iDRY Vacuum Kilns

Sponsors:

A Funny Story

Started by Tom, May 10, 2001, 11:21:53 AM

Previous topic - Next topic

0 Members and 1 Guest are viewing this topic.

Tom

Twenty some odd years ago, I was returning from a fishing trip with a buddy of mine in my '74 F150.  We were not far from the house when a quail stepped out into the road and started to cross.  

We were admiring him and slowed so as to give him time to get across.  When he got about 1/2 way into my lane he realized, all of a sudden, that the truck was there.  You could see the startled look in his eyes.  He  tried to hurry, got his feet crossed up and  busted his butt right there in the middle of the road.  

This got him even more flustered.  He got up took a couple of more steps, tripped and went head over teacup again.  Now he was not only scared, startled,  confused but embarrassed.  Twice more he got up and fell before finally reaching the far side of the road and slipped into the underbrush.

We were laughing so hard I had to pull off the side of the road and park the truck so that we could compose ourselves.

You see things like this happening to people who try to pass head on  and dance from side to side or trip on a step in a public place like going to receive an award etc.  but you never think about a wild thing getting so discombobulated.  Why, wild things are supposed to be aware and composed...... they never trip.   HA-- :D

RavioliKid

I liked your story. :D

Now, if we could just find that quail and ask if he knows about the chicken who crossed the road...


 8) 8) 8) 8) 8)
RavioliKid

Tom

When I was about 16 and attending Military School, a friend came home with me for Thanksgiving.  The men in the family would spend 3 or 4 days in the "old" tomato fields between YeeHaw Junction and Fort Drum on US-441 west of Ft. Pierce and Vero.  There was no turnpike then and YeeHaw was composed of a filling station and a restaurant.  Fort Drum was a ghost town.  There was not much civilization west of US-1 which ran up the coast.

We were to get turkey, deer, quail, catfish or anything else we could find in quantity that would suffice for a good Thanksgiving dinner.

My Uncle put us boys in the Jeep to take us each to our own private hunting hammock.  Granddad walked to his because he would return early and fix us breakfast and lots of boiled coffee.

I was placed in my hammock and sat at the base of a big cypress.  It was still dark and I knew I would need a little light so I sat as still as I could.

Just as the sky started to lighten there was a shot from the direction of my Uncle's hammock.  BOOM!  Then a few moments later another. BOOM!  Then a few moments later, BOOM, BOOM!  What in the world could Uncle Pete have found?

The sky lightened up some and I could see that the birds normally in the roost in this hammock weren't there.  I waited patiently for an hour or so when shooting began to come from my friends hammock.  Figuring it was late and I had missed my turkeys I got up and started to walk out of the swamp.  

Gobbling was coming from outside of the hammock.  I had to duck to get under the outside limbs of a water oak and there, not 30 yards out in the plain was a lone cabbage palm tree.  Out of the tree flew a turkey, laboriously flying right over my head.  I put my hand-me-down model 11 Remington to my shoulder, pulled the trigger and nothing happened.  The bolt had not been fully closed.  I closed it  and aggravatingly put the butt on the ground, when out of the same tree, came another turkey.  It flew right over my head as well and there was no chance to get the gun up in time.  

Thoroughly frustrated, I walked to my friends hammock to see what he had gotten.  "Oh, I got bored and was just shooting at some crows."

I couldn't believe it,  every bird in woods had probably left.

Returning to camp we entered to the smell of fresh coffee and fried bacon.  A big pot of grits and a platter of scrambled eggs were on the table. Granddaddy had done good, my brother, cousins, friend and I were starved but ....no Uncle Pete.

Before the eggs could cool he stepped through the door and said " you're not going to believe what I've done."  Here's his story.

With first light he saw a turkey roosting on a limb high in an oak tree and shot it.  It didn't fall so he shot it again to knock it out of the tree.  It still didn't fall so, knowing better, he shot again.  when the bird stayed in the tree he decided he would come back later when there was more light, climb up there and get it.

When he returned to the tree, there against the trunk, was a large burl with a stick sticking out of it that looked just like a turkey with its head under its wing.  

He laughed....."and there wasn't any bark on anything up there."


timberbeast

Heh,  heh!!!!!!  That's a good one!!!!!!!!
Where the heck is my axe???

Tom

At my little brother's insistance I have decided that trees create wind.

When the leaves wave, there is a breeze.
When the limbs wave, there is a gust or squall.
When the trunk bends there is a storm.

The wind always seems to come from the direction that the tree is waving.

I've not quite figured out an offshore breeze yet.  There must be trees out there somewhere. :-/

RavioliKid

Uh, Tom...

I just looked at your profile. It says you're 58. Just how old is your little brother?

 :D :D :D
RavioliKid

Tom

well, lets see.........He'd be about 57 now.

But, I've got him by 20lbs.

Tom ::)

Tom

The Hat!  I won THE HAT!!!


I won something once before.....let me see.........it was Thanksgiving of 1958 I believe.  I was a student at Georgia Military College in Milledgeville, Ga. and had gone home with a friend to his house in Sparks.  Sparks is/was a little place.  It had a post office and a main street with 4 or 5 stores.  Most everybody went to Adel for entertainment.  Adel was a little bit further south.  Adel's claim to fame was a mill and the slogan......"when you're in Adel, your so close to Hell that you can see Sparks".
 
So, we went to Adel.  There was a drive-in movie there and when you bought your ticket you were entered in a drawing that took place at Intermission time.  The number on my ticket was called and I ran to the concession booth to receive my prize, a toaster oven.
 
Even though it was against the rules to cook at school I managed to keep it under raps and on weekends we would make and heat sandwiches.
 
When I went to the University of Georgia it went along with me and probably kept me alive.  My diet was composed of a 25 lb. sack of turnips a week, an occasional can of soup and hot peanut butter or cheese sandwiches cooked in that toaster oven.  My living allowance was $5 per week.  
 
I left it in Athens, still operable,  to save the lives of more students.
 
Now I've got a hat.

My hat will be like a helmet to an astronaut, or a secret decoder ring when I was a kid.

I'll sit at my keyboard and wear it.  This'll make me official. 8) :D ;D

Jeff

I better insure that hat!
Just call me the midget doctor.
Forestry Forum Founder and Chief Cook and Bottle Washer.

Commercial circle sawmill sawyer in a past life for 25yrs.
Ezekiel 22:30

RavioliKid

Oh...congratulations.  :(

I was kind of hoping I'd win something. I was really thinking hard about how to choose between the hat and the turkey call.

Wear it in good health! You sure sound happy about it!

BTW, how do you prepare turnips in a toaster oven?

RavioliKid

Tom

Thanks Ravioli!

I had a hard time with the decision too.  I would really have liked to have had a hand-made turkey caller.  I'm real partial to hand-made stuff, but like I said, I can call a turkey without one and it sounds like the hat is a neat thing to have.  Gordon liked his.  I'm going to try and get a turkey caller next time

By the way, I don't think I ever tried to cook a turnip in my toaster oven. I ate them raw.  sandwiches and soup were about a twice a week thing.


We'de go to a bar-b-cue place called Poss's on the Atlanta hi-way on Sat. nite and get a Hamburger steak.  That was real special.

You could get a hamburger steak, a big pile of french fries and all the rolls, butter and catsup you could eat and all the tea you could drink for a dollar.  It was a popular place for the students.


Tom

I was sawing up in Folkston, Ga. and an Old Black Gentleman was standing around watching.  When I broke he told me he had worked in a sawmill for a half a day when he was about 12 years old.

"We needed the money but I couldn't do it."  "I told the man at lunch I couldn't do it,  I had to quit."

"Shucks,  I'da quit 30 minutes after we started if he'd-a slowed down long 'nuff".

Jeff

Over the years I have seen a lot of guys that Thier first day was thier last day. Several that went to lunch, and just never come back.
Just call me the midget doctor.
Forestry Forum Founder and Chief Cook and Bottle Washer.

Commercial circle sawmill sawyer in a past life for 25yrs.
Ezekiel 22:30

Don P

We just came down off the roof for lunch. Don't think I'll show this to Michelle,she might make plans. :D :D

Bibbyman

The best meal I ever ate:

If you enjoy food as much as I do,  occasionally you think back to all the great meals you've eaten in your life.  I've had the good fortune to have dined in restaurants of note across the nation.  From The Del Coronado in San Diego to the French Quarter in New Orleans to fancy grub put on by IBM in Poughkeepsie, NY.  I've eaten barbeque at The County Line east of Austin, Texas and a steak at Chick and Millie's Blue Moon Café in Ponca City, Oklahoma.  

As far as home cooking,  Mary is an excellent cook.  She tutored under her mother who was a true farmwife.  They raised their own chickens, eggs, pigs, cows, vegetables, nuts and fruits, etc.  Every meal was a BIG meal.

While I can remember quite a number of great meals,  still one comes to mind that wasn't a result of the above list.

In the spring of '69,  I had completed my first year of trade school.  As our family was by no means rich in dollars,  I had to accumulate as much money as I could to pay room and board and such for the coming year.  Well, after a couple of desperate calls from local farmers wanting workers to put up hay,  I struck on the idea of getting together a hay crew and using dad's flat bed truck.  

One of the farms was owned by Mr. Swan Ferguson.  It was a beautiful, well-kept farm in a small valley.  He raised pure bred, prizewinning Polled Hereford bulls.  Mr. Ferguson was probably well in his 70's.  He would come out to the barn on every load we brought in - even if it was midnight or past.  

He had his herd bull in the barn lot.  I couldn't tell you what it weighed but it looked huge with a head about the size of a number one washtub.  It was tame as a pup - too tame for one of my cousins who had just started helping us as he was afraid of him.  

It was about 11:00 when we came in with a load and before the first bale was unloaded,  Mr. Ferguson was out there.  Our Wonder bread and bologna sandwiches had worn off.  We were talking about it and someone on the crew suggested he was so hungry he could drag that bull into the barn and burn it down so he could cook him and eat him.  

The next load in,  Mr. Ferguson said: "When you come in with the next load and get it unloaded,  come to the house.  We'll have something for you to eat."

We came into the house and were led through the kitchen to their dining room though we were hardly fit to set at the dining room table.  Food was everywhere!  It was like finding King Tut's tomb!  Mrs. Ferguson had baked a thick roast beef and a whole country cured ham - complete with gravy to match.  There were mashed potatoes, candied yams, green beans,  corn on the cob and other vegetables from the garden.  To drink, there was iced tea, lemonade, and Kool-aid.  There were jars of jams and jellies she had put up to go on the rolls she'd baked.  Needless to say,  we ate and ate and ate.  Still, she wasn't sure we'd eaten enough, though our earlier flat stomachs were now bulging,  so she brought out the ice cream to go on the cream, apple and blackberry pies and a cake she'd made from scratch and fresh baked.  It was a sinful binge of eating we enjoyed suffering over.

To multiply the circumstances,  it was quite warm and heating up the house with all that baking and cooking had to be uncomfortable in a house without air-conditioning.  But she had not become soft to the summer heat over her seventy some years in spite of being confined to a wheel chair since a young woman because of fall from a horse.
Wood-Mizer LT40HDE25 Super 25hp 3ph with Command Control and Accuset.
Sawing since '94

Jeff

Welcome Bibbyman!

I can smell that kitchen...
Just call me the midget doctor.
Forestry Forum Founder and Chief Cook and Bottle Washer.

Commercial circle sawmill sawyer in a past life for 25yrs.
Ezekiel 22:30

Tom

Hey Bibbyman,

Mrs. Ferguson sounds like she cooks like my Grandmamma, A country farm girl who's sole purpose in life was to take care of the house, the kids and the men.  You couldn't clean your plate at our table because she would fill it up again.  To this day I leave a little smidgeon, by habit, so I can get up from the table.

Welcome to the Forestry Forum.  You'll find these to be great folks.

RavioliKid

What a great story!

Kind of makes me think of my own mother. Not that she would have pulled out all those dishes, but she always had something ready for me whenever I pulled in from out-of-town. Whether it was 5:00, 10:00 or 2:00 am, I always could count on her having something ready for me.

RavioliKid

Tom

There is a heck of storm on top of us now.  Lots of lightning and raindrops big as milk pails.  Lightning ran me in from the barn and I'm sitting here twiddlin' my thumbs thinking about stuff.

About 1976 I had a much younger friend that I fished with.  He was in the Coast Guard and we had met wade fishing out in Ft. George Inlet one day.  His name was Roger Peoples and I've wondered what ever happened to him.

We took my 14' flat bottomed boat out in the St, Johns one afternoon with the idea of fishing all night.  As I remember we had a few yellow mouth trout, to keep from being skunked, and pulled up to the U.S. Gypsum docks (they make sheetrock) about 9pm to fish for catfish. We had no trouble hooking big catfish on 4/0 hooks but had a lot of trouble landing them.  It was a lot of fun.  About 2am we had enough and headed home. Too tired to clean all our fish we put all but two 30 pound cats back.

It was getting on toward 4am when we crossed a little tidewater creek not far from the house and  decided that maybe the trout were enough after all.  So we stopped the truck and slipped the catfish into the creek under the bridge.

Now this creek was frequented by all the neighborhood children who caught little red bass, croakers, black bass etc. in the 1 lb range.  Being brackish there were bream in there too.  Cane poles were what they used because we parents could keep them outfitted for 3 or 4 dollars a month.

There were tales about the neighborhood, following our fishing trip, about the bad time the kids were having trying to land the fish from the creek.  Apparently there were some prehistoric monsters living there that had moved in from the St. Johns.  These monsters were breaking lines and stealing poles right and left.  

Our children's fishing pole budget went up tremendously.  A new pole per week.  Nobody could figure out what it was.

Fall came, school started and the fishing trips became fewer until football, basketball and baseball became the entertainers.

No one ever caught whatever that was in that little creek.  

I've wondered many a time of the stories being told to another generation of the summer these kids experienced. (snicker)

RavioliKid

What a hoot! Talk about the "one that got away!"

 :D
RavioliKid

Tom

Back in my "corporate world" days,  we were waiting out a rain storm in the lunch room.  A bunch of us were standing at the window looking out over the parking lot at a torrential downpour.  One of the Salesman decided he was in too much of a hurry to wait any longer and said he was going to "make it" for his car.

I said, "Don't run real fast". " If you run then you run into all those raindrops and get wet all over,  If you slow down then only the ones falling straight down will get your head wet."

We watched him through the window as he ran about 5 steps.  Then, as if thinking, he slowed to a walk and slowly sauntered to his car on the far side of the parking lot.

We stood there in disbelief as he drove off.  

I don't know if anybody ever said anything to him later,  I didn't, and wonder if he still walks in the rain today.

Do you reckon you would stay dry if you just stood real still in a downpour?  I'll have to try that on somebody else sometime.....another salesman maybe.

Bibbyman

I fellow about five miles south of me bought a Wood-Mizer mill one year after I did.  While I had worked around sawmills and logging all my life,  he had really no experience to start with.  But we became friends and worked to our mutual advantage rather then compete. There was plenty of work for both of us.  He soon ramped up and we were exchanging ideas and techniques regularly.

On one visit, he was moaning and groaning about some difficult customers he had been working with.:(  I listened for some time as he went through the list of aggravations and problems he had had with these customers.  Then he ended by asking me how I handled difficult customers.  "I send them to you." Was my comeback.

He caught that comeback in an instant and it sure took him by surprise. He had to laugh as he was making disparaging comments about my family heritage. :D :D :D
Wood-Mizer LT40HDE25 Super 25hp 3ph with Command Control and Accuset.
Sawing since '94

Tom

That's a good one to remember. :D

I need a notebook for stuff like that.  It's usually 30 minutes later that I realize what I should have said.  Kind'a loses some of it's impact then. ;D

Tom

I ate lunch with two of my "old timers" today.  Somehow the subject turned to going barefooted.

(you need to read re-a-a-l slow for effect now)

John S. said "In Colquitt, Ga. we never wore any shoes and our feet got pretty tough". "One Fall it was getting cold and my brother got up on the hearth to warm up."

"Daddy said, 'LP you've got your foot on a hot ember', and LP said 'which one Daddy' ".





Jeff

My Dad's Family was very poor, there were 8 boys and 2 girls. The oldest, Lena, left the farm to get married and work in Flint. She returned one weekend to visit bringing a surprise for all the boys, something new they had never seen or had before. Bananas! Later in the day my uncle Donus came into the house complaining to Lena, that even though he had thrown away "the Cob" those bananas had upset his stomach.
Just call me the midget doctor.
Forestry Forum Founder and Chief Cook and Bottle Washer.

Commercial circle sawmill sawyer in a past life for 25yrs.
Ezekiel 22:30

Thank You Sponsors!