Mitchell Way
It is estimated that Australia has over 24 million wild pigs. I was on a photo Safari in Queensland to capture on film the King Kong of feral hogs. The locals call him Jambi.
Jambi weighs over 1000 pounds and is well over nine feet long. He has a harem of 45 sows and multiple piglets. Wherever they move, they create mass destruction of the land and many a domestic animal, even humans disappear when Jambi is in the area.
It was a curving section of the county road with a posted speed of 35 mph. Farms and homesteads lined both sides of the road as did overhanging maple and alder trees.
“Slow up in the curve. Almost to . . . yep, there he is.”
“Don’t go off half-cocked!”
Have you ever wondered what that means?
Elwood K was the old man who lived in a small self-made home behind our house when I was growing up. I never had a grandpa after I was four so I adopted him. Everyone knew him as “Swede” which was interesting since the name is Scottish and English. He was known by the white Popeye cap he always wore. His house was full of them. Taking his lead, I wear a black Army Ranger cap which my house is also full of.
Swede was fond of four things: guns, Canadian Mist whiskey, both of which he had hidden all over his house, his yellow half ton Dodge Ram pickup and his mutt dog Digger Odell. Several times a week you could see his old Dodge driving ten miles under the speed limit using both sides of the road. Old Swede was returning from a trip to the liquor store to get his “medicine”. On the seat beside him would sit Digger, head and tongue hanging out the open window. Sometimes Digger was the designated passenger and sometimes he was the designated driver; it all depended on how Swede was feeling.
I have been asked by many of my readers, “When are you going to put all of your stories into a book? I’d buy one.”