Sluicing Starlings

Elwood K. Wayson was a man of the woods. He was a hunter, trapper, and fisherman. He was a spar tree setter for logging camps and later a lineman for the local power company. Elwood lived in a small house behind mine when I was growing up. Since I had no living grandfather, I adopted him to be mine.

If ever I had a question on how to build a rabbit trap, properly stalk a deer, or catch some salmon, I just had to go talk to Elwood. He also had a wealth of tools and guns which he was always willing to let me borrow.

Elwood, or Swede as we in the neighborhood called him, was a widower and he and his dog “Digger Odell” shared the house. Digger was about the same age as Swede in dog years and both hobbled with the same limp. They ate the same meals, fried trout and bananas. He would eat it off a plate and digger would clean the plate for the next meal.

Swede, for as long as I knew him, was always old and always cantankerous. I never knew him any other way. As a young boy, I can remember him having a hair trigger temper which he would take out on his wife when he got home from work. The two could be heard shouting at each other late into the evenings. This was apparently their love language because when she passed, he never got over missing her.

As I stated in earlier stories of him, my mother bought his house and the mother-in-law house beside him to make into rentals. Part of the agreement was that he could live in the house until he died, rent free. With the sudden swelling of his bank account from the sale of his homes, and very few financial responsibilities, Swede now had the freedom to buy anything he wanted. This included items from the Montgomery Ward catalog, the hardware/gun store, and the local liquor store. His drink of choice being Canadian Mist Whiskey.

Daily, Swede would get up at dawn, survey the perimeter of his property, fry his breakfast of trout and bananas, and hop into his 1972 half-ton yellow Dodge pickup to drive into town. In the afternoon he would return with a new gun and a bottle of the Mist.

Almost daily the UPS truck would drive up with another package from Wards. Soon Swede became such a hoarder of boxes, newspapers, mail, and magazines that there was only one narrow trail through his house and this you would have to walk through sideways.

Swede had three items which he had a hatred for and which he would never forgive. Once the topics were brought up, he would fly into a rage and fume for hours.  It became worse the drunker he got.

The first was the Wobblies — The Industrial Workers of the World Union. They forced him out of a job on a tugboat in the Seattle area, an action which he never forgave.

The second was the IBEW Union which he joined as a lineman. He was angry that he was paid such a small pension check from them each month.

“The only thing lower than the IBEW is whale dung, and that’s on the bottom of the ocean!” he would rant.

The third was starlings. Not a civilized bird like a Robin or a Gold Finch. No, this was a filthy, vile bird which flies in flocks of hundreds, stripping cherry trees and blackberry vines of their fruit just so they could then poop on his yellow Dodge pickup. They seemed to mock him by landing in groups of fifty on the lawn in front of his living room window.

This is where I learned the term, “sluicing starlings.” Swede would stand in his living room staring at the front lawn when he would mutter, “I gotta go sluice me some starlings, and I ain’t a bird turding you either!”

He would then grab his shotgun; swing open the front door and fire three rounds out into the yard usually killing at least six birds. This could happen at any time during the day.

The end of starling sluicing happened one Sunday morning after Swede had been drinking the Mist heavily all night. Cliffside Drive teed into Marine Drive directly in line with Swede’s front yard.

Swede, getting out of bed in his long johns, took his daily survey of the property out his front window. Although he was still very drunk, through his blurred vision he could see a large flock of starlings on his lawn. Making a vulgar remark about the birds, he grabbed his shotgun, swung open the front door and staggered out onto his porch.

Coincidentally, at the same moment, a car had driven up from Cliffside and was stopped at the stop sign. Swede raised the shotgun at the birds on the lawn which from the perspective of the car driver appeared to be pointing directly at him. Before he could honk or drive out of the way, Swede fired two shots into the lawn. He then turned around and with the trap door hanging down on the rear of his long johns, staggered back into the house. The driver of the car, now traumatized, turned around and drove back home.

Twenty minutes later, a Sheriff’s car drove into Swede’s driveway. Swede, still in his long-johns and stinking of Mist, met them at the back door.

They were actually kind to the old man. They informed him that someone had called them about an old man shooting at cars.

“Well heck. I was sluicing starlings,” Swede replied in his defense. 

They reminded him that we lived under the final landing approach to Bellingham Airport and discharging any firearm was strictly prohibited.  Chuckling between themselves at the drunken old man, they impressed upon him that his shooting days were over, and they left with giving him a verbal warning. So, his run-ins with the law were over . . . except not really.

I had come over to his house to help him clean his kitchen.  The dishes were piled high and there was an odor of death wafting from under one of the piles. I washed and dried some of his plates and opened his cupboard to put them away. On the top shelf I noticed a brown paper sack. The bottom of the sack was wet and dripping something onto the shelves below. Reaching up, I lowered the sack off the shelf and looked inside. 

It was full of sticks of dynamite and blasting caps. The liquid dripping from the shelves was nitroglycerin which was sweating from the sticks.

Setting the sack on the counter, I yelled to Swede, “Did you know there is dynamite in your kitchen and it’s dripping nitroglycerin in your cupboard?”

“Just leave it,” he said. “It’s what I use to blow up stumps.”

Perhaps I should have just let it be and let him deal with it, but I envisioned the old man blowing up the house and leveling most of the houses in the neighborhood.  So, I called the sheriff for disposal advice.

“Hi. I was cleaning my grandfather’s kitchen and found a bag of sweating dynamite and blasting caps. What should I do with it?

“Mr. Mitchell, leave the bag in the kitchen. I would like you and your grandfather to step out of the house. We will be there shortly. Twenty minutes later, the bomb squad drove into the driveway and relieved Swede of his bag of dynamite.

“Gall dang it!” Swede swore. “That stuff won’t explode unless you put the blasting caps inside and set it off with an electrical charge!”

“Elwood, the dynamite is sweating nitro. It can be considered unstable, not unlike you. Have you been drinking?”

The deputies then informed us that this was their second visit to the house, and they would appreciate it if they did not have to return. So, his run-ins with the law were over . . . except not really.

As previously mentioned, Swede had a great fondness for guns and Canadian Mist. As a matter of fact, when he passed away, we filled garbage cans with the bottles. As the junk was removed from his home, gun after gun was found hidden in coat pockets, sock drawers, kitchen cabinets and under his mattress. It was when he combined the guns and the Mist that I would worry.

Swede’s house had a basement which I used to store some of my electronics. The narrow passageway through the junk in his living room went right past his bed. There were nights when I would need to pick up or return something to the basement only to find that all the lights were off in his house and he was most likely asleep. This left me with the predicament of waiting until morning to go into his basement or sneak through his living room in the dark without waking him. Twice, I was almost to his basement door. I had felt my way past the junk piles and was passing his bed when I woke up Digger who in turn growled. I heard the familiar click of the hammer on his 357 revolver. Luckily, he was always polite enough to ask who was there before he started shooting. Heaven forbid if you were a robber . . . which brings us to the last meeting with the sheriff.

I was lying in bed one night when I heard sirens coming up the road. This was not uncommon on Marine Drive. The vehicles though stopped at my house and drove the long driveway back to Swede’s house. There were two deputy cars and an ambulance.  I quickly dressed and ran to his house. Upon entering, I saw the deputies, ambulance EMTs, Swede sitting on the edge of his bed in his long-johns, and a very bloody high school age boy sitting in a chair.

Oh crud! The kid tried to rob Swede and the old guy shot him, I thought. I knew this would happen someday. Strangely enough, the deputies and the medics were thanking Swede.

The kid must have been a serial robber who had been terrorizing neighborhoods and the cops couldn’t catch. Swede is probably going to get a reward and a plaque.

It turns out though, that the kid had been driving excessively fast in his Camaro. He lost control of the car and slammed into a culvert putting his head into the windshield causing considerable facial damage and blood loss. He crawled to Swede’s house, being the only house in the neighborhood with a light on. Swede was watching “Gunsmoke” and sipping the Mist.

I don’t know how the kid got Swede’s attention — carefully I hope — but Swede brought him into the house, helped stop the bleeding, and called for help.

Swede became a favorite of the Fire Marshall and the Deputies.  They would stop by every now and again just to make sure he was doing all right while at the same time checking to make sure he was not going to blow anything up or shoot anything down.

And the week of the Fourth of July, prime gardening season, I watched as he drove the Dodge in the direction of the Indian Reservation only to come home with a large paper sack which he set by the back door. He then brought his shotgun out from its hiding spot on the porch, stepped out into his back yard and shot at a crow in his corn and rabbits in his lettuce. Later that day, the sheriff drove up his driveway again.

“Swede,” he said. “We heard rumors of you shooting again.”

Swede bent down picking up the paper sack. He reached inside pulling out several large firecrackers and a bottle rocket.

“No sir,” he replied. “Just doing a little early celebrating.”

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