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SubTitle: False bowlines & Loose Moose
Posted by: DAN BLAINE (100.53680@germanynet.de) on 6/06/1998@12:20hrs:
Hanging tightly on to the kayak, D.BLIVIT and Ma Fei Mai were swept further up Ship's Creek until the incoming tide slacked off and they groundy abruptly on a muddy bank. Wading ashore, they pulled themselves onto soggy muskeg ground covered with heavy brush.
"What do we do now?" Ma Fei Mai wanted to know. "No problem , I learned all about surviving in the bush at troop 359 in Port Richmond. I made 2nd class and was assistant leader of the Beaver patrol. Here, hand me that painter line from the front of the kayak and I'll show you a trick or two." said D.BLIVIT.
"Now, the most important knot is the square knot: left over right, right over left; here, try it." said D.BLIVIT and handed the rope to Ma Fei Mai. "No, no, you didn't follow me, you tied a Granny! How the hell are we going to survive if you tie grannies?" D.BLIVIT told Ma Fei Mai. "Let's try a sheepshank." "Have you ever shanked a sheep?" asked Ma Fei Mai. Ma Fei Mai had a point there, because the only things D.BLIVIT had ever shanked were chip shots at Silver Lake.
"Yeah, you're right. Better to learn a running bowline instead, you'll need that to make tenderfoot. See, the rabbit goes around here, then crosses under and goes through the hole and then out the other side and back through again...got it? Ma Fei Mai succeeded in tieing his left hand to his right ankle and fell over backwards in the muck. "That's enough of this, untie me and let's get moving away from this creek, the mosquitoes are eating me alive." said Ma Fei Mai.
They made their way inland, D.BLIVIT looking carefully for moss growing on the North side of the trees (as stated in the Boy Scout's manual) until they came to a narrow path. "See these tracks? They are certainly cow tracks, so we can't be too far from a farm; let's follow them and we'll soon be rescued." said D.BLIVIT. They rounded a corner of the trail and there stood a bull moose glaring at them. "What kind of animal is that, and why is it pawing the earth and snorting at us?" asked Ma Fei Mai.
"Oh, that's just a moose. They are harmless, docile creatures and can be easily herded, after all, they are just like big cows." Said D.BLIVIT, reveling in being able to show off to this tenderfoot his vast store of knowledge acquired in troop 359. "Hey, SHOO! Get off the path!" yelled D.BLIVIT at the moose. The moose charged them, and they barely make it to a tree which they shinnied up with amazing speed.
After an hour or so, the moose lost interest and wandered away. They climed down the tree and started along the trail once more. Ma Fei Mai said: "I'm getting hungry, what does the Boy Scout's Manual say about finding something to eat in the bush?" D.BLIVIT looked in the index, which was hard to find, because the Boy Scout's manual had all kinds of advertisements in the back: compasses, hatchets, knives, "bike" brand athletic supporters, tents, and waterproof match cases to name a few. He finally found the right chapter under the merit badge requirements for natural foods in the forest. It recommended berries as the first choice for survival. That's right! He thought...Didn't Euell Gibbons always eat berries in the woods....and he lived to be least 26!
Luckily for them, the trail was now lined with berry brambles on both sides and they started picking and eating the wild blackberries. They weren't as big or as juicy as the ones they used to pick in Goodhue Woods, but they were sweet. They made their way deeper into the brambles and all of a sudden a huge bear stood up and growled at them! D.BLIVIT tried desperately to remember what Tillamook Tom had said about encountering the various bears here. If it was a black bear, you could yell at it and shoot it away. If it was a brown bear, you should lay down and play dead, and if it was a Grizzly, you might as well say 10 Hail Mary's and make the sign of the cross...because it was all over. D.BLIVIT tried to look at the bear's back as it came toward them, did it have the grizzly's hump?
Searching in his pickets for some sort of weapon, he discovered a BSA waterproof match box in one, and a pack of DeNobilis still wrapped in cellophane in the other. Hands shaking he lit a DeNobili and puffed on it as hard as he could. As soon as the bear got a whiff of the evil smelling smoke from the G(ethnic slur) Stinker, it turned tail and ran away. "Boy, you really saved us this time!" said Ma Fei Mai to D.BLIVIT, who was turning green and retching. "Yeah, that's why I'm second class and patrol leader and you're still a tenderfoot." Said D.BLIVIT with false bravado.
They made their way back to the trail and soon brought them to the shores of a lake. Directly across the lake was a log cabin with a boat dock in front of it and an old Stinson Explorer (?) with seaplane floats attached to it. Suspended above the dock on two poles was a sign: "The Great Alaskan Bush Comopany" Johnson and Shake, prop. The names rang a bell in D.BLIVIT's head....Could this be the same two that had started an airlift business over the SI wall and then suddenly vanished one day?