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DOG HUNT

By Jon Whalen

It has been said of the Walker boys that they portray the finest in American youth. 850 Three Pines Road. This is the address where we lived with the leader of our gang, Pop.  It was probably one of us Walker boys who said it hoping maybe to get the listener to agree. Pop’s gal, known to the gang as Mom, still lives there with the youngest member of the gang, Thomas, alias “Dog”. Other members are “Maps”, whom you all know as Mike, Dale, given the moniker “Fuzz”, and not because he was the master at arms or had anything to do with cops or anything. He is just one hairy dude.  We have yours truly, Bear, for lots of reasons called this. I think mostly because at one time I was as big as a full-grown bear. Anyway, now that you know all the participants in this story, I shall get on with it.

 It is a well-known fact that the Walkers are great hunters. This is well known by all; just ask any one of the gang. Dale in particular, finds this to be his hobby of choice, hobby, or sport, whatever. Others amongst us hunt as an excuse for a get together with the other bros for card games and a couple of brews, maybe somewhere without telephones.  Guess who has the mobile phone in his truck. Some of us have been more than a little short on patience with Fuzz when we find ourselves somewhere in the woods out of Granite Creek or Glendale or Galice, breakfast over, 5 or 6AM., with daylight almost a thought and here’s Fuzz on the phone in earnest conversation, (can you hear me?) with someone on one of his construction jobs. Something is wrong at the job site and has to be put proper before we can proceed with the hunt. Cell and mobile phones and radios can cause problems on hunts. Sure is a good thing we are all married and the ladies of our lives don’t expect daily calls like a girl friend might. I think our gals actually like us gone for a couple of days, you know?

We great Walker hunters are known also for our tracking abilities in the woods, that is until we lose the BLM or Forest Service road numbers or there are more than one set of tracks in the snow (snow helps all Walker boys be better trackers, of course). Too much new snow falling obscures tracks and we can’t discern which tracks are from one of the bros’ trucks (if indeed one of us went up or down that particular road). Anyway, we boys learned our outdoorsman ship from the head of the clan, our Pop., I think it was Fuzz, Maps, and I doing the tracking this time, trying to pinpoint the exact location of Dog. Having exhausted all trails and failing to find any new tracks in the road, we got on the CB, CB for us stands for Calling all Brothers. So we are on the CB...”Dog, are you out there?” Silence. We wait a few minutes, then ”Dog, do you have your ears on?” I think I hear a faint squeak from the radio. We drive on down a well-traveled road, thinking this may be the road Dog is on because it is a well-traveled road and it has a number. “Dog, can you hear me now”? Then, as we round a curve in our well-traveled numbered road, we see Pop’s pickup parked on the side of the road. We know he is simply parked this time because the truck doesn’t appear to be stuck and no one is leaning on a shovel and Pop is just sitting in it scowling at us. See how good Pop taught us to track? We found him, at least. Still, no sign of Dog. We pull up next to Pop and find him eating his lunch, soup from the wide mouth vacuum bottle that Mom had fixed for him. He is so resourceful.  He has never had a problem finding sustenance in the woods. We ask him where Thomas is.  Pop looks at us with this outdoorsman like expression on his tanned and weathered face, (he forgot his hat this day and got a bit sunburned) and he says in his best outdoorsman like gravel voice (soup was hot) “I think Tom is working his way across that patch of woods, trying to get to the next well-traveled and numbered road. But there is someone that has been hogging the radio all morning and I guess they lost their dog since they have been calling for the darn dog all morning. That is all I hear, them calling for their dog.   We, Walker boys, may indeed be great hunters and trackers and all that but we might be better off without the radios and cell phones and gadgets. Too technical for some of us. Besides, they take up too much room in the truck. As long as we have Maps to show us on the paper where we are, or where he thinks we are, and we have Dog to do most of the carrying of the meat, with his younger legs, and Fuzz to shoot most of the game for us (seems to have all the luck) and they have me to bear with and we have the memories of hunting with our gangs not so technical leader, Pop.

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