June 6, 2012

HAT TIPS

Hello,
You might want to have a drink before you read this. It seemed to help when I told the story to friends yesterday.
A couple of weeks ago, I wrote about my trip to Miles City.
You remember, the trip where I picked up the two hitchhikers and the German Shepherd dog walking across Montana.
Well, they lost the dog. It seems sometime after I let them off in Miles City, they got back on 94 and were heading west. Since the bucking horse sale was on, there was no traffic going west, so they didn’t get too far that first day. They slept under an overpass and took off early Sunday morning. Just after daylight, like a scene from “Old Yeller,” a mountain lion came up out of a coulee and attacked the dog.
They said the dog put up a heck of a fight, but in the end, the lion was the winner. They buried the dog under the “Big Sky.”
But they did say it is easier to get rides now when they don’t have that big German Shepherd dog with them.
That reminds me of a story.
Good stories usually start out with a good beginning line.
You know, the Peanuts cartoon story always started with, “It was a dark and stormy night,” or the Star Wars movie, “A long, long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away,” … a great novel, “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times.”
When all the grankids are here, I often have to tell bedtime stories. When it is me and the three boys in bed, we don’t do a lot of nice fairy tales. Usually we are pursuing monsters and ghosts or we are going into battle with fire-breathing dragons. My stories often start with a blood curdling scream!
One night a couple of years ago, the three boys and I were in bed, and as usual, they wanted a scary story. I suppose Gage was five, Evan was four, and RJ was two.
I told them of the three boys by the same names who were hunting on the Killdeer Mountains. As they went past the Medicine Hole, they heard something deep down in that cavern. It was moaning like a ghost, (I can moan pretty good) and howling like a wolf, (I’m a dang good howler).
Occasionally, it would sound like that German Shepherd fighting that lion.
The boys were pretty well armed for kids. Gage had an M60, (a big army rifle), Evan had a 9mm pistol, and RJ had a knife.
They had a coil of rope that they dropped into the hole and started down. This is where Gage stopped me. The fight had been going on quite awhile, and Gage was nervous.
“Grandpa, Grandpa,” Gage said, “I stayed home this time.”
He’s smarter than his grandpa is.
Later,
Dean

WATFORD CITY WEATHER