is it bypassed the raft and headed for me. When I first saw it the distance was about 20’.

I don’t recall what kind it was but it was between 10-12’ long. I aimed the gun and fired, hitting it square on the point of its nose. By chance I’d not given thought to distance so it happened that the cord attached ran its length at the point where a little bit of stretch allowed the spear point to poke ol’ toothy in the snout but not penetrate. I dunno if I made his eyes water but the reaction was “Holy chitt! I’m outta here!” Turned tail and ran. None of my buddies saw this despite visibility in the range of 150-200’.

It would not be the last shark encounter, but we never got bit...

Headed into a typhoon on USS Enterprise and went up to the flight deck to install a computer in the birdcage of an EA-6B. Headed into the typhoon so as to lose the Russian trawler that was shadowing us. Wind was strong and the weight of the computer on my shoulder allowed me to walk into it at about 45*. Got to the plane and installed the computer and decided to go over the side onto the catwalk and get inside through the the plane captain's shop. Gust of wind came up the side of the ship and started lifting up off the grating. Grabbed the hand railing and flopped around like ragdoll. Gust stopped and did a face plant on the grating. Must have banged on the door for a few minutes til someone heard me and dragged me in. 90' from the grating to the water + rough seas, never would have found me.
Dumbass George

Was working in Hawaii, lived on the north shore, would snorkel about every afternoon after work.

Was in the reefs and a huge shape was coming at me, I was well out so no way to get away. The shape turned into a giant sea turtle, and I swam with it a bit. Heading back to shore I see some girls with snorkel equipment on the beach. When I get to shore I'm going to tell them where to see the turtle but that's not what they are doing.

There's about ten of them and it's a professional photo shoot. Photographer lays each one in the surf and sprinkles sand on them. The other nine girls are bored waiting for their turn, I sit down in the middle of them and start bullchitting, they were happy as hell to have someone to talk to....

Kent

Cabo in the 90s and early 2000s was always an adventure...

Kent

I guess since moccasins seem to be a recurrent thing....seining minnows in southern Georgia one finely in my bare feet. I was standing on a rock ankle deep and stepped off into knee deep water...right on top of a moccasin.

I VERY quickly retracted my foot, and since I knew all about snakes and schitt I gave him 20 seconds to vacate, then stepped off again....

Well, he was still there, so I decided to exit...stage left. Trust me when I tell you Jesus was not the only one to walk on water....

Was in High School and me and some buddies skipped class. On the way back, managed to get a flat tire. Stopped to change it when we heard an awful BOOM! A real deep and loud one directly overhead. We looked up to see two planes falling out of the sky after a mid-air collision! One crashed just to the north of us, a Brazilia IIRC and the second, smaller private plane crashed just to the West. We ran over to the one to the north which was in a neighborhood. We were the first on scene and the plane impacted in an intersection, but some of the debris hit a few houses and the Catholic Church, which was fortunately unoccupied. Bodies, or more accurately, body parts were everywhere. Most weren’t identifiable but there was an arm with a radio mic and cable wrapped around it. There was nothing to be done. It was a Terrible mess. I had nightmares for years after seeing that one.

I seem to have lived a very sheltered and boring life.