Have You Ever Wrestled a Fish? All the Guys I Wrestled Did.

I may have already mentioned that my high school appointed a biology teacher we nicknamed "Schnozz" to the Wrestling Head coach position. That's not him (or me) in the pic above. I lifted this from somewhere on the web for the entertainment value.... On with the story--

Now, I had (and still have) a lot of respect for this guy. He taught me a lot in biology and science class. Had the guts to say things like "Okay folks..... The state says I have to teach you this lesson on evolution, even though I don't believe it, you probably don't believe it, and certainly God doesn't believe it. But the state wants us to pretend to learn it, so I'll pretend to teach it." Schnozz was just an all-around good guy. A sportsman by nature, a tough but polite competitor who's ethics never faltered (that I saw).

Schnozz had two sons. As you might expect, they wrestled. As might also expect, they were good at it. My whole life I had one or the other in my weight class. So, as you might expect, I spent a lot of time on the bench or the second-string. Neither of Coach Schnozz's boys were ever my "buddies", although we often spent time together due to sports, or due to the fact that my dad and Schnozz were good friends.

During my senior year my buddy (Mel) took a class on "Public Relations." No, this didn't necessarily mean he had to have "relations" with the public (though he tried). Mostly it meant that he had to take a lot of pictures and write articles for the school paper. Most of Mel's contributions to the paper were about sporting events. The Public Relations class only had about 6 kids in it, and most of them were dopers. Mel was the only 3-sport jock that made all of the traveling squads, so it naturally fell to him to report on the wrestling matches in little backwater communities 400 miles away when no one but the traveling squad made the trip. Thus, he was the only big doofy dude in the state with a 1000 dollar camera taking pictures while on-deck to wrestle next.

I remember a particular occasion during my senior year; I had made the traveling squad too. The coach's kid must've had too many "counts" at that weight class or something. A high-school wrestler is only allowed a certain number of "counts". You use up a "count" each time you step on the mat with an opponent. I think we got about 25 counts allocated per season.... But the coach scheduled about 40 matches. So I was being handed an opportunity to wrestle varsity in a match even though Schnozz's kid usually wiped up the mat with a "fish" like me. It was a good plan on Schnozz's part though.... His kid usually killed me, and I usually killed the kid that I was slated to wrestle from the other school.

We had traveled to a school that was so out-of-the-way that Idaho wouldn't claim it. I mean... It was actually in Oregon, geographically speaking, but everyone acted like Idahoans... With feather boas and everything.. The town was about the size of Enterprise, and sometimes they fielded some outstanding athletes. Overall though, their sports programs hadn't measured up to ours for quite a few years. We normally beat them. But we had to earn it.

One thing you might not understand about sports in small places is this. Every year you play the same teams, in every sport. You also play the same people you played against last year. If you play offensive guard in football, the guy you played across from in 8th grade is probably the same guy you'll play across from in 11th grade. It’s the same with wrestlers. Assuming that you're about average weight for your age, you'll wrestle many of the same people year after year, all through school. Sometimes this is a good thing, such as....When two arch rival schools each have a prospective state champion. Those matches are previews of the state finals. Wrestling fans come from all around to watch those matches. They are actually the height of what ABC used to call "the human drama of athletic competition."

Then there were the matches that we "fish" competed in. A lot of popcorn got sold during my matches. I think it was kind of an unplanned intermission. I had talented wrestlers in the weight classes leading up to me, and in the classes after mine. When I walked on the mat it was a good time to go grab a smoke or hit the concession stand. As long as you didn't take more than a minute or two. My matches rarely went on for longer than that.

Anyway, I had made the traveling squad. Mel had his camera, and was giving me a pep talk before I went on the mat. It went something like this:

"You better watch out for this guy.... He looks ferocious."

"Dammit Mel, I've wrestled this kid every year since 2nd grade and never lost. This guy put the FFFF in FFFFish." I spit all over Mel with the FFFFish-thing.

"No really, I hear he's been practicing" insert evil laugh here while wiping spit off of his arms.

"He's also just waiting to rub that underdeveloped chin into your chest as he's pinning you.... You can see it in his eyes. I think you'd better take him seriously Chickhead, you could really get hurt out there..."

Right then Schnozz walked up and said "Scholz, can I talk to you for a minute?"

"I'm almost up, Coach."

"I know Scholz. I AM the coach, remember?"

"Uh, right Schn.... Coach."

Schnozz pulled me to a semi-secluded portion of the gym (it was semi-secluded because Mel and his camera were standing right next to us. Mel had absolutely NO shame. He eavesdropped constantly. Schnozz shot him a dirty look, but knowing we were buddies, forged ahead.

"The other coach has approached me and asked a favor. Now I can't grant it, but I said I'd ask you."

Now I'm sort of uncomfortable. This was really out of the ordinary. It sounded like he wanted me to throw the match.

"The other coach said that the kid you're gonna wrestle has wrestled hard every year, never missed a practice since 5th grade, and works his guts out..."

"But he's a fish coach"

I'm sure that Schnozz thought "well, so are YOU." But he had entirely too much class to actually articulate the thought.

"He's a good kid who's just not a great wrestler. Not only has he never won a match, he's never NOT been pinned. Their coach asked me to ask you to go the distance with this kid. Take him three rounds. If you've just gotta pin him, do it late in the third."

Well, this was a dilemma, but we fishes have to stick up for each other. I reluctantly agreed to think about it. That was about the time that I had to step on the mat.

We went through the normal routine of getting ready... Shaking hands, putting on the colored leg-bands that helped the guys keeping score tell us apart, putting our feet on the starting line facing each other.

I was still wondering what the right course of action would be when the referee blew his whistle and yelled "WRESTLE!"

Ol' fishy-boy shot a perfect double-leg takedown and got two points in the first 3 seconds.
Oh Hell! Now I'm two points behind, on the bottom, and Mel's on the edge of the mat with his camera. Worse still, the camera is making bzzzz, bzzzzz, bzzzzz sounds like a fashion photographer.

I broke loose, stood up and faced fishy-boy. One point went to me for the escape.

I don't hear any "bzzzzz, bzzzzz, bzzzzz."

I decided to end this thing right now, so I shot a double-leg on fishy-boy. But he had just experienced the thrill of a lifetime. He HADN'T BEEN PINNED YET, AND HAD ACTUALLY SCORED SOME POINTS!"

With his new found confidence, and victory seemingly within his grasp, fishy-boy tried to get out of the way, but was only able to clumsily smash his right knee into my face.

I saw stars. Not like in the cartoons. I was actually transported (a la STAR TREK) to another solar system with a completely different star.

Then the ref stopped the match 'cause he got too much of my blood on him or something. He called for a towel to clean the mat up, and sent me to the sideline to get my nose plugged up. I tried to exit the mat while catching the blood which was now all over both of my hands and arms and most of my face and upper torso.

"bzzzz, bzzzzz, bzzzzz, bzzzzz."

"Hey, Chickhead. It's in his eyes. He’s ferocious and he’s on a roll. The horror!"

With friends like Mel, who needs enemas?

Schnozz toweled my face off and stuck little tampon-looking cotton plugs up both nostrils. He handed me the towel and said "You're doing fine. Really making it look like he's wrestling. Stay with him, get a take down, take him into the 3rd round and then you can pin him."

I looked over at him with the tampons sticking out my nose. Fishy-boy had his whole team around him rubbing his shoulders, giving advice, looking as tough as he could while hopping from one giant duck-like foot to the other and shaking his hands while trying to look extra-macho.
I couldn't even meet his eyes.

I went back out and got a 2 point take down, then the round ended.

Fishy-boy won the coin toss and chose the superior position to start the second round. I let him maul me for the second round. He was throwing crossfaces and really working on my tampon-stuffed snot-locker.

I had just about had all the humiliation I was interested in taking. I was doing this guy a favor (shhh... that’s a secret), and he was throwing cheap-shots at me left and right.
I'm just too damned nice. That's my problem.

This thought was interrupted first by another cheap forearm, then by the sound of Mel's camera.

"bzzzz, bzzzzz, bzzzzz,"

Half of our bench, even though they knew not to expect much from me, was yelling out things for me to do to actually WIN this match. The other half was distractedly looking everywhere but the mat, trying to convince themselves that they weren’t really on the same team as the guy getting mauled by Fishy-boy.

Finally, the second round ended.

Fishy-boy's team jumped to their feet, cheering like.... well like cheerleaders, they are so proud of ol' Fishy. And I can see that all of this is just making Fishy more determined to win.
Most of the guys on my team had given up on me.

The ref started the third round and I let Fishy-boy up. One point to the Fish. It's OK, I'm ahead by a few points.

Then, dammit, Fishy head-butted me in the nose. More stars. This guy was really working on my snotlocker.

So I head-butt him back. Hard. Completely illegal. Fish stumbled, and I take him down and put him in a pinning combination on his back.

But I'm still remembering Schnozz's request "If you’ve just GOTTA pin him, do it late in the third."

So I let him fight the pin for almost the rest of the round, but I had to pin him.... It was a pride thing. He’d bloodied my nose, given me cheap shots all during the match, my teammates (who thought... no, KNEW I was a fish) were gonna razz me about getting busted up by Fishy-boy forever. So at the very end of the third round I stuck his shoulders on the mat. The ref slapped the mat really hard, which signifies the end of the match by a pin. I had done it. Done Fishy and his coach a good turn, and not come out of it too badly. Well, not TOO badly, tampons up my nose notwithstanding.

Evidently his teammates didn't notice that he got pinned.... yet again. They all jumped to their feet and cheered, waving towels and yelling like idiots. You'd have thought Fishy just won a major tournament.

Fishy left the mat with his arms raised, skipping in a clumsy, fish-kid sort of way. His great big shoes slapping the mat with every step, straight into the mob that his team had become.

I turned my tampon-stuffed nose toward our bench and trudged off of the mat. No one said "Good job Scholz." In fact, it looked like everyone suddenly had something else important to look at.

Mel was giggling like a.... well like a cheerleader, aiming his camera at my face "Bzzzz, bzzzzz, bzzzzz."

"Nice match Chick... heh heh heh."

Schnozz just gave me a knowing look and a slight nod of his bulbous nose. He never spoke of it again. Neither did I, except with Mel, everytime he reminded me of Fishy-boy taking me down right after the opening whistle.

The next Monday at school, while walking down the hall, I happened to look in the trophy case. You know, the trophy case that sticks out of the wall in every high-school hall you've ever been in? That trophy case.

It had a brand new collage of wrestling pictures that someone had lovingly arranged with mounting board and off-center construction paper snowflakes.

Every black-and-white 5x10 in that case was a picture of some unlucky Enterprise wrestler being mauled by a wrestler from an opposing team. Then I noticed the tampons in the poor bastard's nose.

It was me.

They stayed in that case until well into the spring track season.

Every time Mel and I would pass that case he'd say "Hey, Chick.... Look at these."

It only worked about 5 times before I caught on.

Do You Ever Wonder Where Your Role-Models Ended Up? I Do. Here Are a Few That I Tracked Down.

Ray Devens:

For a flamboyant personality like Devens, there's sure not much mention on the web. Here's the most recent thing I've come across:

PRESS RELEASE: Savannah-based Rangers organize unit rugby team

Rangers from 1st Battalion, 75th Ranger Regiment at Hunter Army Airfield, Ga., have organized a rugby team and are planning to play in the upcoming Savannah Rugby Tournament.

According to Maj. John L. Rafferty, the team’s coach and the battalion fire support officer, interest in starting a team sparked when officers from the battalion played rugby as a unit physical training event.

“Lieutenant Colonel (Michael) Kershaw, our battalion commander, played at West Point and is a member of the team, and a big supporter of our effort to field a team, as well as Sergeant Major (Ray) Devens, who is also playing,” Rafferty said.

Devens is the operations sergeant major for 1st Battalion.

Here's a picture of Ray Devens (at the left) looking completely smoked. This is the only time I ever saw him look whupped. This is the cover of the January 1984 issue of Soldiers magazine. The caption reads: "Vince Lombardi carries the 90mm recoilless rifle flanked by assistant gunner Ray Devens as they move to the next mission during Operation Urgent Fury on the island of Grenada in 1983."

Ray Devens was a wild-man. The first day I was in Battalion, we had road march. I was new to the AT section, and feeling a little bit sorry for myself when this IDIOT came running the wrong direction down the road. Full gear, running the opposite direction that everyone was going. He stopped next to me and said "you're one of my guys, right?" Since I was humping a 90mm, it was a pretty good guess. Devens was smart like that. I said "Roger that Corporal. I got here yesterday" in between gasping for air.

Devens took his canteen out, unwrapped the 550 cord and twisted the top off, then slammed it into my chest. He had a crazy look in his eyes.

"Drink my water" he yelled at me.

"I'm okay corporal, I've still got both canteens."

"DRINK MY WATER, DAMMIT!" Now he was yelling like he was pissed, crazy AND a little stupid.

So, I drank a couple of swigs from his canteen and tried to hand it back. He slammed it back into my chest and said "finish it."

I mustered the courage to quiz this idiot "Why do you want me to drink your water corporal?"

"SO I CAN'T HAVE IT."

That's Devens.

Vince Lombardi (Sgt. Lombardi when this picture was taken) was a leader. He's on the right of the SOLDIER magazine cover above. He left the Ranger Bn, went to college, got a commission, and returned to active duty. I only knew him for a short while in '84, but his men (my peers) talked about him in terms of great respect. Someday I hope people will say similar things about me. Here is an article from the US Mountain Ranger Association (from http://www.usmountainranger.org/memorial/2005/lombardi.htm)

Vincent Lombardi

Vincent John Lombardi Jr. was born in Lewiston, New York on May 2, 1962. His long and distinguished career in the Army began on March 5, 1980. He spent his first five years as an enlisted soldier in the 75th Ranger Regiment and earned the rank of Staff Sergeant. One of the events that demonstrated his service to his country was contributions in Operation Urgent Fury to liberate Grenada in 1983.

After completing his enlistment he entered the Reserve Officer's Training Corps. In 1988 he graduated from Niagara University and was commissioned into the Infantry. Lieutenant Lombardi served with the 1-503th Infantry Battalion in Korea and then 2-75th Ranger Battalion at Fort Lewis. As a Captain he commanded two companies in the 24th Infantry Division and was the Commanding Generals Aide De Camp. Major Lombardi's last assignment was at Fort Richardson, Alaska where he served as the Battalion Operations Officer and Executive Officer for 1-501st Infantry Battalion.

The many awards that he earned in his twenty-two year career included [lots and lots of awards. I'll just list the important ones] Combat Infantryman's Badge and The Coveted Ranger Tab.

The nickname "Coach" was given to Major Lombardi very early in his career and would always be used by the many soldiers who served with him. This signified the respect and admiration that everyone held for a great leader who fought for his country and could inspire all.

Maj. Lombardi was diagnosed with Carcinoid tumors in his pancreas and liver and was transferred to Washington, DC, for treatment at the Walter Reed Army Medical Center. He died unexpectedly as a result of liver failure on 18 February 2003.

He is survived by his wife, Sue, and two young children, Vince III and Teresa. He will be sorely missed.

I read somewhere that he prowled the halls of the hospital visiting other terminal cancer patients to keep their spirit up. Truly a Servant Leader. I'm privileged to have known him.

Steven Fondacaro:

WASHINGTON (October 16, 2007) — The US military has developed a new programme known as the Human Terrain System (HTS) to study social groups in Iraq and Afghanistan.The HTS depends heavily on the co-operation of anthropologists, with their expertise in the study of human beings and their societies. Steve Fondacaro, a retired special operations colonel overseeing the HTS, is keen to recruit cultural anthropologists. "Cultural anthropologists are focused on understanding how societies make decisions and how attitudes are formed. They give us the best vision to see the problems through the eyes of the target population," he said.

You can read more at: http://www.envirosagainstwar.org/know/read.php?itemid=6091

William "Chief" Carlson:

May 21, 2004

At its annual memorial ceremony this morning, the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) honored 83 employees who died in service to their country, including Christopher Glenn Mueller and William "Chief" Carlson, two civilian contractors killed in an ambush in Afghanistan last fall.

"The bravery of these two men cannot be overstated," Director of Central Intelligence George J. Tenet told a gathering of several hundred Agency employees and family members of those killed in the line of duty. "Chris and Chief put the lives of others ahead of their own. That is heroism defined."

Mueller and Carlson died while tracking ists near Shkin, Afghanistan, on October 25, 2003. Both saved the lives of others during the ambush.

"Their sacrifice was not in vain," Tenet said, pledging to continue the war on until it is won. "We owe that victory to all American heroes like Chris and Chief", and to Mike Spann and Helge Boes, two other remarkable young men who died fighting a pitiless enemy in a remote, rugged place."

Again, I'm privileged to have known him.

You can read more about Chief at CSM Greer's website http://www.greerfoundation.org/Tomahawk.html Or Robbie Leatham's website: http://www.robleatham.com/Rob%20Leatham%20in%20memory.htm#William

Joe McClaren

Joe's son hired me to fly to Yuma, AZ and drive Joe to Oregon. Joe was well past the part of his life where he was in a hurry about anything, so the drive took us about 5 days. I had the privilege and advantage of talking to a 92 year old WWI veteran about everything for several uninterrupted days. Wow.

A 19 year-old shut into a car with a hairy-assed 92 year old. Do you think I learned anything?

You bet I did.

This guy was a veteran of cattle drives, true frontier living, building his own ranch (which is still run by his family), and raising a family that included a son who was commanding one of the first of Patton's tanks that arrived to "rescue" the 101st Airborne during the Battle of the Bulge. If you don't know the story, then watch "Patton", or "Band of Brothers" or "the Battle of the Bulge", or read any of a hundred books on the subject.

Anyway, we were talking about Joe McClaren, not his son... Joe was a little guy on the outside, but when I think of the archetypical American man, Joe's in there somewhere. All hard work, gristle, guts, brains, and fight.

I'll be lucky to live to 92, but I'll be luckier to approach life like Joe.

How'd you like to make 10 bucks? Gobble?

When we were young, Dad had an interest in all things having to do with hunting, fishing, and game animals. Due to this intense interest in game species Dad decided over the years to raise pheasants, geese, and a species called Merriam Turkeys.

Merriam turkeys are the archetypical huge American turkey species that everyone associates with thanksgiving. They are really interesting birds. They are crotchety, mean, stupid, and nasty...In the nicest way, of course.

When I was young, my morning chore was to go around to the chicken, pheasant, and turkey pens and nesting areas and gather eggs. By the time Mom had started breakfast I had gathered as few as two or three, or as many as twenty or twenty-five eggs. The number of eggs I found hinged upon how well the birds hid their nests.

Mom just made "mixed species scrambled eggs delight" for breakfast. No pheasant under glass or any other esoteric dishes. Just straight-ahead "cookin' with Sue" real food.

Those mornings were adventures. I had to climb into every nook and cranny of the barn, hunt in the tall grass out by the pond, and scour the pheasant coops.

We never ate goose eggs that I recall. I guess they were too valuable. Being gold and all.

I'd come back into the house with my down jacket pockets full of whatever types of eggs I found...many times they broke against each other. Sometimes I had a hard time getting a door or gate shut and had to throw my weight into it. Those mornings I had to listen to Mom cuss and I ended up wearing some other coat instead of my down jacket to school. A pocket full of pheasant ovulation is no fun for a mom to clean.

For some reason, I had a mental block about closing gates behind me. If I went through a gate, it was a even-money bet that I'd forget to close it. So we had lots of poultry rodeos rounding up birds who've been genetically selected for centuries to get away from the big animals chasing them.The bad news was we never really got them all back in the pen.T he good news is that we always had plenty of pheasants and turkeys running around the property.

The pheasants pretty much disappeared after a few weeks of freedom. I don't know if they were lost to predation or they just moved to better feeding grounds.

But the turkeys stayed around. They roosted in a huge old hangman's tree cottonwood on the island in the middle of our pond. There was a huge branch sticking straight out from the trunk of that tree, and in the evening you could see eight or ten turkeys sitting on it as the sun went down.

As part of Dad's master genetic plan for the turkeys, he mail ordered a tom-turkey to freshen the gene pool.

An actual eighteen wheel over-the-road truck delivered that tom. I don't think the truck was necessary....The tom was just shipped as freight. When we opened the back of that truck there was a crate with burlap sides sitting in the middle of the cargo trailer...wiggling.

That bird was pissed.

The crate was about a three foot cube and all of the sides were wiggling simultaneously. I was reminded of the bugs bunny cartoons where the Tasmanian Devil is delivered in a wiggling crate. This was pretty much the same.Dad and the truck driver moved the crate over to the end of the truck, which just served to further enrage the occupant.

When Dad and the driver lifted the crate out of the truck to set it on the ground the tom went nuts. Those two full grown men had a hard time getting it to the ground without dropping it. The tom was moving around so much, and was so big, that it was hard for them to balance the cratebetween them.

After the truck drove off, we let the tom out of the crate.Our lives were never the same after that moment.

We learned to live with fear.

That tom was horny. Not just a little. A lot. I mean that bird would chase the cows around the
field.

Ol' Tom put the R in randy. The H in horny. I can't think of any other related terms. Horny. Randy. That's pretty much it.

Turkey's don't court. They don't date. They aren't coy or flirtatious. Nope. Turkey sex looks more like a catfight. So toms learn not to take NO for an answer. This tom had elevated the act of not being denied to an art form. He jumped everything on that property. Cows. Chickens. The hitching post. Dogs. A basketball. Everything... Including people.

We complained to Dad, who thought we were making the whole thing up and told us so. Mom refused to go from the house to her car (about 5 yards) without a broom, which she would leave on the ground next to her parking space. When she returned she'd exit the car, grab the broom, and go the 5 yards to the house.

One of my other jobs was to take out the trash. It was a pretty simple routine. I took the bag of trash to a rusty barrel, threw it in, and lit it on fire. The barrel was about thirty yards from the back door. The longest thirty yards in the world. After that tom showed up, the trash run took on a whole new "Mission Impossible" dimension. Now the routine went something like this:

-Grab the bag of trash.

-Grab a baseball bat.

-Oops, forgot the matches.

-Drop the bat.

-Get the matches.

-Get the bat again.

-Cautiously open the backdoor.

-Look around for the tom.

-Notice the tom acting innocent about eighty yards from the door and one hundred yards from the burn barrel.

-Silently slip through the door and down the steps, creeping toward barrel.

-Look over shoulder for the turkey.

-Oh No! The turkey sees me.

-Sprint for the barrel.

-Look over shoulder.

-The turkey is fifty yards away and closing fast.

-Sprint harder for barrel.

- Turn head to look for turkey.

-The turkey is twenty yards back.

-Trip over my own feet because I'm not looking where I'm running.

-Spill the trash.

-Get tackled by the turkey.

-Can't use bat because I'm sitting on it.

-Forty pound horny turkey desperately seeking Susan on my lap while swatting me in the head with his wings.

-Punch the turkey with a roundhouse to the snot locker.

-Turkey not amused.

-Turkey backs up hoping for seconds.

-Stand up, pick up baseball bat.

-Chase that lousy bird all over the everlovin' farm trying to hit it with a Louisville Slugger.

-Turkey laughing at me, staying just out of reach.

-Go back to pile of trash.

-Pick up eggshells, nasty paper towels and other assorted kitchen trash.

-Dump the whole mess in the barrel and set the thing on fire.

-Imagine putting turkey in the barrel and setting his randy ass on fire.

-Keep a sharp lookout onthe way back to the house.

Nope, things just wouldn't ever be the same around the old Scholz rancho.

Today, now that I'm grown up, people ask me why I carry a gun. I tell them its because I'm a rape victim.

One day Dad invited one of his friends and his two boys over to our house to go fishing in the pond. When they showed up the whole family piled out of their old Ford van with their fishing poles, nonchalantly getting their gear out of the back of the van.

All of the sudden, out of nowhere, a black streak of feathers and libido races across the yard heading right at the group, all of whose backs are turned.

A night I wake up sweating, flashing back to that moment frozen in time. Its like slow motion. "LOOK OUT!" I yelled. Dawning realization on their faces as they turned toward me with relaxed secure expressions which quickly progressed from confusion to fear as they saw the turkey bearing down on them.

"Don't run!"

That was good advice. Marlin Perkins once said that horny turkeys and grizzly bears can outrun a horse over short distances. Well, if he didn't say that, he should of. It's true.

The father turned to face the oncoming hornyturkey express, shielding his two young sons from the tom. But one of the boys panicked and headed for the hills. He was sprinting down the gravel road as fast as his two-sizes-too-big-he'll-grow-into-them yard-sale cowboy boots would carry him.

I had my money on the turkey. It wasn't even close.

The turkey ran that boy down, tackled him, pinned him face-first in the gravel and started biting the hair on the back of his head, slapping him with his wings, and riding him like a porn star in the middle of the road.

The boy's dad showed up a few seconds later and started whipping that bird with his fishing pole. I remember thinking "he's gonna break that fly rod." The turkey was oblivious. He was going to town on that kid.

Finally, the tom lost interest and wandered off to make a sandwich and have a cigarette, leaving Dad to apologize to the family of a skinned up little boy in the early stages of post-traumatic-stress-disorder, a father who was mad that his kid had been jumped by thanksgiving dinner, and a bewildered younger brother wondering if he was next.

Dad went out with a broom later that afternoon and beat the everlovin' crap out of that bird.

Oh sure! As soon as someone else's kid gets boofed by the turkey, he's all over the situation.

We never saw that turkey alive again. We did find what was left of him though-- a pile of bones in the middle of a circle of feathers. I like to think that he tried his "ride-em cowboy" act on a coyote. That would be poetry.