EAST TEXAS HOG DOGGERS FORUM

Don't know what made me remember this, but I'm glad it did...

... Was on a business trip, stuck at some small ass airport... somewhere inbetween Louisiana, on the way to Houston... Our flight was MIA, no explanation, no concession, no security... just a stale, ghost town of an airport... quite strange in this day of "modern security"...

.. all I could get out of the clerk was that, "the next available flight would be diverted to pick us up".... "not bloody likely" is what I heard...

... so I called a union van to come pick us up(the only thing a union has ever actually done for me to this date  ;D)... when the ride showed up, I saw a crippled up old man with cowboy hat glance up at me.. so I asked him to join me on the trail to the next airport...

... You just never know who you're gonna bump into on an airplane/van/cross country adventure.... 

...We intitially broke the ice with him lamenting about the onset of the resctriction of equine slaughter houses, and the effect on the horse market in gereral, which I have also witnessed...

..he went on to describe the mounts they'd aquired over the years from, would be, slaughter prospects... some of which went on to be stand out mounts in motion pictures... others making solid dude ranch hands.... all besides the fact... but anyways...

...What makes this story memorable to me is as follows...

....As I always do, once a new aquaintence has had adequate time to impress me on all of his/her conquests/experiences... I love to stare blankly at them and ask "what have you come to understand as the meaning of this life?"

........... Sorry............. probably lost a lot of you right there, but that's ok.... you may not be there yet... but you will some day...

.... anyways.... when I asked the old man this, he replied in the form of a story... and here is how it went.


On his family's dude ranch, they had a regular clientele, most of which were from overseas...

Now I, myself, have experienced this... the europeans are keen on all things western, sometimes suprisingly so...

.... back to the old man's story.... they had a repeat client, a very successful norwegian businessman... the man worked all his life... year after year, and his only "happy place" was when he brought his family over to work cattle on this "dude ranch" in Texas...

Over the years, the man began to look more and more towards this "vacation" of working cattle with his family... something about it had captured his family's collective mind...

Well.. here's where the story takes a turn and, personally, SLAPPED me in the face....

... On one of these, "reward for the miserable chit you do all year" vacations... the Norwegian's horse took a bad step on a hillside, up and rolled over, and killed the poor sucker... stone cold dead.

... Chew on that...



... First thing that most of us would think... OMG... is his wife and family gonna sue me because his horse (that we supplied) took a bad step and killed his ass.......

....HOWEVER.... when the man's wife rode up on the scene, she began to cry.... when the men went to console her, she told them... she was not crying in sadness for his death... but crying for happiness that he died doing what he loved so much.

I've been around this sort of people, people that have not had the opportunity to live.... ever... in their life.

.... What does this mean?  I don't know.

... I'd like to show more people what it is though.

 

Great story with an even greater meaning.

Good stuff brother!

Like.  ;)

Get busy living or get busy dying....

Good stuff!

It's not dying I'm talking about Woodrow, it's living.

william wallace said - all men die , but not all men really live !

my granddaddy said - you can't really live until you can except death .

i say LIVE until you die  .

I'D RATHER DIE 20 YEARS EARLY THAN SPEND ONE NIGHT IN THE NURSING HOME !

thats deep

Well Noah, that's a mighty big can of worms that you've opened up buddy! I agree with you though, I'd also like to show more people what 'it' is. We as hog doggers experience a style of hunting that most hunters cannot fathom. They have no idea how exciting and adrenaline filled this sport really is. They think that sitting on stand for hours or days and finally getting a shot is what it's all about......I say ...little do they know. I consider myself an extremely blessed man to have discovered this sport waaaaaay back in the 70s and the wealth of memories that I have stored under this grey hair is priceless.

We host a 'rookie' school a couple of times a year here at the fire dept. As an instructor I am saddled with the task of teaching these rookies lessons that can and often do save their lives later in their careers, they can then pass this on to other up and coming firefighters. One thing I do want them to understand is that by the time they graduate rookie school, they will have seen and done things that 99.99% of the grown people in the world will never see much less do! Furthermore....the vast majority of these people are scared to death of the thought of going into an active structure fire, but.....by the end of school, they will have entered, and extinguished a full blown structure fire......(and NO...it's nothing like 'Backdraft')....which is an extreme feeling of accomplishment. This in and of itself puts them into a category of, shall we call them, 'life livers' that doesn't have all that many members.

Same is true for us hog hunters,....we enjoy what could be called an extreme sport if you wish to call it that.....but good Lord ain't it fun?