Post by jack hamilton on Jul 8, 2010 7:48:58 GMT -5
Chapter 4.
I wrote these stories for my Judge, therapists, and Doctors.
The class too, they loved them.
The wreck of the Sugar May
As told to Judge Holland disability judge
Judge Holland: Jack tell me about your horses.
Me: Well Dolly May is the boss horse.
She is the smartest and the best gated of all of them.
She is a brown mare, about 15 hands.
Dolly May is a perfectly well gated saddle mare.
Sitting on Dolly is as comfortable as sitting at home on your own couch whether she is walking,
trotting, galloping, or at a dead run.
Dolly May is not friendly though, she is haughty, surly, aloof even.
She is as I said the boss horse.
Yet I have never fallen off Dolly.
She is very smart and too smart for that.
Dolly is brown, and I say brown because a horse can not have even one brown hair
and still be called black.
And Dolly has a few brown hairs so even though she looks black out in the pasture,
she is technically brown, we’ll call her light black.
Judge: “light black!”
Now the other mare is Sugar May, uh no relation. {laugh}
“Well I’ve had a May series, Sugar May and Dolly May are horses,
Sue May, and Katy May were hounds,
I have also had a Belle series,
I looked down and kind of got misty,
Bonnie Belle was a beautiful hound,
Her broken leg was just healed from falling off her dog house
when she was a puppy.
She was shot by the same people who killed me.”
“Gut shot, I found her three days later,
a crawling pile of maggots,
she was still sitting up but her head was down and she was dead.”
Sugar May is 15 hands…
Jack they are kind of small for you.
Well sir, if they were any taller I couldn’t get on them as I ride bareback and hardly ever use a saddle.
Saddles are expensive hard and cold,
I would lots rather have a nice cheap,
soft and warm horse to sit on especially in the winter.
OK go on.
Yes sir, Sugar May is a Tobiano paint,
meaning more then 50% white.
Long tail that comes all the way down to the ground.
Long mane that I have to trim or it gets in her eyes.
So they look just like bangs.
She is also a good horse but not well gated like Dolly May.
Sugar May walks and gallops well but riding her at a trot will beat you to death.
She is close coupled and heavier than Dolly.
Sugar Mays personality is the opposite of Dolly’s in that Sugar is friendly as she can be!
She is so sweet that lots of times when Marci
{my girl friend}
has her two six year old nieces over,
and they love petting the horses and feeding them cookies.
I have let Sugar in the den just saying don’t stand behind her
or where she cannot see you.
And they loved it and Sugar does too.
Sugar would stand in the den on the carpet and eat cookies
and be petted and made a fuss over all day if I would let her.
However Sugar May is not real smart.
She is a good horse of course and I would ride her anywhere.
But between her and Dolly I would say Sugar is,
basically not real smart.
I have fallen off of Sugar May in some famous wrecks!
Judge: “Tell us about one of the wrecks, Jack.”
Once we were riding my trap line
Sugar and I back in 86-87 or so.
Usually I ride Red my mule,
but this morning Sugar wanted to go.
Sugar had wanted to run all morning.
The weather was cool and she wanted to run.
I would tell her,
“Sugar we are in the woods and there are trees everywhere and we can’t run back in here.
Slow down!”
All morning I had to rein her in as she was really frisky as if to say:
“I can be every bit as good of a trap line horse as Red!”
“I’ll show you.” Slow down Sugar!
Please.
Well we ran the line and were done and were on top on the highest hill around,
at the end of the line facing north and resting
and letting Sugar cool off before the walk home.
We could see trucks over to the west on IH 35 going north and south,
and trucks over to the east on IH 45 as the leaves were all down
it being winter.
We could also see a perfect view of the Dallas skyline the weather was cool and clear, and it was a fine day. I said “Sugar May!
“And her ears turned back towards me as if to say “Yes boss”
I said, “Do you want to run?” “And she said, “ Well yes as a matter of fact I do!”
My lawyer laughed and
The judge’s secretary said Jack wait!
How did she say that?
“It was basically a rhetorical question,”
“She had been saying that all morning,
I knew she wanted to run, now pay attention please.”
Judge Holland had caught it too being a horseman himself,
and smiled.
Judge Holland told his secretary.
“He’s right, Sugar had been saying all morning that she wanted to run.”
How?
“By wanting to run!
He just said that he had been reining her in all morning! Now pay attention!”
“Jack, go on.”
“Sugar May do you want to run and she said
“yes, lets go”
so… I screamed!
Haaaahhh!!
And off we went!
Down the big hill towards the pond and the trail home.
We were going all out,
Sugar was going to show me how good of a runner she was!
We ran down the hill and over these terraces built in the early twentieth century to control erosion.
We were really going,
and as I usually do before we hit the woods,
I checked the bridal.
About then I realized that I had put Red’s bridal on Sugar which would not have been a problem if we were walking but now that we were running fast and were about to hit the woods was a big problem. The bridal on a horse when you pull back on the reins tightens a chain that hangs down under the horse’s chin.
This chain in turn tightens on their lower lip,
and this has the effect like picking up a cat by the back of the neck, it gets their attention.
Well Red has a big head being a mule!
Sugars bridle chain was so loose that I knew,
I had no control over her whatsoever! And was considering whether to jump now that we were not in the woods yet,
or to try and slow her down,
which I did not consider for long as it would have ruined the best run we had had in a long time and for no purpose because Sugar was not going to stop. Or just enjoy it!
Jump or enjoy it?
Looking down at the ground rushing past
I decided to just let her run.
So it was good I did not have a saddle on.
{I did have a saddle pad without stirrups}
We went under some big pecan limbs that were so low if I could not have laid right down on her back my head off to the side and actually below her back. I would have been knocked off for sure. Lots of times we would be crossing the same area during rainy weather when the whole area we had just crossed was under water, I remember having Sugar May swim!
Swim, where I lie down on her back and holding on to her mane and let her actually swim across to the dxxx.
She knows where we are going.
But then it is not so easy to find the trail,
it does not look the same,
Sugar would go to the right and try to climb up,
then back to the left and scramble around and getting her foxxxng finally get up on the dxxx.
This day however it was dry and we crossed the old dry pond and pounded up the dxxx like she was secretariat,
across the dxxx and just as we were almost to the trail
down the other side through the old pecan orchard
and up the road home,
she took a hard 90 degree left turn.
And this time she did not tell me anything!
Just one second she was there and the next she was going hard left and that put a spin on me so I was flying through the air backwards!
Time sort of slowed down.
And I thought I was going to die.
Sugar was still really going and I remember thinking,
“Sugar, why are you going that way?
What can you be thinking?
We have never gone that way!
I was wondering what Sugar May could possibly have been thinking.
All I could hear from Sugar May was fading hoof beats
and bustin brush!
Sugar was really going!
“Fading hoofbeats and bustin brush,
J. Frank Dobie”
the judge said to his secretary.
I was wondering what would happen
when I hit whatever I was going to hit.
If I hit a tree with my head it would crush my skull
and kill me outright!
And if I did not hit it solid but sort of a off center glancing blow!
It would not kill me outright but that would be worse
as I probably would be paralyzed or brain dead.
I would lay out in the rain and cold with no food or water
for a week or two before anyone found me if they ever did.
The Judges secretary said
Jack” wait, what was happening while all this you are telling us about now was going on”
“ I was flying through the air!”
All this time!
“Yes! I said that time stood still now please,
pay attention and don’t interrupt,
really I’ll forget what I’m talking about.
Really, I will completely loose my train of thought,
please don’t interrupt.”
“Anyway, it was a beautiful January day out on the trap line,
I was flying through the air backwards,
time was on hold, so to speak.
{as it were}
Time was on hold!
Judge Holland said with great mirth.
And about this time a broken arm or leg was looking good,
it really was!
In fact,
If God would have come down right then with his clipboard,
and said:
Ok “Jack, broken leg or arm but no worse,
sign on the line.”
I would have signed it in a second,
with no hesitation whatsoever!
I would have gone for that one.”
The Judge smiles.
About that time however I hit the ground!
Boom!
Judge: “Jack did it knock you out?
“I don’t think so.
Secretary: well you would have known if it had knocked you out!
Well not really,
I was in the hospital and woke up from my motorcycle wreck
and realized that I was in the hospital
but I thought to myself:
“I was in a bad motorcycle wreck last night.”
But it was not last night but 5 weeks before!
When one is knocked out one doesn’t know anything.
Before the motorcycle wreck, and asked the same question,
I would have said no, I was not knocked out
and that is probably true but now I realize if I was knocked out
at the time I wouldn’t know it now.”
Judge, ok, Jack go on.
I hit the ground hard and it knocked the breath out of me!
The first and most important thing to me was air!
As I was breathing hard anyway,
so in a minute I got my breath back.
I got some air in my lungs and then began to take stock
of what had happened.
I had not hit a tree, but had hit the ground on the downhill slope, which was good.
I realized that my feet were higher than my head,
I was hanging in the vines.
And as I pulled myself out of the briars
and stood up and looked around,
I saw that I had landed in the biggest thicket of sticker vine,
saw briars.”
I looked at the Judge and went on in my story teller tone of voice, with a serious look in my eye,
“THAT ANY MAN EVER SAW!”
This got a laugh from the Judge!
“ that any man ever saw indeed!”
*{the Yearling}”
I tore my way out of all the vines as I was really in them!
and limped towards home,
I started walking towards home,
not worrying about the gates now that I was on foot.
I limped through the woods,
and came out at a place where I could see Sugar May
standing on one side of water mill road,
her blue saddle pad hanging down on her belly.
And Dolly May and Red standing on the other side of the road
on my land keeping her company.
I came out of the woods limping and did not say anything.
Sugar turned and looked at me as if to say,
” Where have you been?”
And as I made the appearance to the judge of lifting my sleeve with my right hand and looking at my watch and then holding my hands out palms up, “
“I thought we were going riding?”
This got another comment from the judge’s secretary
about that talking horse but I don’t remember it.
I just limped over got Sugars bridle and halter in my hand and limped home down the hill to the gate
we were supposed to come through anyway,
and home.
I did not yell at her or even hit her.
I was not really even mad.
That’s just Sugar May.
And the judge laughed and said to his secretary
something about what a perfect understanding of horse psychology that was.
That’s going in the book!
And how pintos are just that way!
“I have owned pintos!”
That’s exactly the way they are.
That’s pintos and paints!
He said to her with a big smile,
his eyes wide like saucers and looking right at me.
Jack, the Judge said,
What about your mule?
Well sir old Red is a red appaloosa jenny mule.
She is about 14 hands and a perfectly trained coon hunting
saddle mule!
Perfectly trained when I bought her!
And I paid more for Red $750.00,
than both other horses put together.
Jack why do you have two horses besides your mule,
you can only ride one at a time?
“Well, A. L. Brimer who sold me Red said that old Red
won’t stay around if you don’t have any other horses.
She will jump the fence and go till she finds a horse,
or even a donkey.
And stay there as she gets lonesome
and won’t stay in a fence by herself.
So I bought the other two horses as pets for Red.
“She has carried a rider and nine! Coon,
out of the Sabine river bottoms in one night!
She will automatically turn without being told
and ride to the sound of barking hounds.
I would jump on old Red tomorrow, and ride up to Denver!
Bareback, no problem.
Jack, the judge asked, how long would that take?
800 miles, 400 hours riding time,
umm two months.
The Judge laughed out loud.
Two months! To go to Denver!
Two months ha ha
“I could drive up to Denver after lunch!
Judge Holland and his secretary carried on so long laughing
and saying thing’s like I could walk to Denver
in two months myself!
I said after listening to them for a few minutes,
“Well if you are in a big hurry, take a bus!”
This brought on another fit of laughing,
and even the judge’s secretary loved that one!
Judge, “ A bus a bus!
How long would that take!
Three days?”
Me: “Well that’s about right,
“But it’s better than two months!”
Why don’t you take your car!
“ If I wanted to go to Denver I would take my truck,
it would be faster and cheaper.
I would need a thousand dollars just for food if I rode Red,
as it is a long way!
But if I wanted to ride Red to Denver she would make it!
That was the point I think.”
I got the disability.
Thank you
jacksknifeshop.tripod.com
Now, when I was 'dead' and checked out by the policeman
the next morning, {7 years ago}
and reported dead.
{They can't change a police report, so I guess I am still dead...}
I remember God reading my memorys,
and focusing on the breath cloud story.
He 'musta liked that one' because
he specifically sent me back to experiance more .
J. Winters VonKnife
{need a knife?}
The Breath Fog Story
We were out hunting one night
and the dogs bayed a coon down on the creek.
When I got there they were down in the 40’ creek bottom.
I could see them raising hell
and as I tried to shoot,
a dog would get in the way!
I would wait till an opportune moment
and raise old squirrel grabber
and a dog would get in the way!
The battle would rage on, the coon was surrounded
and the dogs were howling enough to wake the dead!
I would see an opening and this time as I raised old grabber…
A strange thing happened.
It was fog!
I couldn’t see to shoot so I moved around and saw a shot
and raised my .22 and again!
I couldn’t see!
I repeated this over and over.
Finally I thought to myself 'what the fxxx'!
I had been absorbed by the action going on
and had not really paid attention.
I wondered why a fog would be here and not there.
I stopped and looked down the upper creek bank
and saw four or five little clouds!
They were not moving or disipating,
they were just sitting there!
I realized they were breath clouds
and they were my frozen breath
but with no wind they would not move,
they just floated there,
four or five little clouds,
3'-4' in diameter,
all in a row!
The 'breath clouds' were one of the most beautiful
and unusual sights I had ever seen
and I have been hunting 46 years!
I don't remember if we got that coon or not,
but I will always remember the 'breath clouds'.
It was late at night and I had my hardhat on,
with the light in front, my 'Night Light'.
And that was how I saw the 'breath clouds'.}
{In the erie light of the 'Night Light'.}
J. Winters VonKnife
‘and Sandymay’
The story of the Drinking Snake
Rehab, 2001, there I was.
We were given work to do but unfortunately like every other class thing, the work was geared to the lowest common denominator. Our therapist Louis would tell us to write a paper on something like “ what I did yesterday in rehab.”
I would point out to him that we didn’t do anything worth writing about, we sit and stare at the wall and pick our nose all day,
drool, fart. Louis! What is there to write about!
Give us something more interesting!
And Louis would say, “ Jack some of the people are Mexicans that don’t speak English that well, or not as well educated as you,
since it is a class we have to pick projects that are easy for everybody.
At that point me being a loner and it was beginning to be rather obvious why, I decided to pick my own subject.
I would write on whatever I wanted to.
I have it!
The story about a fishing trip I went on with a friend from grade school and his dad. Randy Gibson and his father old Harry were my friends since the 4th grade.
Randy was the person who got me interested in hunting and fishing, trapping and the woods in general.
I met Randy as I said in the 4th grade.
Another friend Greg Cook told me in the hall between classes, at Mark Twain elementary school
{Greg was kind of snotty nosed}
Hack Hoonier!
He said in the hall one day,
I know a kid who has three B.B. guns!
And that was news to a fourth grader back then!
Three guns!
To me this was incredible!
We went over to his house after school on our bicycles.
And he not only had three of his older brothers B.B. guns,
Randy had traps!
Cages! And lived right by the woods.
I had made a friend for life!
And his father, old Harry, took us hunting many times. He would take us to the cedar crest viaduct a bridge over the Trinity River. He would sit in his car and Randy and I would hunt with our pellet guns, and later our .22’s or our shotguns.
All day on Saturday we would roam the woods, and hunt rabbits, squirrels, pigeons, shoot old bottles and generally just be kids.
But we were grown up and could drive now,
and as Harry was getting older and Randy and I were determined to show old Harry a good time, so we decided to go fishing. I knew of a pond down by Hillsboro,
the Doctors Pond as we called it.
The Doctors Pond was owned by some doctor who lived in California and we knew no one cared if we fished there.
One day Randy, old Harry and I drove down to the Doctors Pond and got the johnboat out of his truck and launched it. We started fishing and were doing good
till we began to run out of bait.
I volunteered to go and look for some bait so Randy dropped me off at the bank and he and his dad kept fishing.
It was early in the spring and there was not much bait to be found.
I turned over a few old rotten logs and found some grubs. I was not doing well and was about to give up when I saw over on the other side of this slew a frog!
I got pretty excited because a frog was enough to keep us fishing the rest of the day. I needed a stick to help me keep my footing crossing the slew and found one. About six feet long and straight enough, so I started wading over to the other side.
About half way across I noticed a snake swimming in the slew in the same direction as the frog!
Soon I realized the snake and I were after the same thing,
the frog!
I hurried up and tried to cross over ahead of the snake
but the snake beat me to it and started swallowing the frog whole!
I got to the other side and slipped the stick under the snake and flipped him up on the bank, walked up to him,
put my foot on him,
picked him up by the neck and choked that frog out of him,
put it in my pocket.
I looked the snake in the eyes,
medium sized water snake,
took my flask of Scnapps out and took myself a drink.
Then poured the snake what I figured was a belly full, sort of as a consolation prize,
I knew it was not as good as a whole frog, it wouldn’t fill his belly, but it would make him feel better. Then I threw the snake back in the slough and went back to where Randy and his dad were fishing and… About that time my therapist Louis had somebody come in and had to talk to them,
so he said Jack!
I realized what he was going to say and at the last moment said “ AND THERE I WAS…”
as I had an idea.
Louis said Jack hold it and I ‘ll be right back,
as soon as Louis took care of this opportune distraction,
I was pretending to be even more absent minded then I actually am.
Marty the dart cop, told some one else behind me,
“This is a set up!” “He said OK Jack, sorry, go on.“ I stared at the floor, and scratched my chin,
and seemed to be not remembering were I was.
I said “I don’t have any idea what I was talking about”
and turned behind me and said does anybody back there remember?
And as if on cue, Marty the dart cop said,
“ you said “and there I was,”
and I thought to myself
{Perfect!}
Oh yeah!
I got that story tellers gleam in my eye,
looking out at the horizon, paused, and started…
“There I was, surrounded, … by hoards… of howling savages!” {gleam} so I { bending my elbow and putting my hand over my head and to the back of my neck, }
Unsheathed my bowie knife!
Held the imaginary foot long knife,
point, up and down like I was feeling the weight.
Without looking back,
flipped the knife perfectly catching it again behind my back,
“I heard Marty say,
{ How impressed he was with how I caught the non-extant knife perfectly.}
and bringing it up to my mouth, saying
“lets party” and spitting on the blade. “And hacked my way!”
Through a solid wall, of human flesh!
hah! hah! hah!” Swallowing hard and gasping,
panting and with my favorite crazy look in my eye,
and adding after quickly looking down at my left arm as if to see if that canoe was there in my arm, and pulling my arm up as if to be holding it.
“Dragging my canoe behind me!”
Gazing ahead in the distance.
Miss Cathy burst into a laughing fit,
saying I remember that!
I remember that!
I was 12 years old, and it was my birthday!
“I was 12 years old!!!
I was 12!
I ain’t gona tell ya’ll how old I is,
but but… but…
My moma took me and my friends to the picture show!
It was my birthday!
It was over 50 years ago!!!!
I ain’t heard that since I be 12 years old. I went to the movie with my mom and all my friends,
and we saw that in some old movie!
It’s been over 50 years!
She couldn’t hardly breath she was laughing so hard. That old white man!
What’s his name? He was always drunk! Some old white man like left over from Vaudville!
Marty the dart cop, said W.C.Fields.
And miss Cathy said That’s him!
It’s been over 50 years!
I still remember it.
Ha ha…
“dragging my canoe behind me!”
Silence, bewilderment, and a confused stare….
And a long pause.
I was relishing this long pause!
I was thinking, ” I’d show them how to tell a story, “
after a while the class was getting nervous at the silence
and they were beginning to talk among themselves.
I looked to the left at Louis,
and he was naturally looking at me with a strange expression,
“oh! I’m sorry!
Wrong story!
Wrong story!”
See, it was one of my setups!
And Marty caught it!
“And there I was,” I went on,
“standing on the bank as Randy and his dad paddled up in the boat.” I got in and we cut the frog up for bait and kept on fishing. We were doing pretty good,
and old Harry was drunk by now and having such a good time!
The fishing trip was a success and everybody had a good time. It was getting late and the evening was beautiful. We were letting old Harry use most of the bait and we had a mess of fish,
I became aware of a tapping on the boat. I realized I had been hearing it for a while but had not really noticed. {Tap bump}
and I realized that we were in a grassland pond and there were no trees,
no sticks on the shore or anything that could be floating in the water to make a sound like that.
tap bump
I became curious and looked over the starboard beam,
and there was that snake!
“And I knew it was the same snake
because it had a frog in his mouth!”
I couldn’t believe I was witnessing this!
“It was a profound display of intelligence from a mere reptile!
A snake!
And a young one at that,
it was at most a year or two old! He was looking me right in the eyes!
He knew just what he wanted!
“He had gone right out and caught another frog,
and swam out to out boat,
probably the only boat that had ever been on that pond, he knew right where we were. And he had been beating that frog’s head on the side of our boat for 10-15 minutes!
Trying to get out attention!”
I felt bad, “I just didn’t snap.” Old Marty said beating the frog’s head on the boat! And I said well, “he was a snake!
He didn’t have hands,
or arms either! How was he to beat on the boat anyway? With his own head, and swimming with a half pound frog in his mouth? Come on Marty!” I leaned over,
pretending to look down over the side of the ‘boat.’ “He was a smart little snake!
Looking me right in the eye,
Just a year or two old at most!” Louis was looking intently and had a curious expression on his face. “He wanted to trade!” And Louis got it and smiled. “Yep he wanted him another drink!
Smart as a whip he was!
And a young one at that!”
The whole class was laughing now and it was a solid laugh!
It felt good!
I had pulled another one off!
Louis was saying ooohhh! Nnnoo!
Shaking his head, and looking down,
I don’t believe it!
Louis said, “ Jack, what’s the name of that story?
The drinking snake?”
And I said, “It doesn’t have a name,
but that’s about as good a name as any.”
Yep, a natural born storyteller I am,
I listened to the laughter,
and was still looking down over the side of the {boat}
as the laughter was dying down. I shook my head and said “yeah,
I guess that snake would have kept us in frogs all night,
Pause, and then said, you know, as long as the Scnapps held out.”{laughter}
And then, “or unless the snake got too drunk and passed out!”{laughter}
“ I would have liked to have taken that snake home for a pet,” Laughter. Long pause,
“But I didn’t have no pond.”
Marty the cop was laughing hard,
and said when he had calmed down
“ why didn’t you take the pond home too?
Laughter!
“I listened till he had laughed him self out,
and was quieting down,
and threw in with a friendly manner,
“Come on, Marty,
that’s kind of silly.”
And he laughed at that too,
good old Marty.
J. Winters VonKnife
7-14-03
B B GUNS 'The Way' to Mastermarksmanship
Gentlemen,
B.B. guns's
Hell yes!
30 years ago, age 25...
I lived in an old farm house on 40 acres, {$85. rent}.
Me and my young hounds hunted squirrels all the time.
They were not 'coon-broke' yet however
so we hunted during the day.
Every night after dinner as I sat
'in the kitchen'
with my BB gun right right beside me,
and I would get a few beers in me,
and was feeling good,
I would pick up the gun and shoot at targets
'thumb tacked' to a cardboard box with magazines in it
'for a backing'.
I'd shoot and shoot,
mostly during the T.V. commercials.
{The targets were pages torn from old magazines
with peoples faces on them}
When the TV would come on I would usually stop.
Boys, this went on and on,
for years, I would empty the BB gun,
get the BB's back out of the box and shoot them again,
and again and again.
Right eye!
blap
got him! ...
{Chink-chink}
Nose...
blap
Perfect!
Take the magazines out of the box,
the BB's all roll to the corner of the box
and can be just poured into ones hand.
I not only got pretty good I became a mastermarksman!
The ammuniton didn't cost anything!
Before I left the '40 acres',
I was using thumb tacks for targets
in the back yard with my old Browning .22.
{Which I still use by the way}
I have shot guns basically all my life,
since I was in the fourth grade.
From friends old, weak, 'hand-me-down' BB guns,
so weak I could see the BB as it went up and up,
towards the first bird I ever shot,
a dove,
and I hit it!
It flapped and flapped down to the ground and my friend went over
and picked the dove up,
and pulled its head off and put the dove in his pocket,
saying:
"Lets go get another one"!
Hmmmm...
We went from BB guns to pellet guns,
.22's, shotguns...
the usual learning process for a kid or young man.
When I moved to where I live now,
and broke my back trying to load a truck full of dirt in 15 minutes
{before dark} my back muscles tore and I could hear them tear!
I was out of work in the lawn sprinkler business forever
but I started hunting again.
Trapping and hunting with my hounds,
{the same ones}
Shooting became more than a sport,
it became a living.
I was in the backyard shooting 'sawn off pieces of 2" x 4" 's'
off a horizonal 2" x 4" nailed to a stump range 37 yards,
with my Browning .22 auto.
My usual target practise.
I was drunk and with 'a broken gun',
{it did wobble pretty bad}
the stock and barrel held together with wire.
I knocked down 12 'blocks',
{the capacity of my tubular magazine}
in 27 seconds, loaded one round underneath the old Browning
and knocked the last one off, which was laying on its side.
Opening the breech and blowing out the barrel smoke
Whooosh
without taking my eyes off the targets.
{Bow}
{Thank you}
I threw three beer cans
{with the last mouth full of foam in them to give them some weight.}
In the air and hit two.
"Two out of three".
"I said as I dropped the can and walked inside
shaking my head"
.
{Boys I thought I was alone in my back yard
but I was being filmed!}
A year or so later I found out what happened.
And 'my shooting' ...
was what was being investigated.
That was what impressed the Lt. the most.
The can trick.
I told him it was just a trick.
The can goes up,
and stops...
for an instant before it begins its fall.
The trick is just to 'shoot at the right time'.
When it is almost at the top of its arc.
It is basically perfectly still,
like it was siting on a stump.
"You drank three more beer while you were shooting,"
the Sheriff's Lt. told me later.
And 'unbeknownst to me', till then
had been 'filmed' doing the shooting,
which was made into a training video
for the Dallas county Sheriffs department Swat Team!
...and is still in use.
"Jack they were screaming at those guys!
They fired six deputies off the swat team that day!
as being such poor shots as compared to you
they considered them hopeless.
They hate you,
ha ha ha...
My disability judge, 30 years later,
said under his breath to his secretary:
"The military criteria for an 'expert marksman',
calls for the ability to hit a human size target at 100 yards,
every 4 seconds.
"Jack can do it in 2.5 seconds."
"Drunk!"
"And with a broken gun."
{"He fell off a cliff one night out coon hunting."}
His secretary turned and asked
"how many times"?
Without taking his eyes off me, and with a big smile,
{as the Judge was ex military and had horses too}
"As long as there are bullets in his gun,
then he knows to load one and then fire one. "
"Indefinately"
"He always knows how many rounds he has in his gun,"
"that swat training film was 25 minutes long "
"and he never dropped the hammer on an empty chamber once!"
Boys, I still feel real proud
'seeing the approval in the Judges eyes'.
Thank you your honor,
sir.
"If I had 100 divisions of men like him I could invade China"
"I mean what are they going to do?"
"The Chinese have thousands of divisions."
"But they won't use nukes on their own soil.
"He can out run them and he can out shoot them."
"We would go from one border to another
stopping only to fill our vehicles and take a leak."
"Eat a sandwich or something,"
"turn around and go back."
Ha Ha...
Anyway, redd_420_20
Hell yes,
I love BB guns,
and was trained by one.
'A daisy.'
Shooting BB guns,
'trains one in all of the basic skills of shooting'.
I have been writing a book about the subject since 2001.
One trains ones self to have the gun in one's subconscious mind.
Its weight, the sights, the ammo,
to not think words to oneself.
To always have the rifle...
and the target in 'ones minds eye'.
Weather you have the gun in your hands or not!
Everything you see for the rest of your life
will be through the sights of your rifle.
Ingrain your rifle sights up 'ones vision'
like an 'plastic overlay' picture...
You don't have to think.
You are then trained.
Thank you
J. Winters von Knife
jacksknifeshop.blogspot.com/
Gentlemen,
Howdy. I was running out my line at the first of the season, 4-5 years ago,
and found a dead cow! right N. E of my N. E. set.
A great big one and fresh!
I was interested, and kept tabs on the old cow,
I would be working out in my knife shop,
and when ever I would hear a big howling it was as often as not right there at the dead cow.
Every day out on the trapline, I would check out the cow,
just walk past, and look...
I never saw a cow ate up so fast!
In three days the head was ate!
In three weeks he was gone, bones left to chew on in the hard winter,
but that was all.
Yup Coyote love a big bait!
Bait pile, dead hog, cow, goat you name it!
A big dead bait is the:
'Party place of the winter'
for old Yote.
Blind trail sets! trap or snare!
for half a mile around the 'bait site'.
Coyote will come,
Luck
J. Winters Von Knife
jacksknifeshop.tripod.com
~ About Death ~
Gentlemen,
Kinda early in the morning for such profoundly beautiful,
moving, surrealistic and 'kinda scary' posts.
But I died myself 7 years ago,
and was actually reported dead,
'Dead'. No breath, no pulse dead!
By the local police department.
So from one who has had first hand experiance in the matter:
Dying ain't so bad it is suffering and pain
associated with the dying that is bad.
My 'death' was an easy one.
I was coming home from the beer joint on 'old Thunder'
my '850 triple'.
{With a kick starter!}
One minute I was riding and the next I was in this bed in a hospital?
{5 weeks later}
Hmmmm?
No one wants to be 100 years old.
{Unless they are 99}
Then it looks 'real good'.
We don't die, our bodys die.
And no one wants to live in an old, sick,
worn out body anyway.
... But we would prefer...
to hang around as long as we can.
As long as we are not suffering too much.
I know I would,
suffering is a drag.
Once we are dead we do not float around on a cloud
till the end of the world, or some such crap.
When we die we wake up.
Really.
We go on,
it is profoundly more interesting than this,
it is where we belong,
not in some animal body which dies.
Now on the other hand I kinda like
whats left of my old animal body
and intend on staying in it as long as I can.
I mean, I have done a lot of work on it educationally and physically.
I want to brew 'mein Bier' and hunt coon.
To have a good garden and make knives.
{Need a knife?}
Our animals have the same spirit as we do.
All life is God.
Every blade of grass had God in it.
Just a little less maybe.
All living things have the spirit.
We all go back to the great spirit when we die
and get reincarnated, whatever.
God spoke to me when I was in my coma
and I am writing a book about it.
But in short he said:
"Jack, get you some hounds and go coon hunting.
Your old dogs would be there with you if they could but they can't!
It hurts me to see you grieving for them 12 years.
Your getting old and you are missing your life.
Get you some hounds and go coon hunting"!
God.
And I woke up in the hospital,
7 years ago.
God sent me back,
and I have my orders.
J. Winters VonKnife
jacksknifeshop.tripod.com/
Trapped!
Randy and I were getting to where we had out grown the little patch of wood around our houses and were wanting to spread out to some new territory.
It was about 1959-60, we had my dad take us to Cedar hill
which back then was uninhabited.
There were no houses and miles of wooded and steep hills.
Lake Joe Pool was built and when I take my old boat out to the lake,
I go right by this old place where we used to get dropped off,
right where one turns left to go to the boat ramp.
I caught my first fox there and it was to us,
a wild and unbroken wilderness!
One Saturday Randy and I were headed out to check our traps,
hunt, and extend our trap lines.
We walked way back from the road along a fence line that crossed ridge after ridge.
It went forever and I never did know how far it went, miles!
We had traps set all along this old fence line and did the usual although I don’t remember much about this particular day till we got to one brush pile.
It was a big pile of old trees and brush,
I climbed into the center of it and started clearing out a place to set a trap. The weather was cold!
There was snow on the ground and it had been there for days.
It was not so cold if we kept our hands in our pockets and kept walking.
I cleared out a place for a big #4 long spring I had as this was a place where I imagined I could catch something big!
And as it turned out I did!
I wired the trap to a limb,
smeared mud all over the chain and limb,
and was setting the trap when it backed up and closed on my thumbs!
It did not hurt because it did not snap,
as I was opening it the old trap, which was a little big for me to be using at eleven years old, just would not open 100%.
I was not quite strong enough to open it all the way.
It backed up and closed on my two thumbs.
I was not alarmed as Randy was there and came over to try and get it off of me. However Randy was not heavy enough or strong enough to open the muddy old #4.
We tried this and that,
I had both thumbs in it and I was basically helpless.
We couldn’t find the wire to unwire it from the old dead limb that I had it wired to, as I had covered with mud and it was invisible! There wasn’t much room to work either.
I was in the middle of a big brush pile,
and I was caught!
We kept trying everything we could think of and we began to see it was useless!
Randy was not heavy enough to depress the springs,
and I couldn’t break it over as my thumbs were in it and was wired into a big log in the bottom of the giant brush pile!
And we couldn’t find the wire that held the tap in there because I had hidden it so good and covered with mud.
We tried and tried,
and the harder we tried the muddier our hands got,
and now it was beginning to really snow.
It was cold now that I was not walking or being able to keep my hands in my pockets, my hands were getting numb and I saw Randy with his hands in his pockets and this worried look,
and he was cold too!
I panicked!
And began to fight the trap!
And pull like a coyote or a coon would!
I was not thinking, I just wanted out!
and I couldn’t get out!
I saw no way to do it!
I couldn’t wait till Randy went back to where my dad was due to pick us up later in the day as it was getting cold and we were miles from the road!
I started flopping around just like I was…
well I was…
a trapped and caught critter!
I was looking just like it,
thrashing around,
yelling and that was doing no good.
I was not being reasonable I was scared and just thrashing around in my death throws.
We eventually got me out I know!
Because I am home writing this 42 years later!
But honestly I don’t remember how we did it.
Boys never wire your trap solid till it is set and ready.
Or at least carry a pair of pliers,
or wire cutters to cut your trap wire if your trap gets you!
Sure would have been a long night if old Randy
had not gotten me out.
The big old #4 long spring had me,
and it is a good trap,
I can attest to that!
J. Knife
Showdown…
“The Coward and the Coon hunter”
This is the story itself, the showdown at dogland. Everything. And it would be a good book a good story. Great!!!
I told the deputy “The first one to shoot would have been a murderer, the second one to shoot would be killing in self defense.” The older deputy said “Jack, you would have died.” “We didn’t mean for you to take a chance like that.“There is no chance that you would have survived.” “You would have lived long enough to kill both of them we know, But you wouldn’t have lived long enough for the ambulance to get here.” I said “ I didn’t care.” The little one was the guy who killed all my hounds, I could see it in his eyes.
I was coming home one night alone as was usual. I drove up to the top of the hill and was almost to my gate over the crest of the hill. As I crossed over the crest of the hill, there was a car parked at the end of the road and right in front of my gate. I didn’t recognize it and as I pulled up, I stopped back of the gate about thirty yards and opened my door and stood outside my truck but behind the door. All this was just out of habit, or… maybe I had a strange feeling about this scene. The driver got out of his car and walked back towards where I was, saying, Jack, it’s Ok, I’m so and so using the name of a neighbor who lives back of my dog pens who’s name I have forgotten., and holding his palms out to show he was unarmed, and smiling. I didn’t like it. He said, I am so and so and I live behind you. I recognized the name and as I had not met the guy but once it sounded plausible.
To this day years later, I don’t know if he was my neighbor or not. The other guy said we are looking for Head lake. I said Head lake is no where around here. And the little guy was real weird but at that point I didn’t care as I noticed something on his dashboard that made me ask if he knew anything about ductwork for air conditioners? And he said yes he did and I invited them to come down to the house as I had some questions to ask about my new duct work project. So they followed me down to my house and I took them up in the attic. We climbed up and I was asking if the bigger guy had a gun that tightens up the plastic straps that hold the ducts on the air boxes. I had to use bailing wire for this one main piece I had up, and I was intending on replacing all the duct work. It was twenty years old and defiantly seen better days.
The bigger guy was saying I did not need to have a gun for it. Just tighten it by hand. The little guy was a pregnant dog and always saying some nutsty remark about everything he saw. I took an immediate dislike to the little guy. I didn’t like him. But I didn’t worry about it.
I thought to myself what the hell are two cowardly white trash gona do?
And forgot it. That was the night that I almost died. *
x His name was Robert Hall and he was trying to win a turkey shoot with four holes in the target instead of the required five. The judge was inexperienced and was intimidated by the bigger Hall who was surly and nutsty. Hall was trying to buffalo the old guy and I did not like that. So I took a hand saying there are only four holes in the target. And the rules call for five. The Hall guy was getting mad and showing all the sign of a psychopathic cowardly killer, which he turned out to be.
One bullet went through the same hole twice! The coward maintained. I told the judge to look at the back of the paper. And the judge turned it around and looked at the back. I said, see the holes?
The judge said yes,
I said see how the paper is busted out around the hole? And how the black marks made by the lead are on the paper?
Judge said yes,
I told the judge that if two bullets had gone through the same hole twice, the hold would be busted out more and the black marks would be different than the other holes. If they all looked the same, then there is no evidence that two bullets went through the same hole as this guy is maintaining. And if there is no evidence that two bullets went through the same hole then they didn’t! And you can’t give this guy the prize as he didn’t win it.
The judge agreed and the guy was furious and said something about my hounds that I didn’t catch, and something else that I did catch. ”I know how to get even with you.”
Later that winter I was out hunting with a friend and as we were walking through some really thick and high grass I did a double take and saw a clump of grass, I mean real grass! And walked right on past hoping my friend who was a pressman for my dad’s print shop didn’t see it. And he didn’t so that night I went back {and it was like right before the first frost, perfect timing to harvest some grass.} and pulled it up and took it home. I was the agent for the landowner Mr. Hash and knew that if the cops found grass on his land it would be very bad. He could get arrested or at the very least loose his land and it was hundreds of acres. I had permission to hunt and trap there from Grady Summerall the man who leased it for cows. Grady was a friend and a good man, and Grady was kind of old, so I knew he wasn’t likely to find this pot patch and it might cause the owner some trouble so I pulled it up, took it home and smoked it.
The next time my girlfriend and I were down hunting with the dogs we saw a car parked where no cars ever park. As it was right in front of our path anyway I was curious and the guy was you guessed it, weird. We walked past and on around the bend in the creek and saw the same bad shot from the turkey shoot! He was the grower and was wondering where his grass went. Just then the dogs treed a squirrel and I said hey, you want to shoot it? as he was right there. My girlfriend said that as I stood ready to grab the squirrel when it fell, my back to him. The weird guy pointed his .22 rifle at the back of my head with a crazy look in his eye, and held it on me for a long time, but my back was turned and I was unaware of it at the time. Then he shot the squirrel and we left. I had showed them my game pocket and it was full of rabbits and squirrels. I don’t even remember how many, two or three each.
It was later, on the way home that Mary told about the guy pointed the .22 at my head! She was scared and her voice was shaking. To me it just did not compute, so I let it go.
x I was trying to play some bluegrass music for the only one of the two who seemed human. And the runt would just not shut up! What’s this and what’s that! d**n!
I kept trying to play the tape machine, and didn’t think about earlier, the runt pulling my pistol out of its holster where had it nailed to the couch. Before we even went into the attic, the runt pulled my pistol out of it’s holster on my couch and checked the loads 3-4 times. He had checked the loads over and over. I didn’t care that this guy was messing with my guns, it was stupid and rude to do so but he was obviously stupid and rude, so what. I saw no threat to me at the time so I did not expect what was soon to happen, happening in my lifetime! While I was up in the attic asking the big guy about my duct project I could hear the runt going through every drawer in my house. Every drawer and cabinet, and I asked the bigger runt hey! What’s that guy doing down there? He looked about as innocent as a niger and said oh, I don’t know.
I said let’s get down, and the guy said, I like it up here! Slam went a cabinet in the kitchen. I stood up pointed down the stairs, and said, “If you are not down those steps by the time I count to three, I will throw your f**king ass down that hole, ONE! And the guy went down the stairs like a rabbit! He was down before I even got to two! *
What kind of loads do you have in this gun?
That one? nuts! I turned the music off and went over to the wall and grabbed a shotgun and said well, come on out on the back porch, and I’ll show you. As I reached the door, and turned the knob, I had taken the shotgun off the rack and the barrel went up. It was pointed up from the time the gun left the rack. I swung the door open a bit and saw the reflection of the runt standing with a pistol pointed right at my back! He was crazy eyed and his hands were shaking! He was aiming my .22 H&R nine shot revolver right at my back and I could see it so well that I could almost tell where the bullet would hit me. I was thinking below my right pectoral through my right lung.
This cowardly white trash did not even know which side my heart was on. I just relaxed and stood there. I was going to be shot and when it happened I would turn and shoot the runt with my shotgun, my single shot break barrel H.& R ,12ga.
Reload and kill the other guy. I had no time to think, I instantly made up my mind that there was no time to do anything else but act! I was alert, and waiting for that shot! Would I hear it, or feel it first? I had no idea not ever having being shot before. But whatever happened I would kill the runt unless he shot me through the head. Then the other guy. There was no time to think. When I heard or felt the shot, I would kill the runt who shot me. Then I would reload the old break barrel in two seconds, and the second shot had been practiced for 40 years. I would kill them both before I went down.
It was programmed in. The big guy moved to his right and saw his reflection and that of the runt in the door. He could see that I could see the runts reflection perfectly, and he could see the look in my eyes. He went over to warn the runt! “He can see you!” I heard him whisper.
He grabbed the runts arm and straightened his arm pointing the pistol down and away from my back. And the runt aimed it at my back again I over heard something about “But he’ll cut you into with that shotgun.”
Time went by and I was doing a repair on some guy’s lawn sprinkler system. I did a good job and the guy who I had met through my gym, said Jack, you could be doing much better than this. So I went to work for him selling roofs. I was the only salesman who spoke Spanish well, and as all out roofers were Mexicans I was in real demand. I went to Denver in 89 and sold 200k worth of roofs in 7.5 months at 9% commission. I lived in the office at first and one day a new guy came in. He was a lazy stupid smoker, he had no money and I was told to train him to sell roofs. I took him around all day had to buy him lunch as he had no money. And the guy smoked in my truck after being asked not to. I bid on 10 wood shake roofs in one day, cold calling! And tried to show the weird guy what to do. But it was years later that I recognized him. It was Robert Hall going under a different name. One day I walked in my room, where I lived at the roofing company and there he was! Looking around inside my room! I had not recognized him yet at this point and I stood still and watched him. His back was to me he lifted my mattress and looked under it and I said. Hey what the f**k are you doing? He turned around and said I am looking for you. I said under my bed! Get your f**king ass out of here and if I ever see you in here again I’ll break your d**n nose! Now get! The owner of the company came out of his office a few moments later and said Jack this guy says you won’t train him any more and I said he is trained! He has already gotten ten times more training than I got as I had one hour and he’s got ten! And he is on his own! Micky said something, and I said Micky, I’ll go home today, right now, before I let this ass hole in my truck again. You decide right now! Mickey Perry looked at the guy, and said I have never seen Jack so mad before and if he won’t train you, you’ll just have to ride with someone else! The guy was around for a week or so and then was gone.
It was two or three months later that I got a call from Dallas, and was told by my hysterical girl friend that Sue May was dead! I left $8,000.00 on the books as the roofs were not built yet, and went home the next day. I took more money up to Denver than I brought back. Sue May! Dead in her pen in the middle of hunting season! Was it my fault? Was her poor heart was broken? I was destroyed emotionally my heart _was_ broken. I went back home broke and later that month, Katy May got sick and died with all her puppies. Then Joe dog my best male hunting hound was getting skinnier and skinnier and crazy. Three months later he was gone I never found him. One day before Joe died I was talking to my dad, Cotton Joe came up to me and looked into my eyes with such a long look it was a five minute look full of love and sadness, loving and emotionally moving. A piercing penetrating look that made my look right back into Joe’s eyes. We held each other look, for such a long time that my dad who was right there said after Joe left. “What the hell was that all about?” Joe died a week or two later, and I know now that it was Joe saying goodbye to me. He knew he was dying and was saying goodbye. He said in his look that “I have had a good life and all the best times I have ever had were with you boss you were always there.” It was years later that I put it all together, that it was the same guy who after the turkey shoot said, “I know how get back at you.”
Over the next two years all the rest of my dogs were shot! I never found their body’s, One or two no more! I went crazy! And wondered about the sheriffs depts. warning that “Jack, those Hall boys are going to kill all your hounds and they are going to kill you.” I had thought at the time the lieutenant told me this, that the idea was ridiculous as I didn’t at the time even know anyone named Hall.
I went on a drunk for 12 years. I never got another hound, I never set another trap, I never hunted at all. I bought an old motorcycle and in the evenings after working all day roofing and then getting drunk as usual, rode up to this beer joint way out in the country. The boxcar, was an old boxcar off a train, turned into a beer joint. It sat out under some trees by itself. It was my kind of place. For 12 years I saw how much beer a man could drink. I cried a lot, and just listened to music at home, or played my accordion. I didn’t talk to anybody and I had no friends. My hounds were all dead and they really suffered before they died. My mind was just not registering what was happening. It was 12 years later that one night coming home from the boxcar everything just went black! The next thing I knew… I heard the voice of God… saying, “Jack, you have been hurt pretty bad, yes you are in really bad shape, but you are not quite dead so you are going back to the world. First there is someone you might want to see. They want to see you real bad they have been waiting and they are right here. I looked over to the right, I knew which direction to look somehow. I looked over and there was Joe! Cotton Joe! My old hound the brother of Sue May and the best dog I ever had [besides her}.
Joe’s eyes were full of tears and he told me telepathically, “ I can’t believe you are still grieving for us after all these years.” “I have been 2-3-4 dogs since then! I don’t really even remember.” You never got another hound, you never set another trap, you never hunted at all! You ride that motor up to that beer joint and you sit on the back porch alone. You don’t talk to anyone and you don’t have any friends! And your getting old! I can tell! You are much older looking than you were when I was alive. And you are missing your life!
And it hurts me! Get you some hounds and go hunting. I’d be there with you if I could but I can’t! And I woke up!
‘ I didn’t know where I was. I thought to myself, this was not my room, this isn’t my bed! It was quite a while before I realized that this was a hospital room.
I was in a bad motorcycle wreck last night! But it was not last night, it was five weeks ago! Where’s my motor! Was my second thought. My motor was gone. It had been sold over a month ago! What was left of it. My house was all dirty and unkept, I couldn’t recognize my own my handwriting, it was not mine. I was a different person. My neck had been broken, three vertebras were broken. My right shoulder had been crushed. I was in a coma for five weeks and the hospital for five months.
I was and am a different person. It was not an accident! I was murdered!
Another time I was riding old Thunder home and as I came around the bend and to the bottom of the road to my house, I saw another unusual site. Usually there was not much activity at midnight. But tonight was different. There were dozens of cars parked everywhere! Cop cars, horse trailers, and people everywhere!
I pulled up to a kid who was standing at the corner and asked ”what the heck’s going on! The kid said some kid got lost and everybody was looking for him.
I said that I would get my light and help out and put old Thunder in gear and went on up to the end of the road. I unlocked my gate pulled through, and locked it back.
As I was driving up to my house I noticed lights out in the woods but didn’t care as the lights were obviously from searchers. I was in a good mood and cruzing home and I had some high dollar tequila and some controa to mix me a real margarita when I got there.
As I came around the bend and saw my house. I also saw about ten people shining lights in my windows and calling that kids name! And I went in an instant from being in a pretty good mood to the maddest mother f**ker who ever drew breath. I parked old Thunder in the barn. Walked up to my house and yelled, GET YOUR GOD d**n f**kIN ASSES OFF MY PORCH!
And who’s in charge here? Get your ass out here! Right now!
A bunch of white trash I had never seen before came out and the one doing all the talking was… you guessed it. Robert Hall!
I was surrounded and handcuffed and didn’t care as I thought it probably was a good idea. It would keep me from killing them all and as such, would keep me out of jail.
I could have slipped my hands around my feet and in front of me if I wanted to so I was in no danger. I was pretty mad.
These idiots searched my pockets, read everything in my billfold, and prowled around through my pockets for fifteen minutes. When about that time two black sheriff deputies showed up.
They however stayed out of the circle of my flood light, back in the dark. And were talking in low tones to each other and over their radio.
Now your going to get it! Where’s that kid! nuts like that was being thrown at m
I wrote these stories for my Judge, therapists, and Doctors.
The class too, they loved them.
The wreck of the Sugar May
As told to Judge Holland disability judge
Judge Holland: Jack tell me about your horses.
Me: Well Dolly May is the boss horse.
She is the smartest and the best gated of all of them.
She is a brown mare, about 15 hands.
Dolly May is a perfectly well gated saddle mare.
Sitting on Dolly is as comfortable as sitting at home on your own couch whether she is walking,
trotting, galloping, or at a dead run.
Dolly May is not friendly though, she is haughty, surly, aloof even.
She is as I said the boss horse.
Yet I have never fallen off Dolly.
She is very smart and too smart for that.
Dolly is brown, and I say brown because a horse can not have even one brown hair
and still be called black.
And Dolly has a few brown hairs so even though she looks black out in the pasture,
she is technically brown, we’ll call her light black.
Judge: “light black!”
Now the other mare is Sugar May, uh no relation. {laugh}
“Well I’ve had a May series, Sugar May and Dolly May are horses,
Sue May, and Katy May were hounds,
I have also had a Belle series,
I looked down and kind of got misty,
Bonnie Belle was a beautiful hound,
Her broken leg was just healed from falling off her dog house
when she was a puppy.
She was shot by the same people who killed me.”
“Gut shot, I found her three days later,
a crawling pile of maggots,
she was still sitting up but her head was down and she was dead.”
Sugar May is 15 hands…
Jack they are kind of small for you.
Well sir, if they were any taller I couldn’t get on them as I ride bareback and hardly ever use a saddle.
Saddles are expensive hard and cold,
I would lots rather have a nice cheap,
soft and warm horse to sit on especially in the winter.
OK go on.
Yes sir, Sugar May is a Tobiano paint,
meaning more then 50% white.
Long tail that comes all the way down to the ground.
Long mane that I have to trim or it gets in her eyes.
So they look just like bangs.
She is also a good horse but not well gated like Dolly May.
Sugar May walks and gallops well but riding her at a trot will beat you to death.
She is close coupled and heavier than Dolly.
Sugar Mays personality is the opposite of Dolly’s in that Sugar is friendly as she can be!
She is so sweet that lots of times when Marci
{my girl friend}
has her two six year old nieces over,
and they love petting the horses and feeding them cookies.
I have let Sugar in the den just saying don’t stand behind her
or where she cannot see you.
And they loved it and Sugar does too.
Sugar would stand in the den on the carpet and eat cookies
and be petted and made a fuss over all day if I would let her.
However Sugar May is not real smart.
She is a good horse of course and I would ride her anywhere.
But between her and Dolly I would say Sugar is,
basically not real smart.
I have fallen off of Sugar May in some famous wrecks!
Judge: “Tell us about one of the wrecks, Jack.”
Once we were riding my trap line
Sugar and I back in 86-87 or so.
Usually I ride Red my mule,
but this morning Sugar wanted to go.
Sugar had wanted to run all morning.
The weather was cool and she wanted to run.
I would tell her,
“Sugar we are in the woods and there are trees everywhere and we can’t run back in here.
Slow down!”
All morning I had to rein her in as she was really frisky as if to say:
“I can be every bit as good of a trap line horse as Red!”
“I’ll show you.” Slow down Sugar!
Please.
Well we ran the line and were done and were on top on the highest hill around,
at the end of the line facing north and resting
and letting Sugar cool off before the walk home.
We could see trucks over to the west on IH 35 going north and south,
and trucks over to the east on IH 45 as the leaves were all down
it being winter.
We could also see a perfect view of the Dallas skyline the weather was cool and clear, and it was a fine day. I said “Sugar May!
“And her ears turned back towards me as if to say “Yes boss”
I said, “Do you want to run?” “And she said, “ Well yes as a matter of fact I do!”
My lawyer laughed and
The judge’s secretary said Jack wait!
How did she say that?
“It was basically a rhetorical question,”
“She had been saying that all morning,
I knew she wanted to run, now pay attention please.”
Judge Holland had caught it too being a horseman himself,
and smiled.
Judge Holland told his secretary.
“He’s right, Sugar had been saying all morning that she wanted to run.”
How?
“By wanting to run!
He just said that he had been reining her in all morning! Now pay attention!”
“Jack, go on.”
“Sugar May do you want to run and she said
“yes, lets go”
so… I screamed!
Haaaahhh!!
And off we went!
Down the big hill towards the pond and the trail home.
We were going all out,
Sugar was going to show me how good of a runner she was!
We ran down the hill and over these terraces built in the early twentieth century to control erosion.
We were really going,
and as I usually do before we hit the woods,
I checked the bridal.
About then I realized that I had put Red’s bridal on Sugar which would not have been a problem if we were walking but now that we were running fast and were about to hit the woods was a big problem. The bridal on a horse when you pull back on the reins tightens a chain that hangs down under the horse’s chin.
This chain in turn tightens on their lower lip,
and this has the effect like picking up a cat by the back of the neck, it gets their attention.
Well Red has a big head being a mule!
Sugars bridle chain was so loose that I knew,
I had no control over her whatsoever! And was considering whether to jump now that we were not in the woods yet,
or to try and slow her down,
which I did not consider for long as it would have ruined the best run we had had in a long time and for no purpose because Sugar was not going to stop. Or just enjoy it!
Jump or enjoy it?
Looking down at the ground rushing past
I decided to just let her run.
So it was good I did not have a saddle on.
{I did have a saddle pad without stirrups}
We went under some big pecan limbs that were so low if I could not have laid right down on her back my head off to the side and actually below her back. I would have been knocked off for sure. Lots of times we would be crossing the same area during rainy weather when the whole area we had just crossed was under water, I remember having Sugar May swim!
Swim, where I lie down on her back and holding on to her mane and let her actually swim across to the dxxx.
She knows where we are going.
But then it is not so easy to find the trail,
it does not look the same,
Sugar would go to the right and try to climb up,
then back to the left and scramble around and getting her foxxxng finally get up on the dxxx.
This day however it was dry and we crossed the old dry pond and pounded up the dxxx like she was secretariat,
across the dxxx and just as we were almost to the trail
down the other side through the old pecan orchard
and up the road home,
she took a hard 90 degree left turn.
And this time she did not tell me anything!
Just one second she was there and the next she was going hard left and that put a spin on me so I was flying through the air backwards!
Time sort of slowed down.
And I thought I was going to die.
Sugar was still really going and I remember thinking,
“Sugar, why are you going that way?
What can you be thinking?
We have never gone that way!
I was wondering what Sugar May could possibly have been thinking.
All I could hear from Sugar May was fading hoof beats
and bustin brush!
Sugar was really going!
“Fading hoofbeats and bustin brush,
J. Frank Dobie”
the judge said to his secretary.
I was wondering what would happen
when I hit whatever I was going to hit.
If I hit a tree with my head it would crush my skull
and kill me outright!
And if I did not hit it solid but sort of a off center glancing blow!
It would not kill me outright but that would be worse
as I probably would be paralyzed or brain dead.
I would lay out in the rain and cold with no food or water
for a week or two before anyone found me if they ever did.
The Judges secretary said
Jack” wait, what was happening while all this you are telling us about now was going on”
“ I was flying through the air!”
All this time!
“Yes! I said that time stood still now please,
pay attention and don’t interrupt,
really I’ll forget what I’m talking about.
Really, I will completely loose my train of thought,
please don’t interrupt.”
“Anyway, it was a beautiful January day out on the trap line,
I was flying through the air backwards,
time was on hold, so to speak.
{as it were}
Time was on hold!
Judge Holland said with great mirth.
And about this time a broken arm or leg was looking good,
it really was!
In fact,
If God would have come down right then with his clipboard,
and said:
Ok “Jack, broken leg or arm but no worse,
sign on the line.”
I would have signed it in a second,
with no hesitation whatsoever!
I would have gone for that one.”
The Judge smiles.
About that time however I hit the ground!
Boom!
Judge: “Jack did it knock you out?
“I don’t think so.
Secretary: well you would have known if it had knocked you out!
Well not really,
I was in the hospital and woke up from my motorcycle wreck
and realized that I was in the hospital
but I thought to myself:
“I was in a bad motorcycle wreck last night.”
But it was not last night but 5 weeks before!
When one is knocked out one doesn’t know anything.
Before the motorcycle wreck, and asked the same question,
I would have said no, I was not knocked out
and that is probably true but now I realize if I was knocked out
at the time I wouldn’t know it now.”
Judge, ok, Jack go on.
I hit the ground hard and it knocked the breath out of me!
The first and most important thing to me was air!
As I was breathing hard anyway,
so in a minute I got my breath back.
I got some air in my lungs and then began to take stock
of what had happened.
I had not hit a tree, but had hit the ground on the downhill slope, which was good.
I realized that my feet were higher than my head,
I was hanging in the vines.
And as I pulled myself out of the briars
and stood up and looked around,
I saw that I had landed in the biggest thicket of sticker vine,
saw briars.”
I looked at the Judge and went on in my story teller tone of voice, with a serious look in my eye,
“THAT ANY MAN EVER SAW!”
This got a laugh from the Judge!
“ that any man ever saw indeed!”
*{the Yearling}”
I tore my way out of all the vines as I was really in them!
and limped towards home,
I started walking towards home,
not worrying about the gates now that I was on foot.
I limped through the woods,
and came out at a place where I could see Sugar May
standing on one side of water mill road,
her blue saddle pad hanging down on her belly.
And Dolly May and Red standing on the other side of the road
on my land keeping her company.
I came out of the woods limping and did not say anything.
Sugar turned and looked at me as if to say,
” Where have you been?”
And as I made the appearance to the judge of lifting my sleeve with my right hand and looking at my watch and then holding my hands out palms up, “
“I thought we were going riding?”
This got another comment from the judge’s secretary
about that talking horse but I don’t remember it.
I just limped over got Sugars bridle and halter in my hand and limped home down the hill to the gate
we were supposed to come through anyway,
and home.
I did not yell at her or even hit her.
I was not really even mad.
That’s just Sugar May.
And the judge laughed and said to his secretary
something about what a perfect understanding of horse psychology that was.
That’s going in the book!
And how pintos are just that way!
“I have owned pintos!”
That’s exactly the way they are.
That’s pintos and paints!
He said to her with a big smile,
his eyes wide like saucers and looking right at me.
Jack, the Judge said,
What about your mule?
Well sir old Red is a red appaloosa jenny mule.
She is about 14 hands and a perfectly trained coon hunting
saddle mule!
Perfectly trained when I bought her!
And I paid more for Red $750.00,
than both other horses put together.
Jack why do you have two horses besides your mule,
you can only ride one at a time?
“Well, A. L. Brimer who sold me Red said that old Red
won’t stay around if you don’t have any other horses.
She will jump the fence and go till she finds a horse,
or even a donkey.
And stay there as she gets lonesome
and won’t stay in a fence by herself.
So I bought the other two horses as pets for Red.
“She has carried a rider and nine! Coon,
out of the Sabine river bottoms in one night!
She will automatically turn without being told
and ride to the sound of barking hounds.
I would jump on old Red tomorrow, and ride up to Denver!
Bareback, no problem.
Jack, the judge asked, how long would that take?
800 miles, 400 hours riding time,
umm two months.
The Judge laughed out loud.
Two months! To go to Denver!
Two months ha ha
“I could drive up to Denver after lunch!
Judge Holland and his secretary carried on so long laughing
and saying thing’s like I could walk to Denver
in two months myself!
I said after listening to them for a few minutes,
“Well if you are in a big hurry, take a bus!”
This brought on another fit of laughing,
and even the judge’s secretary loved that one!
Judge, “ A bus a bus!
How long would that take!
Three days?”
Me: “Well that’s about right,
“But it’s better than two months!”
Why don’t you take your car!
“ If I wanted to go to Denver I would take my truck,
it would be faster and cheaper.
I would need a thousand dollars just for food if I rode Red,
as it is a long way!
But if I wanted to ride Red to Denver she would make it!
That was the point I think.”
I got the disability.
Thank you
jacksknifeshop.tripod.com
Now, when I was 'dead' and checked out by the policeman
the next morning, {7 years ago}
and reported dead.
{They can't change a police report, so I guess I am still dead...}
I remember God reading my memorys,
and focusing on the breath cloud story.
He 'musta liked that one' because
he specifically sent me back to experiance more .
J. Winters VonKnife
{need a knife?}
The Breath Fog Story
We were out hunting one night
and the dogs bayed a coon down on the creek.
When I got there they were down in the 40’ creek bottom.
I could see them raising hell
and as I tried to shoot,
a dog would get in the way!
I would wait till an opportune moment
and raise old squirrel grabber
and a dog would get in the way!
The battle would rage on, the coon was surrounded
and the dogs were howling enough to wake the dead!
I would see an opening and this time as I raised old grabber…
A strange thing happened.
It was fog!
I couldn’t see to shoot so I moved around and saw a shot
and raised my .22 and again!
I couldn’t see!
I repeated this over and over.
Finally I thought to myself 'what the fxxx'!
I had been absorbed by the action going on
and had not really paid attention.
I wondered why a fog would be here and not there.
I stopped and looked down the upper creek bank
and saw four or five little clouds!
They were not moving or disipating,
they were just sitting there!
I realized they were breath clouds
and they were my frozen breath
but with no wind they would not move,
they just floated there,
four or five little clouds,
3'-4' in diameter,
all in a row!
The 'breath clouds' were one of the most beautiful
and unusual sights I had ever seen
and I have been hunting 46 years!
I don't remember if we got that coon or not,
but I will always remember the 'breath clouds'.
It was late at night and I had my hardhat on,
with the light in front, my 'Night Light'.
And that was how I saw the 'breath clouds'.}
{In the erie light of the 'Night Light'.}
J. Winters VonKnife
‘and Sandymay’
The story of the Drinking Snake
Rehab, 2001, there I was.
We were given work to do but unfortunately like every other class thing, the work was geared to the lowest common denominator. Our therapist Louis would tell us to write a paper on something like “ what I did yesterday in rehab.”
I would point out to him that we didn’t do anything worth writing about, we sit and stare at the wall and pick our nose all day,
drool, fart. Louis! What is there to write about!
Give us something more interesting!
And Louis would say, “ Jack some of the people are Mexicans that don’t speak English that well, or not as well educated as you,
since it is a class we have to pick projects that are easy for everybody.
At that point me being a loner and it was beginning to be rather obvious why, I decided to pick my own subject.
I would write on whatever I wanted to.
I have it!
The story about a fishing trip I went on with a friend from grade school and his dad. Randy Gibson and his father old Harry were my friends since the 4th grade.
Randy was the person who got me interested in hunting and fishing, trapping and the woods in general.
I met Randy as I said in the 4th grade.
Another friend Greg Cook told me in the hall between classes, at Mark Twain elementary school
{Greg was kind of snotty nosed}
Hack Hoonier!
He said in the hall one day,
I know a kid who has three B.B. guns!
And that was news to a fourth grader back then!
Three guns!
To me this was incredible!
We went over to his house after school on our bicycles.
And he not only had three of his older brothers B.B. guns,
Randy had traps!
Cages! And lived right by the woods.
I had made a friend for life!
And his father, old Harry, took us hunting many times. He would take us to the cedar crest viaduct a bridge over the Trinity River. He would sit in his car and Randy and I would hunt with our pellet guns, and later our .22’s or our shotguns.
All day on Saturday we would roam the woods, and hunt rabbits, squirrels, pigeons, shoot old bottles and generally just be kids.
But we were grown up and could drive now,
and as Harry was getting older and Randy and I were determined to show old Harry a good time, so we decided to go fishing. I knew of a pond down by Hillsboro,
the Doctors Pond as we called it.
The Doctors Pond was owned by some doctor who lived in California and we knew no one cared if we fished there.
One day Randy, old Harry and I drove down to the Doctors Pond and got the johnboat out of his truck and launched it. We started fishing and were doing good
till we began to run out of bait.
I volunteered to go and look for some bait so Randy dropped me off at the bank and he and his dad kept fishing.
It was early in the spring and there was not much bait to be found.
I turned over a few old rotten logs and found some grubs. I was not doing well and was about to give up when I saw over on the other side of this slew a frog!
I got pretty excited because a frog was enough to keep us fishing the rest of the day. I needed a stick to help me keep my footing crossing the slew and found one. About six feet long and straight enough, so I started wading over to the other side.
About half way across I noticed a snake swimming in the slew in the same direction as the frog!
Soon I realized the snake and I were after the same thing,
the frog!
I hurried up and tried to cross over ahead of the snake
but the snake beat me to it and started swallowing the frog whole!
I got to the other side and slipped the stick under the snake and flipped him up on the bank, walked up to him,
put my foot on him,
picked him up by the neck and choked that frog out of him,
put it in my pocket.
I looked the snake in the eyes,
medium sized water snake,
took my flask of Scnapps out and took myself a drink.
Then poured the snake what I figured was a belly full, sort of as a consolation prize,
I knew it was not as good as a whole frog, it wouldn’t fill his belly, but it would make him feel better. Then I threw the snake back in the slough and went back to where Randy and his dad were fishing and… About that time my therapist Louis had somebody come in and had to talk to them,
so he said Jack!
I realized what he was going to say and at the last moment said “ AND THERE I WAS…”
as I had an idea.
Louis said Jack hold it and I ‘ll be right back,
as soon as Louis took care of this opportune distraction,
I was pretending to be even more absent minded then I actually am.
Marty the dart cop, told some one else behind me,
“This is a set up!” “He said OK Jack, sorry, go on.“ I stared at the floor, and scratched my chin,
and seemed to be not remembering were I was.
I said “I don’t have any idea what I was talking about”
and turned behind me and said does anybody back there remember?
And as if on cue, Marty the dart cop said,
“ you said “and there I was,”
and I thought to myself
{Perfect!}
Oh yeah!
I got that story tellers gleam in my eye,
looking out at the horizon, paused, and started…
“There I was, surrounded, … by hoards… of howling savages!” {gleam} so I { bending my elbow and putting my hand over my head and to the back of my neck, }
Unsheathed my bowie knife!
Held the imaginary foot long knife,
point, up and down like I was feeling the weight.
Without looking back,
flipped the knife perfectly catching it again behind my back,
“I heard Marty say,
{ How impressed he was with how I caught the non-extant knife perfectly.}
and bringing it up to my mouth, saying
“lets party” and spitting on the blade. “And hacked my way!”
Through a solid wall, of human flesh!
hah! hah! hah!” Swallowing hard and gasping,
panting and with my favorite crazy look in my eye,
and adding after quickly looking down at my left arm as if to see if that canoe was there in my arm, and pulling my arm up as if to be holding it.
“Dragging my canoe behind me!”
Gazing ahead in the distance.
Miss Cathy burst into a laughing fit,
saying I remember that!
I remember that!
I was 12 years old, and it was my birthday!
“I was 12 years old!!!
I was 12!
I ain’t gona tell ya’ll how old I is,
but but… but…
My moma took me and my friends to the picture show!
It was my birthday!
It was over 50 years ago!!!!
I ain’t heard that since I be 12 years old. I went to the movie with my mom and all my friends,
and we saw that in some old movie!
It’s been over 50 years!
She couldn’t hardly breath she was laughing so hard. That old white man!
What’s his name? He was always drunk! Some old white man like left over from Vaudville!
Marty the dart cop, said W.C.Fields.
And miss Cathy said That’s him!
It’s been over 50 years!
I still remember it.
Ha ha…
“dragging my canoe behind me!”
Silence, bewilderment, and a confused stare….
And a long pause.
I was relishing this long pause!
I was thinking, ” I’d show them how to tell a story, “
after a while the class was getting nervous at the silence
and they were beginning to talk among themselves.
I looked to the left at Louis,
and he was naturally looking at me with a strange expression,
“oh! I’m sorry!
Wrong story!
Wrong story!”
See, it was one of my setups!
And Marty caught it!
“And there I was,” I went on,
“standing on the bank as Randy and his dad paddled up in the boat.” I got in and we cut the frog up for bait and kept on fishing. We were doing pretty good,
and old Harry was drunk by now and having such a good time!
The fishing trip was a success and everybody had a good time. It was getting late and the evening was beautiful. We were letting old Harry use most of the bait and we had a mess of fish,
I became aware of a tapping on the boat. I realized I had been hearing it for a while but had not really noticed. {Tap bump}
and I realized that we were in a grassland pond and there were no trees,
no sticks on the shore or anything that could be floating in the water to make a sound like that.
tap bump
I became curious and looked over the starboard beam,
and there was that snake!
“And I knew it was the same snake
because it had a frog in his mouth!”
I couldn’t believe I was witnessing this!
“It was a profound display of intelligence from a mere reptile!
A snake!
And a young one at that,
it was at most a year or two old! He was looking me right in the eyes!
He knew just what he wanted!
“He had gone right out and caught another frog,
and swam out to out boat,
probably the only boat that had ever been on that pond, he knew right where we were. And he had been beating that frog’s head on the side of our boat for 10-15 minutes!
Trying to get out attention!”
I felt bad, “I just didn’t snap.” Old Marty said beating the frog’s head on the boat! And I said well, “he was a snake!
He didn’t have hands,
or arms either! How was he to beat on the boat anyway? With his own head, and swimming with a half pound frog in his mouth? Come on Marty!” I leaned over,
pretending to look down over the side of the ‘boat.’ “He was a smart little snake!
Looking me right in the eye,
Just a year or two old at most!” Louis was looking intently and had a curious expression on his face. “He wanted to trade!” And Louis got it and smiled. “Yep he wanted him another drink!
Smart as a whip he was!
And a young one at that!”
The whole class was laughing now and it was a solid laugh!
It felt good!
I had pulled another one off!
Louis was saying ooohhh! Nnnoo!
Shaking his head, and looking down,
I don’t believe it!
Louis said, “ Jack, what’s the name of that story?
The drinking snake?”
And I said, “It doesn’t have a name,
but that’s about as good a name as any.”
Yep, a natural born storyteller I am,
I listened to the laughter,
and was still looking down over the side of the {boat}
as the laughter was dying down. I shook my head and said “yeah,
I guess that snake would have kept us in frogs all night,
Pause, and then said, you know, as long as the Scnapps held out.”{laughter}
And then, “or unless the snake got too drunk and passed out!”{laughter}
“ I would have liked to have taken that snake home for a pet,” Laughter. Long pause,
“But I didn’t have no pond.”
Marty the cop was laughing hard,
and said when he had calmed down
“ why didn’t you take the pond home too?
Laughter!
“I listened till he had laughed him self out,
and was quieting down,
and threw in with a friendly manner,
“Come on, Marty,
that’s kind of silly.”
And he laughed at that too,
good old Marty.
J. Winters VonKnife
7-14-03
B B GUNS 'The Way' to Mastermarksmanship
Gentlemen,
B.B. guns's
Hell yes!
30 years ago, age 25...
I lived in an old farm house on 40 acres, {$85. rent}.
Me and my young hounds hunted squirrels all the time.
They were not 'coon-broke' yet however
so we hunted during the day.
Every night after dinner as I sat
'in the kitchen'
with my BB gun right right beside me,
and I would get a few beers in me,
and was feeling good,
I would pick up the gun and shoot at targets
'thumb tacked' to a cardboard box with magazines in it
'for a backing'.
I'd shoot and shoot,
mostly during the T.V. commercials.
{The targets were pages torn from old magazines
with peoples faces on them}
When the TV would come on I would usually stop.
Boys, this went on and on,
for years, I would empty the BB gun,
get the BB's back out of the box and shoot them again,
and again and again.
Right eye!
blap
got him! ...
{Chink-chink}
Nose...
blap
Perfect!
Take the magazines out of the box,
the BB's all roll to the corner of the box
and can be just poured into ones hand.
I not only got pretty good I became a mastermarksman!
The ammuniton didn't cost anything!
Before I left the '40 acres',
I was using thumb tacks for targets
in the back yard with my old Browning .22.
{Which I still use by the way}
I have shot guns basically all my life,
since I was in the fourth grade.
From friends old, weak, 'hand-me-down' BB guns,
so weak I could see the BB as it went up and up,
towards the first bird I ever shot,
a dove,
and I hit it!
It flapped and flapped down to the ground and my friend went over
and picked the dove up,
and pulled its head off and put the dove in his pocket,
saying:
"Lets go get another one"!
Hmmmm...
We went from BB guns to pellet guns,
.22's, shotguns...
the usual learning process for a kid or young man.
When I moved to where I live now,
and broke my back trying to load a truck full of dirt in 15 minutes
{before dark} my back muscles tore and I could hear them tear!
I was out of work in the lawn sprinkler business forever
but I started hunting again.
Trapping and hunting with my hounds,
{the same ones}
Shooting became more than a sport,
it became a living.
I was in the backyard shooting 'sawn off pieces of 2" x 4" 's'
off a horizonal 2" x 4" nailed to a stump range 37 yards,
with my Browning .22 auto.
My usual target practise.
I was drunk and with 'a broken gun',
{it did wobble pretty bad}
the stock and barrel held together with wire.
I knocked down 12 'blocks',
{the capacity of my tubular magazine}
in 27 seconds, loaded one round underneath the old Browning
and knocked the last one off, which was laying on its side.
Opening the breech and blowing out the barrel smoke
Whooosh
without taking my eyes off the targets.
{Bow}
{Thank you}
I threw three beer cans
{with the last mouth full of foam in them to give them some weight.}
In the air and hit two.
"Two out of three".
"I said as I dropped the can and walked inside
shaking my head"
.
{Boys I thought I was alone in my back yard
but I was being filmed!}
A year or so later I found out what happened.
And 'my shooting' ...
was what was being investigated.
That was what impressed the Lt. the most.
The can trick.
I told him it was just a trick.
The can goes up,
and stops...
for an instant before it begins its fall.
The trick is just to 'shoot at the right time'.
When it is almost at the top of its arc.
It is basically perfectly still,
like it was siting on a stump.
"You drank three more beer while you were shooting,"
the Sheriff's Lt. told me later.
And 'unbeknownst to me', till then
had been 'filmed' doing the shooting,
which was made into a training video
for the Dallas county Sheriffs department Swat Team!
...and is still in use.
"Jack they were screaming at those guys!
They fired six deputies off the swat team that day!
as being such poor shots as compared to you
they considered them hopeless.
They hate you,
ha ha ha...
My disability judge, 30 years later,
said under his breath to his secretary:
"The military criteria for an 'expert marksman',
calls for the ability to hit a human size target at 100 yards,
every 4 seconds.
"Jack can do it in 2.5 seconds."
"Drunk!"
"And with a broken gun."
{"He fell off a cliff one night out coon hunting."}
His secretary turned and asked
"how many times"?
Without taking his eyes off me, and with a big smile,
{as the Judge was ex military and had horses too}
"As long as there are bullets in his gun,
then he knows to load one and then fire one. "
"Indefinately"
"He always knows how many rounds he has in his gun,"
"that swat training film was 25 minutes long "
"and he never dropped the hammer on an empty chamber once!"
Boys, I still feel real proud
'seeing the approval in the Judges eyes'.
Thank you your honor,
sir.
"If I had 100 divisions of men like him I could invade China"
"I mean what are they going to do?"
"The Chinese have thousands of divisions."
"But they won't use nukes on their own soil.
"He can out run them and he can out shoot them."
"We would go from one border to another
stopping only to fill our vehicles and take a leak."
"Eat a sandwich or something,"
"turn around and go back."
Ha Ha...
Anyway, redd_420_20
Hell yes,
I love BB guns,
and was trained by one.
'A daisy.'
Shooting BB guns,
'trains one in all of the basic skills of shooting'.
I have been writing a book about the subject since 2001.
One trains ones self to have the gun in one's subconscious mind.
Its weight, the sights, the ammo,
to not think words to oneself.
To always have the rifle...
and the target in 'ones minds eye'.
Weather you have the gun in your hands or not!
Everything you see for the rest of your life
will be through the sights of your rifle.
Ingrain your rifle sights up 'ones vision'
like an 'plastic overlay' picture...
You don't have to think.
You are then trained.
Thank you
J. Winters von Knife
jacksknifeshop.blogspot.com/
Gentlemen,
Howdy. I was running out my line at the first of the season, 4-5 years ago,
and found a dead cow! right N. E of my N. E. set.
A great big one and fresh!
I was interested, and kept tabs on the old cow,
I would be working out in my knife shop,
and when ever I would hear a big howling it was as often as not right there at the dead cow.
Every day out on the trapline, I would check out the cow,
just walk past, and look...
I never saw a cow ate up so fast!
In three days the head was ate!
In three weeks he was gone, bones left to chew on in the hard winter,
but that was all.
Yup Coyote love a big bait!
Bait pile, dead hog, cow, goat you name it!
A big dead bait is the:
'Party place of the winter'
for old Yote.
Blind trail sets! trap or snare!
for half a mile around the 'bait site'.
Coyote will come,
Luck
J. Winters Von Knife
jacksknifeshop.tripod.com
~ About Death ~
Gentlemen,
Kinda early in the morning for such profoundly beautiful,
moving, surrealistic and 'kinda scary' posts.
But I died myself 7 years ago,
and was actually reported dead,
'Dead'. No breath, no pulse dead!
By the local police department.
So from one who has had first hand experiance in the matter:
Dying ain't so bad it is suffering and pain
associated with the dying that is bad.
My 'death' was an easy one.
I was coming home from the beer joint on 'old Thunder'
my '850 triple'.
{With a kick starter!}
One minute I was riding and the next I was in this bed in a hospital?
{5 weeks later}
Hmmmm?
No one wants to be 100 years old.
{Unless they are 99}
Then it looks 'real good'.
We don't die, our bodys die.
And no one wants to live in an old, sick,
worn out body anyway.
... But we would prefer...
to hang around as long as we can.
As long as we are not suffering too much.
I know I would,
suffering is a drag.
Once we are dead we do not float around on a cloud
till the end of the world, or some such crap.
When we die we wake up.
Really.
We go on,
it is profoundly more interesting than this,
it is where we belong,
not in some animal body which dies.
Now on the other hand I kinda like
whats left of my old animal body
and intend on staying in it as long as I can.
I mean, I have done a lot of work on it educationally and physically.
I want to brew 'mein Bier' and hunt coon.
To have a good garden and make knives.
{Need a knife?}
Our animals have the same spirit as we do.
All life is God.
Every blade of grass had God in it.
Just a little less maybe.
All living things have the spirit.
We all go back to the great spirit when we die
and get reincarnated, whatever.
God spoke to me when I was in my coma
and I am writing a book about it.
But in short he said:
"Jack, get you some hounds and go coon hunting.
Your old dogs would be there with you if they could but they can't!
It hurts me to see you grieving for them 12 years.
Your getting old and you are missing your life.
Get you some hounds and go coon hunting"!
God.
And I woke up in the hospital,
7 years ago.
God sent me back,
and I have my orders.
J. Winters VonKnife
jacksknifeshop.tripod.com/
Trapped!
Randy and I were getting to where we had out grown the little patch of wood around our houses and were wanting to spread out to some new territory.
It was about 1959-60, we had my dad take us to Cedar hill
which back then was uninhabited.
There were no houses and miles of wooded and steep hills.
Lake Joe Pool was built and when I take my old boat out to the lake,
I go right by this old place where we used to get dropped off,
right where one turns left to go to the boat ramp.
I caught my first fox there and it was to us,
a wild and unbroken wilderness!
One Saturday Randy and I were headed out to check our traps,
hunt, and extend our trap lines.
We walked way back from the road along a fence line that crossed ridge after ridge.
It went forever and I never did know how far it went, miles!
We had traps set all along this old fence line and did the usual although I don’t remember much about this particular day till we got to one brush pile.
It was a big pile of old trees and brush,
I climbed into the center of it and started clearing out a place to set a trap. The weather was cold!
There was snow on the ground and it had been there for days.
It was not so cold if we kept our hands in our pockets and kept walking.
I cleared out a place for a big #4 long spring I had as this was a place where I imagined I could catch something big!
And as it turned out I did!
I wired the trap to a limb,
smeared mud all over the chain and limb,
and was setting the trap when it backed up and closed on my thumbs!
It did not hurt because it did not snap,
as I was opening it the old trap, which was a little big for me to be using at eleven years old, just would not open 100%.
I was not quite strong enough to open it all the way.
It backed up and closed on my two thumbs.
I was not alarmed as Randy was there and came over to try and get it off of me. However Randy was not heavy enough or strong enough to open the muddy old #4.
We tried this and that,
I had both thumbs in it and I was basically helpless.
We couldn’t find the wire to unwire it from the old dead limb that I had it wired to, as I had covered with mud and it was invisible! There wasn’t much room to work either.
I was in the middle of a big brush pile,
and I was caught!
We kept trying everything we could think of and we began to see it was useless!
Randy was not heavy enough to depress the springs,
and I couldn’t break it over as my thumbs were in it and was wired into a big log in the bottom of the giant brush pile!
And we couldn’t find the wire that held the tap in there because I had hidden it so good and covered with mud.
We tried and tried,
and the harder we tried the muddier our hands got,
and now it was beginning to really snow.
It was cold now that I was not walking or being able to keep my hands in my pockets, my hands were getting numb and I saw Randy with his hands in his pockets and this worried look,
and he was cold too!
I panicked!
And began to fight the trap!
And pull like a coyote or a coon would!
I was not thinking, I just wanted out!
and I couldn’t get out!
I saw no way to do it!
I couldn’t wait till Randy went back to where my dad was due to pick us up later in the day as it was getting cold and we were miles from the road!
I started flopping around just like I was…
well I was…
a trapped and caught critter!
I was looking just like it,
thrashing around,
yelling and that was doing no good.
I was not being reasonable I was scared and just thrashing around in my death throws.
We eventually got me out I know!
Because I am home writing this 42 years later!
But honestly I don’t remember how we did it.
Boys never wire your trap solid till it is set and ready.
Or at least carry a pair of pliers,
or wire cutters to cut your trap wire if your trap gets you!
Sure would have been a long night if old Randy
had not gotten me out.
The big old #4 long spring had me,
and it is a good trap,
I can attest to that!
J. Knife
Showdown…
“The Coward and the Coon hunter”
This is the story itself, the showdown at dogland. Everything. And it would be a good book a good story. Great!!!
I told the deputy “The first one to shoot would have been a murderer, the second one to shoot would be killing in self defense.” The older deputy said “Jack, you would have died.” “We didn’t mean for you to take a chance like that.“There is no chance that you would have survived.” “You would have lived long enough to kill both of them we know, But you wouldn’t have lived long enough for the ambulance to get here.” I said “ I didn’t care.” The little one was the guy who killed all my hounds, I could see it in his eyes.
I was coming home one night alone as was usual. I drove up to the top of the hill and was almost to my gate over the crest of the hill. As I crossed over the crest of the hill, there was a car parked at the end of the road and right in front of my gate. I didn’t recognize it and as I pulled up, I stopped back of the gate about thirty yards and opened my door and stood outside my truck but behind the door. All this was just out of habit, or… maybe I had a strange feeling about this scene. The driver got out of his car and walked back towards where I was, saying, Jack, it’s Ok, I’m so and so using the name of a neighbor who lives back of my dog pens who’s name I have forgotten., and holding his palms out to show he was unarmed, and smiling. I didn’t like it. He said, I am so and so and I live behind you. I recognized the name and as I had not met the guy but once it sounded plausible.
To this day years later, I don’t know if he was my neighbor or not. The other guy said we are looking for Head lake. I said Head lake is no where around here. And the little guy was real weird but at that point I didn’t care as I noticed something on his dashboard that made me ask if he knew anything about ductwork for air conditioners? And he said yes he did and I invited them to come down to the house as I had some questions to ask about my new duct work project. So they followed me down to my house and I took them up in the attic. We climbed up and I was asking if the bigger guy had a gun that tightens up the plastic straps that hold the ducts on the air boxes. I had to use bailing wire for this one main piece I had up, and I was intending on replacing all the duct work. It was twenty years old and defiantly seen better days.
The bigger guy was saying I did not need to have a gun for it. Just tighten it by hand. The little guy was a pregnant dog and always saying some nutsty remark about everything he saw. I took an immediate dislike to the little guy. I didn’t like him. But I didn’t worry about it.
I thought to myself what the hell are two cowardly white trash gona do?
And forgot it. That was the night that I almost died. *
x His name was Robert Hall and he was trying to win a turkey shoot with four holes in the target instead of the required five. The judge was inexperienced and was intimidated by the bigger Hall who was surly and nutsty. Hall was trying to buffalo the old guy and I did not like that. So I took a hand saying there are only four holes in the target. And the rules call for five. The Hall guy was getting mad and showing all the sign of a psychopathic cowardly killer, which he turned out to be.
One bullet went through the same hole twice! The coward maintained. I told the judge to look at the back of the paper. And the judge turned it around and looked at the back. I said, see the holes?
The judge said yes,
I said see how the paper is busted out around the hole? And how the black marks made by the lead are on the paper?
Judge said yes,
I told the judge that if two bullets had gone through the same hole twice, the hold would be busted out more and the black marks would be different than the other holes. If they all looked the same, then there is no evidence that two bullets went through the same hole as this guy is maintaining. And if there is no evidence that two bullets went through the same hole then they didn’t! And you can’t give this guy the prize as he didn’t win it.
The judge agreed and the guy was furious and said something about my hounds that I didn’t catch, and something else that I did catch. ”I know how to get even with you.”
Later that winter I was out hunting with a friend and as we were walking through some really thick and high grass I did a double take and saw a clump of grass, I mean real grass! And walked right on past hoping my friend who was a pressman for my dad’s print shop didn’t see it. And he didn’t so that night I went back {and it was like right before the first frost, perfect timing to harvest some grass.} and pulled it up and took it home. I was the agent for the landowner Mr. Hash and knew that if the cops found grass on his land it would be very bad. He could get arrested or at the very least loose his land and it was hundreds of acres. I had permission to hunt and trap there from Grady Summerall the man who leased it for cows. Grady was a friend and a good man, and Grady was kind of old, so I knew he wasn’t likely to find this pot patch and it might cause the owner some trouble so I pulled it up, took it home and smoked it.
The next time my girlfriend and I were down hunting with the dogs we saw a car parked where no cars ever park. As it was right in front of our path anyway I was curious and the guy was you guessed it, weird. We walked past and on around the bend in the creek and saw the same bad shot from the turkey shoot! He was the grower and was wondering where his grass went. Just then the dogs treed a squirrel and I said hey, you want to shoot it? as he was right there. My girlfriend said that as I stood ready to grab the squirrel when it fell, my back to him. The weird guy pointed his .22 rifle at the back of my head with a crazy look in his eye, and held it on me for a long time, but my back was turned and I was unaware of it at the time. Then he shot the squirrel and we left. I had showed them my game pocket and it was full of rabbits and squirrels. I don’t even remember how many, two or three each.
It was later, on the way home that Mary told about the guy pointed the .22 at my head! She was scared and her voice was shaking. To me it just did not compute, so I let it go.
x I was trying to play some bluegrass music for the only one of the two who seemed human. And the runt would just not shut up! What’s this and what’s that! d**n!
I kept trying to play the tape machine, and didn’t think about earlier, the runt pulling my pistol out of its holster where had it nailed to the couch. Before we even went into the attic, the runt pulled my pistol out of it’s holster on my couch and checked the loads 3-4 times. He had checked the loads over and over. I didn’t care that this guy was messing with my guns, it was stupid and rude to do so but he was obviously stupid and rude, so what. I saw no threat to me at the time so I did not expect what was soon to happen, happening in my lifetime! While I was up in the attic asking the big guy about my duct project I could hear the runt going through every drawer in my house. Every drawer and cabinet, and I asked the bigger runt hey! What’s that guy doing down there? He looked about as innocent as a niger and said oh, I don’t know.
I said let’s get down, and the guy said, I like it up here! Slam went a cabinet in the kitchen. I stood up pointed down the stairs, and said, “If you are not down those steps by the time I count to three, I will throw your f**king ass down that hole, ONE! And the guy went down the stairs like a rabbit! He was down before I even got to two! *
What kind of loads do you have in this gun?
That one? nuts! I turned the music off and went over to the wall and grabbed a shotgun and said well, come on out on the back porch, and I’ll show you. As I reached the door, and turned the knob, I had taken the shotgun off the rack and the barrel went up. It was pointed up from the time the gun left the rack. I swung the door open a bit and saw the reflection of the runt standing with a pistol pointed right at my back! He was crazy eyed and his hands were shaking! He was aiming my .22 H&R nine shot revolver right at my back and I could see it so well that I could almost tell where the bullet would hit me. I was thinking below my right pectoral through my right lung.
This cowardly white trash did not even know which side my heart was on. I just relaxed and stood there. I was going to be shot and when it happened I would turn and shoot the runt with my shotgun, my single shot break barrel H.& R ,12ga.
Reload and kill the other guy. I had no time to think, I instantly made up my mind that there was no time to do anything else but act! I was alert, and waiting for that shot! Would I hear it, or feel it first? I had no idea not ever having being shot before. But whatever happened I would kill the runt unless he shot me through the head. Then the other guy. There was no time to think. When I heard or felt the shot, I would kill the runt who shot me. Then I would reload the old break barrel in two seconds, and the second shot had been practiced for 40 years. I would kill them both before I went down.
It was programmed in. The big guy moved to his right and saw his reflection and that of the runt in the door. He could see that I could see the runts reflection perfectly, and he could see the look in my eyes. He went over to warn the runt! “He can see you!” I heard him whisper.
He grabbed the runts arm and straightened his arm pointing the pistol down and away from my back. And the runt aimed it at my back again I over heard something about “But he’ll cut you into with that shotgun.”
Time went by and I was doing a repair on some guy’s lawn sprinkler system. I did a good job and the guy who I had met through my gym, said Jack, you could be doing much better than this. So I went to work for him selling roofs. I was the only salesman who spoke Spanish well, and as all out roofers were Mexicans I was in real demand. I went to Denver in 89 and sold 200k worth of roofs in 7.5 months at 9% commission. I lived in the office at first and one day a new guy came in. He was a lazy stupid smoker, he had no money and I was told to train him to sell roofs. I took him around all day had to buy him lunch as he had no money. And the guy smoked in my truck after being asked not to. I bid on 10 wood shake roofs in one day, cold calling! And tried to show the weird guy what to do. But it was years later that I recognized him. It was Robert Hall going under a different name. One day I walked in my room, where I lived at the roofing company and there he was! Looking around inside my room! I had not recognized him yet at this point and I stood still and watched him. His back was to me he lifted my mattress and looked under it and I said. Hey what the f**k are you doing? He turned around and said I am looking for you. I said under my bed! Get your f**king ass out of here and if I ever see you in here again I’ll break your d**n nose! Now get! The owner of the company came out of his office a few moments later and said Jack this guy says you won’t train him any more and I said he is trained! He has already gotten ten times more training than I got as I had one hour and he’s got ten! And he is on his own! Micky said something, and I said Micky, I’ll go home today, right now, before I let this ass hole in my truck again. You decide right now! Mickey Perry looked at the guy, and said I have never seen Jack so mad before and if he won’t train you, you’ll just have to ride with someone else! The guy was around for a week or so and then was gone.
It was two or three months later that I got a call from Dallas, and was told by my hysterical girl friend that Sue May was dead! I left $8,000.00 on the books as the roofs were not built yet, and went home the next day. I took more money up to Denver than I brought back. Sue May! Dead in her pen in the middle of hunting season! Was it my fault? Was her poor heart was broken? I was destroyed emotionally my heart _was_ broken. I went back home broke and later that month, Katy May got sick and died with all her puppies. Then Joe dog my best male hunting hound was getting skinnier and skinnier and crazy. Three months later he was gone I never found him. One day before Joe died I was talking to my dad, Cotton Joe came up to me and looked into my eyes with such a long look it was a five minute look full of love and sadness, loving and emotionally moving. A piercing penetrating look that made my look right back into Joe’s eyes. We held each other look, for such a long time that my dad who was right there said after Joe left. “What the hell was that all about?” Joe died a week or two later, and I know now that it was Joe saying goodbye to me. He knew he was dying and was saying goodbye. He said in his look that “I have had a good life and all the best times I have ever had were with you boss you were always there.” It was years later that I put it all together, that it was the same guy who after the turkey shoot said, “I know how get back at you.”
Over the next two years all the rest of my dogs were shot! I never found their body’s, One or two no more! I went crazy! And wondered about the sheriffs depts. warning that “Jack, those Hall boys are going to kill all your hounds and they are going to kill you.” I had thought at the time the lieutenant told me this, that the idea was ridiculous as I didn’t at the time even know anyone named Hall.
I went on a drunk for 12 years. I never got another hound, I never set another trap, I never hunted at all. I bought an old motorcycle and in the evenings after working all day roofing and then getting drunk as usual, rode up to this beer joint way out in the country. The boxcar, was an old boxcar off a train, turned into a beer joint. It sat out under some trees by itself. It was my kind of place. For 12 years I saw how much beer a man could drink. I cried a lot, and just listened to music at home, or played my accordion. I didn’t talk to anybody and I had no friends. My hounds were all dead and they really suffered before they died. My mind was just not registering what was happening. It was 12 years later that one night coming home from the boxcar everything just went black! The next thing I knew… I heard the voice of God… saying, “Jack, you have been hurt pretty bad, yes you are in really bad shape, but you are not quite dead so you are going back to the world. First there is someone you might want to see. They want to see you real bad they have been waiting and they are right here. I looked over to the right, I knew which direction to look somehow. I looked over and there was Joe! Cotton Joe! My old hound the brother of Sue May and the best dog I ever had [besides her}.
Joe’s eyes were full of tears and he told me telepathically, “ I can’t believe you are still grieving for us after all these years.” “I have been 2-3-4 dogs since then! I don’t really even remember.” You never got another hound, you never set another trap, you never hunted at all! You ride that motor up to that beer joint and you sit on the back porch alone. You don’t talk to anyone and you don’t have any friends! And your getting old! I can tell! You are much older looking than you were when I was alive. And you are missing your life!
And it hurts me! Get you some hounds and go hunting. I’d be there with you if I could but I can’t! And I woke up!
‘ I didn’t know where I was. I thought to myself, this was not my room, this isn’t my bed! It was quite a while before I realized that this was a hospital room.
I was in a bad motorcycle wreck last night! But it was not last night, it was five weeks ago! Where’s my motor! Was my second thought. My motor was gone. It had been sold over a month ago! What was left of it. My house was all dirty and unkept, I couldn’t recognize my own my handwriting, it was not mine. I was a different person. My neck had been broken, three vertebras were broken. My right shoulder had been crushed. I was in a coma for five weeks and the hospital for five months.
I was and am a different person. It was not an accident! I was murdered!
Another time I was riding old Thunder home and as I came around the bend and to the bottom of the road to my house, I saw another unusual site. Usually there was not much activity at midnight. But tonight was different. There were dozens of cars parked everywhere! Cop cars, horse trailers, and people everywhere!
I pulled up to a kid who was standing at the corner and asked ”what the heck’s going on! The kid said some kid got lost and everybody was looking for him.
I said that I would get my light and help out and put old Thunder in gear and went on up to the end of the road. I unlocked my gate pulled through, and locked it back.
As I was driving up to my house I noticed lights out in the woods but didn’t care as the lights were obviously from searchers. I was in a good mood and cruzing home and I had some high dollar tequila and some controa to mix me a real margarita when I got there.
As I came around the bend and saw my house. I also saw about ten people shining lights in my windows and calling that kids name! And I went in an instant from being in a pretty good mood to the maddest mother f**ker who ever drew breath. I parked old Thunder in the barn. Walked up to my house and yelled, GET YOUR GOD d**n f**kIN ASSES OFF MY PORCH!
And who’s in charge here? Get your ass out here! Right now!
A bunch of white trash I had never seen before came out and the one doing all the talking was… you guessed it. Robert Hall!
I was surrounded and handcuffed and didn’t care as I thought it probably was a good idea. It would keep me from killing them all and as such, would keep me out of jail.
I could have slipped my hands around my feet and in front of me if I wanted to so I was in no danger. I was pretty mad.
These idiots searched my pockets, read everything in my billfold, and prowled around through my pockets for fifteen minutes. When about that time two black sheriff deputies showed up.
They however stayed out of the circle of my flood light, back in the dark. And were talking in low tones to each other and over their radio.
Now your going to get it! Where’s that kid! nuts like that was being thrown at m