My first official boy Scout Camping trip was in the fall of 1963 or 1964.  I was probably working on the rank of tenderfoot.

The outing was memorable for three reasons; it was my first overnight with the scouts, the biscuit scandal, and my fight with Jim.

We were at a Forest Service campground not far from our small town.  Since it was public, we shared the campground with a number of civilian campers.  We quickly learned this was a mistake.  No good could come from any fraternization, even incidental.

Deer hunting season was coming soon and many of the campers were hunters from out of the area.  They were conducting reconnaissance missions; learning the lay of the land, finding game and locating sources of supply for groceries, liquor, and ammunition.

Most of the civilians were pretty well off compared to us.  They had RV’s, fancy trucks, new gear and a selection of off road vehicles.  We had army surplus camping gear and hunted in old pickup trucks with our fathers while getting firewood for the winter.

The first morning my friend Rich and I had breakfast duty.  We were assigned to make biscuits.  We made a great bowl of Bisquick batter, and dolloped it out on a large cookie sheet.  As we were walking over to the reflector oven to bake them, I tripped,  dropping the raw biscuits in the pine needles and dirt.  Our Patrol Leader came by, told us to get rid of the mess and whip up another batch.  We had plenty of fixings.

It was still dark, and we could not see well.  Rich and I scooped up the dirty dough and decided to throw it in the bushes rather than wander around looking for a garbage can.  The bears would find it later.  We heard the sickening thump of the projectiles landing on sheet metal. We crept around the brush and found a civilian campsite on the other side of the bushes.  A great wad of sticky, dirty dough was in the middle of the hood on a new four wheel drive truck.

We crept over to wipe it off.  All we managed to do was to smear the mass over the hood and grille of the vehicle.  The situation had gone from bad to worse.  Before we could figure what to do we had to retreat, the civilians were getting up.

We ran back to the camp, started on the next batch; and waited for hell to break loose.

Jim was a new kid in town, my age and seemed to be a fairly decent guy.  He moved a lot because of his dad’s job.  Jim didn’t really know anybody and was trying to fit in, however he could.   He had been showing off a bit on the camping trip.  While Rich and I were cooking biscuits, he decided to show everyone how tough he was.  I was a little smaller than he was and he to picked me as the goat.  He started boxing my ears and I told him to knock it off.  The gauntlet was thrown.  We were starting to draw an audience.  I had a pair of pliers in my hand to move the biscuit pan in the hot oven.  Jim had the advantage of size so I had to improvise.

I quickly reached out with the pliers and got a finger.  He was quickly on his knees bawling in undignified surrender.  I really wasn’t going to remove the finger but he wasn’t sure.   After ensuring that Jim was past any attempt at retaliation, I let him go.

After that morning, the older scouts didn’t seem to haze me as much.

Jim and I ultimately came to be on friendly terms.  He never again tried to bully me, but did occasionally show a mean streak.

Meanwhile, the gods had been smiling over the biscuit dough.  It wasn’t discovered until  the next day when we were breaking camp.  There was a lot of loud talk about vandalism from next door but Mr. Westman and one of the adult leaders, a minister, went over and somehow managed a reconciliation.  The perpetrators were never identified.

On the way home our patrol leader winked at Rich and I and complimented us on our camp biscuits.

I have never really done very well with horses.  Over the years I have come to realize that is as it should be.  Despite their affections, most horse lovers have fared worse.

There are early, vague memories of my Aunt Sara taking me for rides on Dixie around the family ranch in Pittville.  She lulled me into the false belief that horseback riding was fun, and easy.

As a small boy, my heroes were Roy Rogers, Dale Evans, and Trigger.  I wanted to be a real cowboy, with a white horse, six shooters, and drive cattle to Texas.  Not one of those singing cowboys.   By the time I was four I had all the equipment; boots, hat, sheriff’s badge, cap guns and a stick horse.  If you weren’t wearing Wrangler Jeans you weren’t genuine.

I remember telling my Dad I wanted a real horse.  He wanted to know what I was going to feed it, where I was going to keep it and if I wanted to spend my afternoons shoveling… manure.  He grew up on a ranch and much preferred a pickup truck.

I had friends and relatives with horses and got to ride once and a while.  My first solo was on Lady, a little harmless Shetland Pony.  I was about seven.  She ran away with me, rubbed me off under a tree and was gone.

A year or two later I had another chance.  I was given careful instructions about making a rope halter, putting on the bridle, then the blanket and saddle.  As soon as I stepped off the fence into the stirrup, the saddle rolled under the horse where it was promptly kicked off.  My friend calmed the horse and showed me how to cinch the saddle tight, wait till the horse exhaled, knee it in the ribs to make it exhale more; and really tighten the cinch.  I was so engrossed in the process I forgot to watch the feet.  The horse eased over, casually stepped on my foot and refused to move.  I couldn’t get away.   After an eternity my friend got the horse off my foot.  No broken bones but I felt like I was wearing a swim fin for a couple of weeks.

I swear the horse was grinning while standing on my foot.

My Aunt Gail and Uncle Paul lived on a ranch and had a couple of horses.  I decided to saddle up and ride one once, and got as far as the bridle.  I didn’t tie his head close enough to the fence.  When I bent down to pick up the saddle he turned his head, and bit me in the middle of the back.  That ended my ride.  I had a blood blister the size of the palm of my hand to hide from them and my Mom.

I later got to ride that horse with permission.  Uncle Paul helped me saddle him.  The further we got from the barn the slower he went.  When we finally turned back, he ran away with me.  As we neared the gate he ran my leg along the barb wire fence, shredding it pretty good.  I ended up with my first case of blood poisoning with that wound.   I nailed him with a few rocks before opening the gate.  We weren’t on speaking terms back at the barn.

By the time I was in my mid-teens I had a basic skill level for survival horseback riding.  I had adopted no-nonsense tactics.  If their eyes were not wide open with lots of white showing, watching your every move, you did not have their attention or respect.  Sticks were plenty, carrots were rare.  I had also come to realize why cowboys walked funny.

Years later, when I was a Smokejumper, I had a few opportunities to ride.  On rare occasions a packer with a string of horses and pack mules was dispatched to bring us out after we had jumped a fire in a wilderness.  We were eager to have them carry our gear and riding was fun.  Until the next day.  I was so saddle sore I could barely move.  After that I was content to walk while the horses and mules carried the gear.

Just before I went into the FBI, my wife and I were ranch sitting while our friends were on vacation.  A yearling colt was getting aggressive around a bucket of oats my wife was carrying and I backhanded it away.  It whirled and kicked.  I couldn’t get out of the way.  It caught me in the thigh and threw me about fifteen feet into a ditch.  We thought my femur was broken, my thigh had swelled to the size of a large watermelon.  Luckily, it was a bruise.  I had a perfect hoof-print in my leg for several years.  It passed for a tattoo for a long time.

Not long after that event I heard a quote attributed to John Wayne when someone had commented on his good fortune to ride horses as a side-benefit to his career:  “You may love horses but they don’t love you.  Horses are the meanest, nastiest creatures on this earth. They are full of vile treachery and not to be trusted.  If given the chance, they will buck you off, run away, and leave you in the desert to die.”

That day John Wayne became my hero.

Like everyone, I have been thinking a lot about our current political “shutdown” in Washington.   The truth is, we have no one to blame but ourselves.  This is the government that WE elected.  You still have responsibility if you didn’t vote, perhaps more.  We have become so polarized that impasse is the norm.

Our politicians are very smart, they studied Niccolo Machiavelli and Sun Tzu.  They know what they are doing.  They know what plays with the voters back home.  It is all about power, about getting re-elected.  This will only end when the voter starts looking at the big picture.  As long as we vote single issues, this will be our government.

Don’t worry, I am not going to insult or gratify you with my side of the debate.  One thing I learned a long time ago about politics is that everyone has an opinion.  More importantly, nobody is interested in yours (or mine).  There is no such thing as a rational political discussion.  Very soon it gets heated and then people start interrupting or monopolizing the “discussion.”

Offering political opinions, in any setting, particularly social; only turns people off.  The boors just don’t know better.  The bullies know better but take every opportunity to offer their opinion.  The socially inept bombard friends and family with the same rantings camouflaged with the events of the day; then wonder why people avoid them.

News media are the worst.  They are masters of provocation.  They fuel the fire and fan the flames.  Then they report on the behavior of the fools who take the bait.  We forget that their principal objective is to sell themselves, otherwise they go bankrupt.  If they can’t argue the facts, they subvert truth with perception.  Perception can be managed; truth is… inconvenient.

The summer I was twelve I got to go stay with my Grandparents in Salem, Oregon.  They were my Dad’s folks.  The ostensible reason for the trip was so that I could pick strawberries.  I could earn a lot more picking strawberries than I could delivering newspapers.  My brother took over my paper route while I was gone and we all did well.

My Uncle John had picked strawberries, beans, and who knows what else every summer since he was twelve.  He was in the big time now, working the night shift in the cannery.  He was home for the summer after his freshman year at Oregon State.

I worked five days a week and had the weekends off.  Grandma and Grandpa went away for the first weekend.  I slept in a very nice bedroom they had set up with some Japanese screens in the unfinished basement.

On Saturday morning I was sleeping-in when I heard someone creeping down the stairs, suppressing laughter.  I went on full alert.  I heard a thump and a funny noise as something landed on the bed next to me.  It was a cherry bomb!  Uncle John and his buddy Jay, ran back up the stairs while I flipped the thing off of the bed just before it went off.

By the time I got upstairs they were gone.  Jay’s car was parked on the street but they were not to be found.  That was fine with me.  I took a big russet potato out of the pantry and shoved it up the tailpipe of Jay’s car with a broom handle.  It was a Mercedes Diesel.

The gods were smiling.  John still had cherry bombs.  Over spring break he and some college buddies had gone to Mexico.  They had returned with a treasure of cherry bombs and the Holy Grail – M-80’s.  He had been telling stories of what they had done with them in the dorm.  The best part of the deal was that HE had initiated the hostilities.  All I had to do was find them.  It didn’t take long.  They were in an old fishing tackle box.  There were M-80‘s too.  Since it was war, I had no reservations about confiscating the enemy’s entire supply of ammunition.

I waited until Grandma and Grandpa got home, reserved a pocket full, for training purposes; and buried the tackle box under the garbage cans.  I had discovered a lot of other interesting stuff while conducting the search.  A case of Coors Beer was tactically re-located so Grandma would easily find it.  There was other contraband that went to good use.  I was sure to stay under the sphere of my grandparent’s protection when John was around.   I knew the enemy would resort to torture and beatings.  I could take it but preferred to avoid the drama.

One of my favorite pass-times was to drop a cherry bomb in Mill Creek so it drifted into the ducks downstream before it went off.  I got pretty good at it.  It wasn’t very long until the ducks abandoned Mill Creek for the duration.

My buddy and I had a great time.  We had plenty of viable targets.  Before too long the Police patrols increased; we had to cool it.

After a certain point we came to an impasse.  I returned most, well some, of the stash just before I went home.

When I left, Jay’s car was still parked next to the house and hadn’t moved since the potato was stuffed up the exhaust pipe.  A potato can take several weeks to shrivel up and blow out once the engine starts.  It can be tough on batteries.