Slim Randles' Home Country
Initiation smokes out a badger
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[November 12, 2011]
My first wife came from a ranching family way back up in
the hills of central California and had a cousin, Ted, who was a
hound dog man. This made him akin to Evel Knievel with a pack of
pooches. |
I talked my way into hunting with him, of course. All went well
until we were on the way home, when a badger ran across the road and
dove into a large culvert pipe.
"Oh wow!" Ted yelled. "Let's get him!"
He released most of the hounds and they plugged the culvert pipe
with bawling insults. In the dead center of the pipe was a snarling
badger.
"Gotta smoke him outta there," Ted said, scratching his head as
if in thought. I’d read about smoking things out. Davy Crockett,
bears, that sort of thing, so I was eager to learn. Ted lit a cigar
and handed it to me.
"Now crawl in there and smoke that sucker out," he said.
"You sure?"
"How many badgers you hunted?"
So I crawled into the pipe with the cigar in my mouth, puffing
away and coughing, and the badger actually backed up a few steps.
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Then Ted released his old dog from the car. He screamed into the
other end of the pipe and grabbed that badger in the butt. All I
could see were teeth and fur coming my way.
Using the cigar as an afterburner on my rocket-assisted retreat,
I shot backward out of the pipe and some 20 yards into the brush.
The next day I ran into two old ranchers who looked at me kinda
funny and then asked if I was the guy who tried to smoke out a
badger with a cigar. The laughter hurt.
My wife told me that, since I was now a bona fide member of the
family, I could go hunting with Ted all the time.
After the divorce....
[Text from file received from Slim Randles]
Brought to you by Slim's new book and great
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at
http://www.nmsantos.com/Slim/Slim.html.
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