Author Archive for M. Toole

The Running of the Kokanee

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and couldn’t see what harm it would do. Sure, I’ll take my chances, I’ll run with the salmon!

All a person has to know about swimming upstream, or down for that matter, is to watch out for rocks and overhanging trees. The high walls stretching down to the powerful current were chocked full of spectators. The participants began to bunch up, a turn in the river, the current swift, then peaceful, now tranquil as we float out at a snail’s pace to engage the Kokanee.

There…just off the right bank…spawning salmon and lots of them! Kokanee for sure, angry pent up emotions from the long hot summer flaring out through their lethal gills. They are moving toward the swimmers, bunched up still now breaking in panic at the sight of the fish.

I remember reading about this type of thing going on in Pamploma when I was a boy but not since the Heeny Tick Festival Flea Circus have I witnessed  such brute bloodlust squatting on our sacred Colorado soil.

Sadly the stragglers are dead meat in minutes, dragged to the depths of the cold, heartless stream like marshmallows at the mercy of a hungry black bear, like chokeberries toasting on a goldbrick fire. The survivors scurry back and forth into the water, clutching banks and willows vowing to stay on dry land forevermore.

It’s a lot like body surfing except that the salmon are the waves. Sure, there were moments when I was scared to death but, hey, everyone needs a little peril, a bite of fright in their lives. The icy cold water, the flags and banners of the crowds, the slimy Kokanee bent on death in the afternoon…it’s a lot different than TV.

If you simply use your head and concentrate…

What! I’m cut. I can feel the blood and see red in the water. I’ve been finned! Oh my god…I’m going down, the hooves of the beast cracking my scull like a shellfish in a blender, like keilbasa about to go under the knife. Trampled in the backwaters of the Slate, the East…what’s the difference now. Left for dead by fish with a morose, senseless agenda. Gored by the scale of it all.

Suddenly a surge of water lifts me. I pull myself out of the water and flag down a tuna boat and hop on.

That night in the ship’s stateroom the captain and his seductive wife told me of the hundreds of souls lost to the spawning each year.

“And they’ll be back for more next fall, them that survived the onslaught.”

Desert Mushroom Cult Vanishes

(Montrose) An exotic mushroom cult operating west of here has disappeared according to anthropologists with very little else to study. The tribal band, which reportedly worshipped tomatoes, zucchini and several varieties of summer squash, had inhabited these desert canyons, shadowed by  the Uncompahgre Plateau since the early 12th Century. It was not clear why the flock disbanded although drought has been blamed as the current bugaboo.

“Years of continuing dryness beat them down to a dusty pulp and may have eventually caused them to flee,” said a bone and tissue man from Western State Colorado University in Gunnison. “Other more rigid indications point to petty warfare and hungry bears and lions that likely picked off the very young and the weaker tribe members when more traditional food supplies grew short.”

The cult had thrived for centuries despite intrusions by tour buses, hikers and anxious graduate students who sought to get a peak at the architectural marvels and spartan lifestyle of such a primitive, yet enlightened culture. Success was limited since the elusive warriors, once the masters of the region, often conducted diversionary tactics to protect the group. One such goose chase led anthropologists all the way into Salt Lake City with nothing to show but a few flints and arrowheads for their efforts.

Contrasting theories suggest that the cult simply ran out of food staples such as corn and piñon nuts, and moved on.

“All these postulates swimming around do nothing to prove that drought was to blame for the termination of these primitives,” said another academic source at Mesa State University. “When did man begin measuring droughts in the desert anyway? It seems about as useful as calculating the measure of rain water in river water or sunlight from moonlight.”

Quasi-local input was limited to a few high school biology students who claim to have talked to members of the cult at desert woodsies. The students represent the highest level of education here. Montrose has no college due to shortsighted politicians whose pettiness convinced state authorities that the town was generally hostile to higher education, a status that many contend continues to this day.

– Johnny Gangaseede

Burglar’s Rash Baffles Authorities

(Montrose) Police today arrested Hector DesPlants and his little brother Howard L. in connection with a spurt of burglaries on Spring Creek Mesa. The crimes, committed over a thee-month period last fall have been blamed for personal losses in the millions of dollars.

At the time of the apprehension  officers noticed a dangerous-looking rash on Howard L.’s arms and the back of his legs which has little to do with the story but makes for an interesting headline, a play on words as it were, especially considering that it leads off what is normally a tediously humdrum police report.

Back to the crimes: In one particularly bold intrusion the thieves allegedly made off with three race horses, a rare Siamese ferret, a talking blue-streak toucan and an undisclosed number of exotic Mexican geese. This heist, which police believe took place during the third quarter of a Broncos-Chargers game, was carried out with extreme prejudice and  sophisticated precision previously unknown in these parts.

The missing animals were soon found in the DesPlants’ double-wide in downtown Whitewater, which pretty much synched up the case against them.

“We have been seeing crooks embracing specialty theft,” said a local deputy. “It’s all cut and dry and carried out by professionals with a crow bar in one hand and a ledger book in the other. The problem is that stealing is far more lucrative than working for minimum wages downtown.”

She went on to say that while specialization is a logical progression in these difficult times, the practice of targeting livestock throws a another switch in the pasture.

“People leave dogs, cows and sheep outdoors without a thought to their immediate security,” she continued. “I remember when nobody locked their doors around here. Now we have to secure our gates and put alarms in the barn. There are just too many people that don’t connect to our mountains residing here these days. They only relocate because they have fouled up everything where they used to live.”

The DesPlants have been arraigned and are scheduled to face a firing squad on Monday.

– Kashmir Horseshoe

Rip-Snortin’ at Animas Forks

The soft autumn sunlight hung on the edge of the porch toasting the cabin in much desired warmth. The nights had turned flat cold since the August rains had quit, leaving Eliot T-Bone wondering what winter would bring.

At 74, he hardly made it over to American Basin anymore, where he had toiled for some 45 years in search of the big bonanza that was always at the end of tomorrow’s pick and shovel. With the Finns he had mucked out enough rock to build a city larger than any in Hinsdale County. When claims played out they had survived working for wages at larger mines and tending to their placer digs on Henson Creek. Hand to mouth and back to work. It was worse over there in Europe according to the Austrians with wars overlapping wars and peasant sons plugged in for cannon fodder on the battlefields while kings grabbed the glory and the gold.

After a lifetime he had accumulated worthless piles of ore, shafts almost to China and tobacco stains on everything. Living on beans, flour biscuits and elk meat had taken a toll on the system but there were few vegetable gardens at 9500 feet. Sure, his claim was secure and they couldn’t run him off, at least today. He still had his mules and the friends who hadn’t died off yet. He had this fallen down cabin at Animas Forks. Living off the land he was, or wasn’t it the other way around. He just didn’t see any reason to travel up over Cinnamon to Lake City anymore.

Silverton was another matter. He still made weekly trips to Howardsville for supplies, and then traveled on for a night on Blair Street with all the desperate Silverton miners and the far more desperate Silverton whores. When the weather was bad he would just stay home by the fire soaking beans, making jerky, firing up his dutch oven. He had been home on one such night last winter when one of the prostitutes went mad killing three miners with a butcher’s knife, accentuated by well placed sticks of dynamite. That was some big excitement and he almost wished he had been in town to see the blood and the fireworks. Yes, things were that boring out in Animas Forks now that everyone had deserted the place and morbid rock faces stared him down every morning and night.

He scratched his ribs under a dirty union suit and stretched. The deer and the whistle pigs didn’t worry or fret about this life. They just lived it happy to survive another afternoon. Why were people so damned difficult? He had become a near recluse but still welcomed several of his old friends to the porch Emil Turlough, the local doctor, long retired came by every Thursday on his way back from Gladstone. Stan Celkirk still ran sheep up toward the pass in the summer. Oral Stishnik and Peter Leary quit guiding hunters up and down these mountains some time ago. Now their sons did the deed while the old men gave advice and smoked their pipes. They still stopped in and he visited them in a town that boasted electric lights and carriages straight from Paris, or so they said.

The rest of them could pretty much go to hell. Pistol wielders, flimflam men and painted women, and let us not forget the righteous out to save souls and make a profit too. The Ute and Chinee were mostly gone. Disappeared in the dust of progress and comfortable living. What about the souls of the dead?

Most of the newcomers in Silverton had no connection to the place. Why were they here? Were things really that bad other places? They had the combined charm of a pan of burnt eggs, the warmth of a basket of rattlesnakes. Flatlander bastards. They didn’t know a thing about life as it once was in the boom days. They wouldn’t have been able to make it back then. They didn’t pay him any attention, much less a sprinkle of respect, when he wandered into town. They only stared at his bad teeth and skinny string of mules with saddles that didn’t fit any of them. They all dressed up like they were going somewhere, but there was nowhere to go. The mindless march of lemmings served well by the presence of so many convenient cliffs and ravines.

Don’t matter anyhow…since most don’t journey far from town except in the summer. They leave us fellows out here alone and we should return the favor. That new preacher from Mancos said he’d pick up whatever I needed from town and haul it out here but I’m afraid there are celestial strings attached. Before you know it this boy will be holding services and singing psalms right here from the porch. Too much. My few neighbors, the lion and the bear wouldn’t have any of that. They get by without all these fairy tales. They don’t even know where they came from or where they’re going. They just live. The marmots in the ground, the hawks in the sky, the quakie stretching up toward the heavens. They just exist without all the trimmings, the dogma.

He remembered when he had come to this country, seeing the glory of the San Juans for the first time. All the enthusiastic unbroken bodies scrambling for their fortunes in gulch camps and tent cities that sprang up after the Great War. Refugees from the madness embracing another kind of insanity far away in these ragged mountains. The snow covers up the mess. It’s clean and fresh for a while.

The years just went by. More elk stew, beans and biscuits and more dreams of striking it rich. He stared at his pile of firewood, then out across the dim light. There had been bighorn sheep crossing over about a mile down toward Silverton. He had seen the tracks in the snow. He wondered if he had the energy to shoot one and pack it back up here. The price of solitude.

Having never married he had no family to care for him in his old age. He remembered courting and heartbreak, custom brides from far away Missouri and escapes from the entanglements of it all. Sure he’d gone shopping for a wife in Durango back some 30 years ago. He even brought one curious prospect up the hill but by late afternoon it was clear she would grow to hate him and the mountains. Better left alone.

It was quiet here and he had no one to make happy but himself. He went to sleep when he pleased and got up when he damn well wanted to. He snored and wore wool socks to bed. He ate elk stew that he couldn’t taste anymore despite the peppers that he bought in Hermosa the summer before. Every day was pretty much the same.

Just then a sudden explosion ripped through the evening causing bull elk to raise their heads, sending fuzzy marmots scurrying into rocky holes. Fish stopped swimming, eagles stopped soaring, sows looked around for their cubs. This was no mere elk bugle. It was an excurrent discharged, an outburst expelled as if from a buffalo stampede, a bonafide T-Bone bugle that surprised even him. A highly audible sonic boom from the vicinity of his drop-drawers. Thunderous repercussions! Burgeoning landslides! Curious windbreaks! Gaseous dynamite in the digestive tract. The flatulence ripping with major magnitude that echoed down the valley.

Inadmissible punctuation quite relevant for the times, or so he thought. He laughed out loud a little surprised, a little proud of himself. The world stopped for a flash.

“Beans and elk stew,” he snapped, “keeps the system responsive.”

Eliot T-Bone stretched, scratched his ribs, yawned and walked into his cabin.

– Melvin Toole

Elmer Fudd on RV Safety

Hewo fwends. It’s me again. This time I would wike to discuss AwVee Safety. When you awe out on the woad cwuising this fall there awe a few things you should aways wemember.

Did you bwing awong the micwowave? Weheated food is fwugal.  It sure beats dwopping a wot of woot  in some touwist twap.

Are you hauwing youw caw behind? Is it secuwy hitched? Does youw widdle dog have watew? If you weave him wocked up for more than eight houwas he could dwop dead and stink up youw unit.

Dwiving tips incwude pwopew opewation on and off the woad. Fow instance, nevew puww onto the shouwdew even if you awe howding up miwes of twaffic. Who cawes about them anyway. You pay taxes! Dwiving on the shouwdew could cause you to woose contwow of your wig and go tumbuwing off the mountain into an ugwy cwevice and into the wivew. Aways appwy bweaks and dwive on the weft when cwose to cwiffs.

Wastwy, wemembew if you faww asweep in youw weawy wong wig and forget whea you awe, don’t panic! It’s onwy the awtitude. Youw’ll feew bettew when you weach the campgwound and can use something besides a chemicaw toiwet.

Wemember too that you are not bwocking the woad. Puww ovew wherevew you wike. The othews can just go awound.

Salary Caps replace Football Helmets says NFL

(New York) The National Football league says salary caps, not traditional helmets would grace the noggins of players in 2013. The space-age caps, made exclusively of the elytron of a female stag beetle, the fangs of a pigmy fruit bat, and the feathers of a male peacock are said to be soothing to the scalp and to protect from concussions by conjuring up white magic while off the field.

This sect of Lesser Antilles Voodoo believers has set up shop in Miami and is referenced  right along with The Iceman Cometh and The Fireside Book of Baseball  in both the National Hockey League and in the baseball’s American League.

Many say it was becoming difficult to locate helmets large enough to fit the player’s heads anyway.

“This will give us a whole new look for 2012, said Jeremiah Johnson, a spokesman for the owners. It will be like the old days when players went at it with no face guards and fans could identify players face to face without names stenciled on their backs. When a player got leveled everyone could see who he was.”

Player response was minimal with one special teams’ standout asking if the new bonnets would come out of his pay or if the team would absorb the expenses like it does with shaoulder pads, towels and jock straps.               – Warren of Wexley