fta0303
Well-Known Member
I was about ten, walking through the grass in our pasture when a China pheasant blasted off at my feet. I always wondered after that how people recovered in time to shoot! Seven or eight years later, a friend and I were hiking through the bunch grass by the Columbia River, he was ahead of me. My friend weighed about 270 at the time, a big guy somewhat overweight. Suddenly, he shot straight up in the air, his feet cleared the ground by 3 feet! Rattlesnake scare....Who says white men can't jump ?A cock pheasant flew up vertically from between my legs near Spearman, Texas, on a first-light hunt in the '80's. I had no time for a panic sprint but accomplished a double barrel 12 gauge assisted half-pike backflip. I got the pheasant, but there was not much left of him.
The worst one for me didn't involve hunting but feeding the horses, my chore at the time. I live along the 45th parallel, so it's dark pretty early half the year. So, pitch black out, me, ten years old, trepidatious by nature, primed to the gills on Sasquatch lore. I contain my fears, gird up my loins and regretfully venture forth through the 100 yards between the house (safety) and the barn (certain death). Two fences interpose. So I'm holding in the fear all the way out there, through feeding the horses; in the dark, their nuzzlings and nickers a comfort of sorts. I leave the barn and walk fearfully back toward the house. The courage vacates my guts and I lose it about ten feet on the barn side of the fence, flickering black harpies of the soul screeching about my back and head. I sprint for the first fence, 6 ft rail tie posts w/ 2 x 8 crossties, I manage to vault that fence, not cleanly, but effectively, painfully banging my knee on the way over. This leaves me penned in a 15 ft space between the fences. Still sprinting, I deduce that the quickest way over the second fence was to dive between the bottom two boards of the man-gate, about a foot apart. I hit that space at full sprint speed, never thinking about the physics of gravity. That one hurt everywhere, but I got through, still in a total panic, sprint back to the house with something fierce, big, black and red on my tail. Made it in the nick of time. Another season won...
Later I learned that quaking in fear and going about your business scared to death was better than giving way to full-blown panic. Sometimes the house is a lot further away and the available panoply of monsters more real and frightening than the black wings of death beating about your ears. I suppose most of the time the bear that isn't there is scarier than the one that is, unless the one that is is charging you.
After dark, I stay in the house more now. It's easier on the heart...
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