Yup, the old Moe has had to take on a few odd jobs to make ends meet; (any hint of envy from earlier posts is likely evaporating as you read further....) The Fly Shop, while sometimes fun and pays well, only provides me with 40 hours. The resulting paycheck handles the bare necessities, but just doesn’t allow me and the girls the finer things in life. So to accumulate these; a second pair of shoes (that don’t stink to high heavens), ‘actual dog food’ (similar circumstances), or a much needed visit to the dentist office; I’ve begun slinging pots, pans, and suds, three times a week in our restaurant.
This is about as exciting as it sounds, so I’ll spare you the details. Except to say it’s possible I’ve finally found something I’m ‘over-qualified’ for? While hauling truckloads of dead dogs and cats when I worked at the pet crematorium in Florida was somewhat physically challenging, this is a no-brainer of the lowest sort …and I find my mind briefly wandering back to South Georgia quail hunting days…about the same time I nearly slice a few digits off cleaning knives.
We work in shifts; three days on and three days off. My fellow dishwashers are ages 13, 16, and a 22 year old mentally challenged Indian. A man-child pushing 41 blends in about as well as you’d imagine?
The only real benefit to the job, besides an extra hundred bucks a week, would be the heaping plate of food that accompanies this task; slipped to me covertly by the cook at the conclusion of each shift…‘So long’ to frozen potpies, tuna, and boloney sandwiches every single day, as I had over the winter; and “hello” to chicken cordon bleu, homemade meat loaf, and the occasional uneaten 12 oz. steak, …cooked just the way I like em…”Free”!
Its then, while eating my portion sometimes mid-shift in the stock room ‘out of sight of dining guests’, I’ll contemplate my path on this earth (when I’m otherwise reading the labels on food-service boxes out of sheer boredom)….‘If only my junior-college friends could see me now?’ I think; …sitting there wearing an apron soaked in filthy water,-having earlier scoffed at any notion of attending Universities, as they later did.
…Instead, I ‘threw caution to the wind’ and entered the fields of fashion photography and then commercial hunting (as odd as those two sound in the same sentence) while drinking like a fish blindly…and the results psychologically; …go down about as well as the spicy enchiladas?
While the steak-scraps would be most appreciated by my dogs, one of our waitresses has ‘dibs’ on these items; half-eaten cheesecake, mashed potatoes, and whatever else I scrape off a plate included, as she hordes feral-cats in her garage by the dozens and has roughly 40 living with her nearby. This would be somewhat entertaining, maybe even humorous, and I’d share in the teasing of her for this if I didn’t live so close and have to chase Suzie as she corrals these same felines back one-at-a-time into their hole beneath the woman’s home ten times week.
One would think also that after successfully washing dishes for a living (pays $8.00 an hour + tips); I might be inclined to clean the ones sitting several feet from me while I type, but instead they remain filthy and stationary, stuck to each other by a thick glob of grey mold - a full week or more after use. My historical record of laziness is still intact apparently; and my mid-section (stomach), resembling that of a 6 month pregnant woman; is testament to this fact, though equally nothing to be proud of?
However, I have miraculously shrunk a bit; previously been ‘showing near 9 months’ I was told when I first arrived? My not so amazing weight loss could become a ‘national trend’ if everyone in the North West would simply let their gas bills lapse and instead of heat their singlewides during the interim between cold an hot (May/June); ‘go without’ a fluctuation in either ($$)?.…. This by default further inhibits my ability to cook anything in either the oven or on the stove and with the exception of a free meal every now and again, the cheaper and subsequently smaller-portioned diet-type microwave meals (about a buck-fifty a piece) are what’s having a positive effect on my figure.
The only downsides I’ve experienced with this strategy so far would be the occasional lingering freeze that sneaks up on me every other week; along with cold-induced violent dream sequences involving past employers and the use of sharp objects on them. Other than that there seems to be the recurring small matter of ‘waking up on time’; that still plagues me and the subsequent ‘not getting to work without being inexcusably late just about every other day’ (located two blocks away)?...The two are likely interconnected as its often in my REM sleep that I ‘hear voices’ and loud noises, yet inaccurately associate them with visions of angry ex-girlfriends and/or equally perturbed past employers (all of them naked for whatever reason?) instead of something called ‘Mike and Mike in the Morning’ leaking from the airwaves thru my alarm clock radio?
………………
Even after a four month Winter-hiatus of fishing the river for food (secretly) and reading nearly every book by Dave Whitlock, Dave Hughes, and Gierach; I’m still admittedly ‘a little green’ when it comes to certain technical things such as reels/rods etc. Not to mention while fully immersing myself in all the new entomology jargon and fly fishing knowhow, I at the same time inexplicably forgot nearly everything I was taught about day-to-day lodging and check-ins; …and didn’t impress anyone with my memory lapse?
…Just days into returning to work I blundered after being left alone for ten minutes and my typing fingers on the register quickly turned to monkey fists as the total of 7 soft hackle sow bugs came to $14,000.00 somehow?!
To ‘fix’ this problem I began confidently mashing the clear button a half-dozen times and while the screen went blank, an annoying buzzer sounded and the drawer refused to open. I instinctively reached for a pair of scissors following in the line of red neck problem-solving my folks instilled in me long ago, and was contemplating prying the thing open when I was rudely interrupted. The only thing that ‘registered’, while the angler and I stood waiting dumbfounded, was several looks of concern on the faces of management…and it clearly resembled that of my ‘having no business standing behind the counter’?
………
Suzie and Boca have had ‘a memory lapse’ as well, as they forgot what it means when I have to go to work. Having enjoyed my presence 24/7 for several consecutive months, they share their separation anxiety and mutual anguish with my neighbors audibly; sometimes heard all the way to the shop several blocks away.
After the correctly anticipated ‘eviction’ from our neighbor’s yard they destroyed, and no longer having funds to support ideas of luxurious and expansive confinement (blown on a new rod and reel); my land lord returned unexpectedly and informed me my ‘yard could use a cleanup’. I think she was referring to the 4x20 foot red neck dog-run specifically, where I utilized every scrap piece of fencing I could scrounge up in the neighborhood; as a neighbor suggested something similar recently in not such kind language. The area in question is rather discolored and no longer resembles grass or even earth, as much as doo-doo and lots of it. This tends to happen when two dogs share a small confined space or so I’ve learned from years of cleaning kennels, yet I’d grown accustomed to the illegals handling this chore at the plantation and can’t bring myself to literally stoop that low again and do the deed. So for now I’ve simply moved the run over a few yards in the hopes Mother Nature will do this for me, via decomposition; while the occasional strong winds carry the unpleasant scent of such remnants across Fort Smith’s trailer court.
It’s a familial canine-human three-way relationship and reciprocal to a degree; Suzie and Boca having to deal with my absence while at work, whining while I stare at a large piece of newspaper or the noise-box for hours on end, or repeatedly visiting that strange small ceramic chair in the tiny room where water comes out of the wall (whence they rouse themselves and follow me every time…’idiots’)? But with the absence of a suitable enclosure and the subsequent prolonged foot-chase of an errant Brittany across Fort Smith near daily and/or satisfying a certain German shorthairs’ obsession for the ‘tennis ball game’, and the ensuing case of carpel tunnel from throwing the bloody thing 900 times a day till she’s exhausted; it’s hardly a fair trade-off in my book?...This is compounded by the fact, I’ve yet to find anyone within a two-hundred mile radius willing to scratch me behind the ears or rub my tummy for hours on end without some form of payment involved.
……………………..
….Which brings me to the subject of relationships, or lack thereof?
….
If it’s an unusually slow night at the restaurant, this is when I really get depressed as the staff will rush through their chores and hurry the patrons out the second they rest their forks on their desert trays. I find this to be rather rude, not solely in sympathy of the guests, but myself as well since they then expect me to do the same; forgetting (or ignoring) ‘I work by the hour’….I’ll get home at nine, let the dogs in, plop down exhausted in the Lay Z boy, and realize ‘I only made thirteen dollars after taxes’?!
Nearly everyone here was at one point something else; our guides include an ex-plumber, a former physical therapist, and even a retired sheriff. Our cook; Sara is no different and was formerly a paramedic or “first responder” as she called it. “Load and go or stay and play” she told me and I was confused by the lingo; given she was handing me a scalding hot pan of grease at the time?
“What’s that?”
“It’s what we used to say when responding to a call. You either grab the victim and head to the hospital or stay and play…risking their life.”
“Hmm” …I thought; it made perfect sense, but I’d never heard the terminology before?
”If it bleeds it leads; ever heard that one?” I asked
“No.”
“Read it somewhere?”…”it refers to the media and the nightly news …’if it bleeds it leads’!”
“Weird.”
“Yeah I know huh?”
……….
Starving for conversation with a woman; I continued…”You know they say Pam Cooking Spray is the number one killer of exotic birds kept in the home!”
“Really?”
“Yup, think about how long it took and how many birds died before they figured that one out huh?” I said smiling.
“Weird.”
I was running out of interesting things to say and was thankful she had some input on the subject. “You know I was watching this special on the Discovery Channel recently that said some parrots live to be 70 years old and a lot of owners don’t know this when they buy them. If you don’t spend time with them, the birds get depressed and pluck themselves alive or mimic appliances and stuff… Then they get released into the wild and die or are sold online for nearly nothing; …because people don’t know what to do with them?”
“Really; I didn’t know they lived that long…70 years?”
“Yup, that’s what I heard.”
“Weird.” I said, mimicking Sara I realized later.
After the long silence following this little back-and-forth, I was glad we’d had it at least. If for nothing else, it served as a reminder that I was ‘a little rusty’ in the conversing with women department? …I’d gladly burned that little bit of useless information forever about the ‘exotic birds and media’s obsession with blood’ on a married woman, and would never subject a set of female ears to such gibberish; …then likely myself, getting nothing but rejection in return?
…Such are the brief and pointless conversations between a happily married cook and a serially-deranged dishwasher, both of us very close in age; though one much more successful than the other; (Sara) being part-owner of establishment. Later, she began referring to me as: “you big goof” repeated often throughout the many nights we’ve worked together, that much more hurtful due entirely to my self-loathing as of late; as I’m certain it’s innocent on her part.
………..
So while my weight’s in as rapid fluctuation as the Big Horn River in June (runoff), along with my dialogue needing a bit of sprucing up, and my finances in shambles; at the very least I finally dealt with my follicle dilemma…
While the lord never gave me a physique women found particularly attractive, he did bless me with a full head of hair that grows like weeds when unattended. A much needed trip to the Hardin; Lone Crow Barber Shop helped….
“I live in Fort Smith; work at one of the fly shops” I said, when asked where I’d come in from.
“Oh really, Fort Smith; I do to” she said
“I’ve never seen you before” I said amazed, as there are roughly 50 of us fulltime residences?
“Well I’m up the road a little near Dead Man’s Curve”
“Where’s Dead Man’s Curve”? I asked finding it odd a certain curve along a winding road with no less than two dozen curves I’d nearly killed myself on, had one that was considered worse than the others?
“It’s just up the road from the old café”
“Oh”. I said, not having a clue where she meant, but was wondering whether it’d ever matter?
“Mines the place with the three trailers out front”
“Hmm”
“There’s a red jeep and an old Dodge pickup next to one of em”
“I think I know where you mean” I said
“There are two old horse-trailers out by the road and ones got no tires, but you can’t miss it because it’s bright green; parked next to the shed and the orange Oldsmobile”.
“Yeah, yeah…”
“That one trailer’s gotta go though, cause I’ve just got to mow the lawn”.
“I hear ya” I said, though then realized she’d just described ¾ of the homes on the Crow Reservation, and still had no earthly idea where she lived in relation to Fort Smith?
“Boy, you’ve got a lot of hair” she said impressed
“Yeah, that’s one thing I’ve got going for me at least” I muttered; staring into the blurry reflection of the mirror in front of me, sans glasses.
“My husband would kill to have your hair”
“Ha, that’s good”! …Though I’m sure she didn’t mean it literally; visions of being scalped ran through my brain?
I then began to wonder whether the place she’d described was the same as the two crazy bald Indians who always come to town and buy Lysol to drink at the Yellowtail Market, then drive home on the wrong side of the road, but decided it’d be best not to bring things like this up while she had a pair of scissors in such proximity to my neck and head.
……………………
The town I often mention online, which is just outside the Reservation I live on Hardin, Montana; has quite unbelievably made its way into ’mainstream vocabulary’ by way of a local idiot who thought he could persuade our beloved President into sending the world’s most dangerous terrorists to it ‘on holiday’ from Guantanamo.
Given the morons who run the town built a massive jail for where: ‘no one in local politics thankfully is stupid enough to send prisoners’ (it’s basically a $20 million dollar gymnasium right next to our Big Horn IGA grocery store); this has made for some interesting headlines at best. Thus stealing the show from the occasional calf-eating wolf, bear break-in, or the equally errant four kids who successfully burned down an 8 million dollar elementary school…”because they were bored”?
So while Al Jazerwhatever was in town recently interviewing our local mouthpiece, and we still get a fair share of AIG bonus recipients flying in by Lear jet for a couple days of fly-fishing; it’s quite otherwise one of the more boring places on earth, but breathtakingly beautiful nonetheless. This at least gives me incentive to continue writing my book and its going quite well.
I can’t tell you how much the girls and I look forward to the upcoming bird season, still 3 ½ months away, and have met quite a few more outfitters for guide-work; so the horizon looks bright in that regard! Not to mention I’ve put-in for just about every living species on the planet that has four legs, in the hopes at least one of these might make it on the grill this year (super tags). If I’m especially lucky, one can only imagine how ridiculous the shoulder-mount of a trophy bull elk might look in my singlewide, but of course the real problem will be where to fit my monster muley and pronghorn I aim to bag too
?
Regardless of my meager living conditions, monetary, and social status; life’s still better than it was on a moron inhabited plantation at least. As it’d be embarrassing to come home and complain to Suzie and Boca I suppose: that it were ‘a tough day at the fly shop’?
….The day they hear that, will be the one immediately preceding our departure from Fort Smith for sure.
Never know though…could happen? I do miss the more mountainous regions of Montana and the sight of big-game species; those otherwise missing on the Res. (photography).
…That and well…I am feeling a little restless too!
G
This is about as exciting as it sounds, so I’ll spare you the details. Except to say it’s possible I’ve finally found something I’m ‘over-qualified’ for? While hauling truckloads of dead dogs and cats when I worked at the pet crematorium in Florida was somewhat physically challenging, this is a no-brainer of the lowest sort …and I find my mind briefly wandering back to South Georgia quail hunting days…about the same time I nearly slice a few digits off cleaning knives.We work in shifts; three days on and three days off. My fellow dishwashers are ages 13, 16, and a 22 year old mentally challenged Indian. A man-child pushing 41 blends in about as well as you’d imagine?
The only real benefit to the job, besides an extra hundred bucks a week, would be the heaping plate of food that accompanies this task; slipped to me covertly by the cook at the conclusion of each shift…‘So long’ to frozen potpies, tuna, and boloney sandwiches every single day, as I had over the winter; and “hello” to chicken cordon bleu, homemade meat loaf, and the occasional uneaten 12 oz. steak, …cooked just the way I like em…”Free”
!Its then, while eating my portion sometimes mid-shift in the stock room ‘out of sight of dining guests’, I’ll contemplate my path on this earth (when I’m otherwise reading the labels on food-service boxes out of sheer boredom)….‘If only my junior-college friends could see me now?’ I think; …sitting there wearing an apron soaked in filthy water,-having earlier scoffed at any notion of attending Universities, as they later did.
…Instead, I ‘threw caution to the wind’ and entered the fields of fashion photography and then commercial hunting (as odd as those two sound in the same sentence) while drinking like a fish blindly…and the results psychologically; …go down about as well as the spicy enchiladas
?While the steak-scraps would be most appreciated by my dogs, one of our waitresses has ‘dibs’ on these items; half-eaten cheesecake, mashed potatoes, and whatever else I scrape off a plate included, as she hordes feral-cats in her garage by the dozens and has roughly 40 living with her nearby. This would be somewhat entertaining, maybe even humorous, and I’d share in the teasing of her for this if I didn’t live so close and have to chase Suzie as she corrals these same felines back one-at-a-time into their hole beneath the woman’s home ten times week.
One would think also that after successfully washing dishes for a living (pays $8.00 an hour + tips); I might be inclined to clean the ones sitting several feet from me while I type, but instead they remain filthy and stationary, stuck to each other by a thick glob of grey mold - a full week or more after use. My historical record of laziness is still intact apparently; and my mid-section (stomach), resembling that of a 6 month pregnant woman; is testament to this fact, though equally nothing to be proud of?
However, I have miraculously shrunk a bit; previously been ‘showing near 9 months’ I was told when I first arrived? My not so amazing weight loss could become a ‘national trend’ if everyone in the North West would simply let their gas bills lapse and instead of heat their singlewides during the interim between cold an hot (May/June); ‘go without’ a fluctuation in either ($$)?.…. This by default further inhibits my ability to cook anything in either the oven or on the stove and with the exception of a free meal every now and again, the cheaper and subsequently smaller-portioned diet-type microwave meals (about a buck-fifty a piece) are what’s having a positive effect on my figure.
The only downsides I’ve experienced with this strategy so far would be the occasional lingering freeze that sneaks up on me every other week; along with cold-induced violent dream sequences involving past employers and the use of sharp objects on them. Other than that there seems to be the recurring small matter of ‘waking up on time’; that still plagues me and the subsequent ‘not getting to work without being inexcusably late just about every other day’ (located two blocks away)?...The two are likely interconnected as its often in my REM sleep that I ‘hear voices’ and loud noises, yet inaccurately associate them with visions of angry ex-girlfriends and/or equally perturbed past employers (all of them naked for whatever reason?) instead of something called ‘Mike and Mike in the Morning’ leaking from the airwaves thru my alarm clock radio?
………………
Even after a four month Winter-hiatus of fishing the river for food (secretly) and reading nearly every book by Dave Whitlock, Dave Hughes, and Gierach; I’m still admittedly ‘a little green’ when it comes to certain technical things such as reels/rods etc. Not to mention while fully immersing myself in all the new entomology jargon and fly fishing knowhow, I at the same time inexplicably forgot nearly everything I was taught about day-to-day lodging and check-ins; …and didn’t impress anyone with my memory lapse?
…Just days into returning to work I blundered after being left alone for ten minutes and my typing fingers on the register quickly turned to monkey fists as the total of 7 soft hackle sow bugs came to $14,000.00 somehow
?! To ‘fix’ this problem I began confidently mashing the clear button a half-dozen times and while the screen went blank, an annoying buzzer sounded and the drawer refused to open. I instinctively reached for a pair of scissors following in the line of red neck problem-solving my folks instilled in me long ago, and was contemplating prying the thing open when I was rudely interrupted. The only thing that ‘registered’, while the angler and I stood waiting dumbfounded, was several looks of concern on the faces of management…and it clearly resembled that of my ‘having no business standing behind the counter’?
………
Suzie and Boca have had ‘a memory lapse’ as well, as they forgot what it means when I have to go to work. Having enjoyed my presence 24/7 for several consecutive months, they share their separation anxiety and mutual anguish with my neighbors audibly; sometimes heard all the way to the shop several blocks away.
After the correctly anticipated ‘eviction’ from our neighbor’s yard they destroyed, and no longer having funds to support ideas of luxurious and expansive confinement (blown on a new rod and reel); my land lord returned unexpectedly and informed me my ‘yard could use a cleanup’. I think she was referring to the 4x20 foot red neck dog-run specifically, where I utilized every scrap piece of fencing I could scrounge up in the neighborhood; as a neighbor suggested something similar recently in not such kind language. The area in question is rather discolored and no longer resembles grass or even earth, as much as doo-doo and lots of it. This tends to happen when two dogs share a small confined space or so I’ve learned from years of cleaning kennels, yet I’d grown accustomed to the illegals handling this chore at the plantation and can’t bring myself to literally stoop that low again and do the deed. So for now I’ve simply moved the run over a few yards in the hopes Mother Nature will do this for me, via decomposition; while the occasional strong winds carry the unpleasant scent of such remnants across Fort Smith’s trailer court.
It’s a familial canine-human three-way relationship and reciprocal to a degree; Suzie and Boca having to deal with my absence while at work, whining while I stare at a large piece of newspaper or the noise-box for hours on end, or repeatedly visiting that strange small ceramic chair in the tiny room where water comes out of the wall (whence they rouse themselves and follow me every time…’idiots’
)? But with the absence of a suitable enclosure and the subsequent prolonged foot-chase of an errant Brittany across Fort Smith near daily and/or satisfying a certain German shorthairs’ obsession for the ‘tennis ball game’, and the ensuing case of carpel tunnel from throwing the bloody thing 900 times a day till she’s exhausted; it’s hardly a fair trade-off in my book?...This is compounded by the fact, I’ve yet to find anyone within a two-hundred mile radius willing to scratch me behind the ears or rub my tummy for hours on end without some form of payment involved.……………………..
….Which brings me to the subject of relationships, or lack thereof
?….
If it’s an unusually slow night at the restaurant, this is when I really get depressed as the staff will rush through their chores and hurry the patrons out the second they rest their forks on their desert trays. I find this to be rather rude, not solely in sympathy of the guests, but myself as well since they then expect me to do the same; forgetting (or ignoring) ‘I work by the hour’….I’ll get home at nine, let the dogs in, plop down exhausted in the Lay Z boy, and realize ‘I only made thirteen dollars after taxes’?!
Nearly everyone here was at one point something else; our guides include an ex-plumber, a former physical therapist, and even a retired sheriff. Our cook; Sara is no different and was formerly a paramedic or “first responder” as she called it. “Load and go or stay and play” she told me and I was confused by the lingo; given she was handing me a scalding hot pan of grease at the time?
“What’s that?”
“It’s what we used to say when responding to a call. You either grab the victim and head to the hospital or stay and play…risking their life.”
“Hmm” …I thought; it made perfect sense, but I’d never heard the terminology before?
”If it bleeds it leads; ever heard that one?” I asked
“No.”
“Read it somewhere?”…”it refers to the media and the nightly news …’if it bleeds it leads’!”
“Weird.”
“Yeah I know huh?”
……….
Starving for conversation with a woman; I continued…”You know they say Pam Cooking Spray is the number one killer of exotic birds kept in the home!”
“Really?”
“Yup, think about how long it took and how many birds died before they figured that one out huh?” I said smiling.
“Weird.”
I was running out of interesting things to say and was thankful she had some input on the subject. “You know I was watching this special on the Discovery Channel recently that said some parrots live to be 70 years old and a lot of owners don’t know this when they buy them. If you don’t spend time with them, the birds get depressed and pluck themselves alive or mimic appliances and stuff… Then they get released into the wild and die or are sold online for nearly nothing; …because people don’t know what to do with them?”
“Really; I didn’t know they lived that long…70 years?”
“Yup, that’s what I heard.”
“Weird.” I said, mimicking Sara I realized later.
After the long silence following this little back-and-forth, I was glad we’d had it at least. If for nothing else, it served as a reminder that I was ‘a little rusty’ in the conversing with women department? …I’d gladly burned that little bit of useless information forever about the ‘exotic birds and media’s obsession with blood’ on a married woman, and would never subject a set of female ears to such gibberish; …then likely myself, getting nothing but rejection in return
?…Such are the brief and pointless conversations between a happily married cook and a serially-deranged dishwasher, both of us very close in age; though one much more successful than the other; (Sara) being part-owner of establishment. Later, she began referring to me as: “you big goof” repeated often throughout the many nights we’ve worked together, that much more hurtful due entirely to my self-loathing as of late; as I’m certain it’s innocent on her part.
………..
So while my weight’s in as rapid fluctuation as the Big Horn River in June (runoff), along with my dialogue needing a bit of sprucing up, and my finances in shambles; at the very least I finally dealt with my follicle dilemma…
While the lord never gave me a physique women found particularly attractive, he did bless me with a full head of hair that grows like weeds when unattended. A much needed trip to the Hardin; Lone Crow Barber Shop helped….
“I live in Fort Smith; work at one of the fly shops” I said, when asked where I’d come in from.
“Oh really, Fort Smith; I do to” she said
“I’ve never seen you before” I said amazed, as there are roughly 50 of us fulltime residences?
“Well I’m up the road a little near Dead Man’s Curve”
“Where’s Dead Man’s Curve”? I asked finding it odd a certain curve along a winding road with no less than two dozen curves I’d nearly killed myself on, had one that was considered worse than the others?
“It’s just up the road from the old café”
“Oh”. I said, not having a clue where she meant, but was wondering whether it’d ever matter?
“Mines the place with the three trailers out front”
“Hmm”
“There’s a red jeep and an old Dodge pickup next to one of em”
“I think I know where you mean” I said
“There are two old horse-trailers out by the road and ones got no tires, but you can’t miss it because it’s bright green; parked next to the shed and the orange Oldsmobile”.
“Yeah, yeah…”
“That one trailer’s gotta go though, cause I’ve just got to mow the lawn”.
“I hear ya” I said, though then realized she’d just described ¾ of the homes on the Crow Reservation, and still had no earthly idea where she lived in relation to Fort Smith?
“Boy, you’ve got a lot of hair” she said impressed
“Yeah, that’s one thing I’ve got going for me at least” I muttered; staring into the blurry reflection of the mirror in front of me, sans glasses.
“My husband would kill to have your hair”
“Ha, that’s good”! …Though I’m sure she didn’t mean it literally; visions of being scalped ran through my brain
?I then began to wonder whether the place she’d described was the same as the two crazy bald Indians who always come to town and buy Lysol to drink at the Yellowtail Market, then drive home on the wrong side of the road, but decided it’d be best not to bring things like this up while she had a pair of scissors in such proximity to my neck and head.
……………………
The town I often mention online, which is just outside the Reservation I live on Hardin, Montana; has quite unbelievably made its way into ’mainstream vocabulary’ by way of a local idiot who thought he could persuade our beloved President into sending the world’s most dangerous terrorists to it ‘on holiday’ from Guantanamo.
Given the morons who run the town built a massive jail for where: ‘no one in local politics thankfully is stupid enough to send prisoners’ (it’s basically a $20 million dollar gymnasium right next to our Big Horn IGA grocery store); this has made for some interesting headlines at best. Thus stealing the show from the occasional calf-eating wolf, bear break-in, or the equally errant four kids who successfully burned down an 8 million dollar elementary school…”because they were bored”?
So while Al Jazerwhatever was in town recently interviewing our local mouthpiece, and we still get a fair share of AIG bonus recipients flying in by Lear jet for a couple days of fly-fishing; it’s quite otherwise one of the more boring places on earth, but breathtakingly beautiful nonetheless. This at least gives me incentive to continue writing my book and its going quite well.
I can’t tell you how much the girls and I look forward to the upcoming bird season, still 3 ½ months away, and have met quite a few more outfitters for guide-work; so the horizon looks bright in that regard! Not to mention I’ve put-in for just about every living species on the planet that has four legs, in the hopes at least one of these might make it on the grill this year (super tags). If I’m especially lucky, one can only imagine how ridiculous the shoulder-mount of a trophy bull elk might look in my singlewide, but of course the real problem will be where to fit my monster muley and pronghorn I aim to bag too
?Regardless of my meager living conditions, monetary, and social status; life’s still better than it was on a moron inhabited plantation at least. As it’d be embarrassing to come home and complain to Suzie and Boca I suppose: that it were ‘a tough day at the fly shop’?
….The day they hear that, will be the one immediately preceding our departure from Fort Smith for sure.
Never know though…could happen? I do miss the more mountainous regions of Montana and the sight of big-game species; those otherwise missing on the Res. (photography).
…That and well…I am feeling a little restless too!
G
Watch that hair Moe!!
