from w.c. fields

"i always keep a supply of stimulant handy in case i see a snake, which i also keep handy."

a parrot's view

i had a friend who had a parrot.  when asked, innocently, "polly want a cracker?" the parrot would reply,    


                 "and you can fuck off too...."


not bad for a parrot.



  

        

quail and turtles

stiles adkins and i, together with mr. bun marvel and earl "dead bird" tingle used to hunt quail west of fenwick island back in the 1960s...we were pretty good at it because one year we killed 454 - all walked up over two dogs.  now, the 2000s, there are housing developments where we hunted...needless to say, the quail are gone.  miss althea, mr. bun's wife, was a meticulous house keeper.  one day, bun's idiotic nephew reckoned he'd had a great duck shoot and arrived at the back door with a peach basket full of what he thought were carcasses.  in the kitchen he unveiled his bag...of crippled coots which skittered all over the floor.  "what d'you think bun?" asked jack.  "finest bunch of malyards i ever saw," replied bun.  "but you'd better kill 'em."  miss althea's comments are not recorded. 

later in life i graduated to hunting quail on horseback behind wide coursing pointers.  not recommended unless you have very strong thighs...getting on and off a horse twenty times a day will tax even the strongest.

finally we began hunting out of jeeps...behind wide coursing pointers.  easier on the thighs and you could cover more ground.  the shooting was good but i often hearked back to the old days with bun, dead bird, and stiles when one could walk out the back door and start hunting.

which reminds me; our newspaper ran an article the other day on the stunning event - one that had never happened in recorded history...that a turtle, what sort i don't recall, had come ashore on a local beach to lay her eggs.  bullshit.  we used to walk around them in the fall while surf fishing when we were kids - has nobody got any sense of history or the enduring pull of nature?

for all you harried housewives

"there cannot be a crisis next week.  my schedule is already full."  henry a. kissinger







[with thanks to sally pollard]

sharks

the first serious shark encounter i had was on assateague island about forty five years ago.  i was surf fishing and moved from casting off the beach to standing on a partially exposed sand bar.  the tide was low and i had only to wade through knee deep water for about thirty feet to get to my new ankle deep casting platform.  when the incoming water got to my knees i turned to wade back.  the slough was now twice as wide as before - and twice as deep.  i looked north and saw a dorsal fin - a big one - making its way towards me, coursing back and forth, hunting.  the shark went by and as soon as it got far enough - i thought - down the beach i started ashore.  in the deeper water i tried not to splash too much but before i could get far the shark turned, heading back towards me.  i retreated to the relative shallows of the bar.  i spent ten anxious minutes before the fish - eight or ten feet long, i could see it clearly as it went by - finally turned to deeper water and i splashed, half swimming, to the beach.  that shark, though sizeable, was probably a, relatively, harmless sandbar type unlike the similarly large bull shark andy smith and i saw one day in the middle bight of andros. that dark fellow was following four tarpon.  no chance for one of you, i thought, shivering slightly.  a bull shark is a serious beast.  andy had warned me when i wanted to jump overboard earlier.  "no, man.  not here.  bulls here."

the biggest shark i ever saw was a great hammerhead in the marquesas, west of key west.  he was also tarpon hunting.  that's how we spotted him -  far off splashes as he chased his prey.   when we finally caught up with  him he looked as big as the skiff - fifteen feet, maybe more - as he swept away, irritated i'm sure at our intrusion.

arno matthee and i had an encounter in the seychelles - this time with a pack of six little lemon sharks.  we were wading back to the boat and he was dragging a deceased, small blue trevally that we planned to turn into sushi.  he'd  lopped the tail off to bleed it out and the sharks had come calling.  they were all about three feet long and scattered when we false charged them.  lemons can be aggressive  but these guys were pretty laid back just like their three sleeping cousins harlan and i discovered on the edge of jewfish basin one calm lovely day several years ago.  i tossed a shark puff beyond them and it drifted down under their noses.  nobody moved but the fly disappeared.  when i struck all hell broke loose.  i'd hooked the largest and all three took off like freight trains.  at about a hundred yards my fish stopped and i thought i had a chance.  harlan ran the boat while i reeled furiously. the big fellow shook his head and popped the leader.  fortunately i got the fly line back.

the last shark tale i'll tell today involved a playboy bunny....i was coming back from key west, in transit from the miami commuter terminal to the main one on a little bus.  sitting across from me were two middle aged guys and a spectacularly beautiful young girl.  we chatted and they revealed they'd been on a photo shoot for playboy magazine.  one guy nodded at my shin which carried a long ugly wound, only half healed.  "what happened," he asked.  "shark," i replied.  to my complete surprise - it was a total lie - he turned to his companions.  "see.  i told you so."  the girl looked at me wide eyed.  i winked.

money

"when you owe the bank a dollar it's your problem...when you owe a million dollars it's the bank's."





[attributed to donald trump]

beetle

we've got this orange cat...we call him beetle.  he's a wild bastard [which i love] and a great mouser [which i love].  he started out in life as cecil because of where he came from - cecil county, maryland - but quickly became beetle - why, i don't know.  anyway, he's - in my experience and i've had some - very leopard-like.  singular, aloof and not very friendly.  his owners warned us his father was feral and he carries that trait rather well but he sits in my lap contentedly and lets me - allows me to - scratch his ears.  the other night - prowling - he got hit by a great horned owl.  the fight was loud, intense, and brief, but he managed to escape...in part because he's so big - 20 pounds or more.  god only knows what the owl was thinking.  i saw the owl the next morning, sitting on the peak of our neighbor's roof.  he seemed none the worse for wear.  to finish with beetle's adventures for the moment - we live in a small neighborhood.  there are several dogs.  they all, except for our puppy, give beetle a wide berth.  they are wise.