The old farm house was about 150 yards from us, off to our right like I said earlier. The bear tracks went straight ahead and down into a little wooded vally. So me and Tom started to head up to the house. When we got there the place was pretty much run down, it looked like it was vacant for the past decade and was now the summer hang~out for the towns kids. There was a mattress on the floor in every bedroom with Goo filled balloons scattered haphazardly around them, who knows, maybe there was a future president, or even the next Motzart stuffed inside one of them balloons. There were empty beer and booze bottles laying every where, and in the kitchen, inside the cupboards there were cans of canned goods. Mostly soup, a couple of cans of spam. Well any ways I call Tom into the room, he was exploring other areas of the house, he comes in and says, "hey dude, theres a fireplace in the livingroom". I says "theres food in the kitchen", do you feel like an early lunch? So out the front door we went to call in Bart. Tom shouts, HEY BART   bart... bart.. bart, the echo went on for quite awhile, we waited 2 min. then I gave it a try. Nothing, so I fired a shot into the air, that'll get his attention. Right after I fired that shot, all hell broke loose, there was one hell of a rucus coming from inside the house. Things falling, things breaking, shit crashing to the ground, and then there was this god awful, it wasn't really a roar, it was more like a muffled growl and then there was total silence. Tom and I spun around so fast that I almost hit him in the head with my gun as I slipped and fell onto the porch. What the fuck was that Tom says. I'll tell you what that was. that sounded like that damn bear was down in the basement. Sure as shit, we walked back in the house and to the back window, looked out and seen his tracks, I mean trench going into the basement and then what looked like huge divets, spaced about 4 feet apart coming out of the basement, but no sign of the bear, it seems we scared the shit out of him more then he scared the shit out of us. Tom says "that was cool", and I had to admit it was quite the rush. That called for another cigarette which Tom was more than happy to lite.

  About 15 min. later along comes Bart. We see him crossing through an open field about 200 yards from the house so we go out to meet him half way. Did you get him he says. No I said, the fucker was down in the basement, we got one shot off at him, but it was to dark down there I think we missed him. No shit really, and Tom says "nah, It happened like this". Tom, that little bastard, we really could of had Bart going on that one. Well 10 min. later I was telling Bart about the fireplace and all the food in that old house and how about having us an early lunch. We got about half way back to the house when we jumped this snowshoe hare, big son-of-a-bitch, about a 20 pounder, biggest damn rabbit I ever saw, pure white. The damn thing would run then just dive into the snow and pop up about 20 or 30 feet away and start running again. Damdist thing I ever saw. Bart and Tom are running him down when he dives into a stand of grass that was sticking out of the snow. Toms got a stick (he left his gun up to the house) and is poking into the grass, I'm about 20 yards behind them when I see this big fucker come out of the snow about 20 yards to there left and just sits there looking at them, well thats all I needed, I put the cross hairs of that 444 Marlin on his head and squeezed. Well to make a short story shorter, we weren't going to have rabbit with are lunch. All that was left was his 2 back feet, I still have one of them floating around here some place. There was meat and fur scattered in a 20 foot radius. After a good laugh and another cigarette we headed back to the house for lunch.

  On our way back we had gathered some firewood, Tom and Bart were getting the fire going while I was scrounging through the kitchen looking for something to cook the soup in. I found a pot, bowls, Christ I found everything I needed to cook and serve lunch, hell I even found instant coffee and cups to boot. These kids had themselves quite the summer hang~out. Well I used my trusty John Wayne, military issue, P-38, multi-purpose can opener, that is still to this day, 30 some years later, hanging on my key ring. I Poured and chopped and put everything into the pot and put it by the fire to warm. We smokeed another one of them cigarettes while coffee and lunch was cooking and talked about that bear in the basement and where the bastard went. Coffee was ready about 20 min. later and the soup was on shortly after that. soup consisted of chicken noodle with big chunks of Spam in it. Yummy, but what the hell it's like my Grandpappy always said "anything that'll make a turd is worth eating". While eating lunch we all stood by the back window and looked out at the bear track, when Bart says,I wonder if the old bear is eating his lunch right now. With that said we cleaned up our mess, put out the fire and off to the dumps we went.

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  About 2 miles down rt,28 was a gas station so we pulled in and filled up. Bart went in to pay while me and Tom sat in the car finishing that cigarette and listening to Fire on the mountain on the 8 Track. Bart comes out with a brown paper bag (remember those) and sets it down on the front seat next to me, so natch I take a peak inside. Theres a half a dozen twinkies, a big bag of lays original potato chips and a 6 pack of Budweiser, he looks at us as he drives away and says "for later", Tom says good thinking bro, and I says, what the fuck, no Rolling Rock? So we continue north on 28 about 10 miles and finally hit the township of Speculator, which consists of a huge dump site, a town highway building which just happens to be the home of that plow truck that followed us the other night with you guessed it the driver and wing man yelling for us to wait they'll be right behind us. We just keep driving. We come to the turn off that is on the map are bar buddies give us, drive about another mile down the road and sure as shit theres the pull off to the state land they told us about. Things are looking good.

  Bart gets out and walks around back to open up the trunk, I look in the back seat and theres Tom with a twinkie half sticking out of his mouth and another in his hand. Your disgusting you know that, and he says "wha I god da munthies". I say, you got another one in your hand, give me one you selfish son of a bitch, he says "otah here you doh". I take it and another one and put them in my pocket, with all this snow, something tells me were going to need some energy later and I suggest that to everyone. Were all standing behind the Torino unloading are guns, jackets, gloves, ect. ect. ect. Tom lights up another cigarette and passes it around. We decide to talk out a stratagy. We decide to walk in a bit, then split up about 150 yards apart and walk north east towards the dumps, the dumps being roughly 2 miles NE of were we are. We decide to meet at the dumps (which is nothing but a big hole in the ground filled with garbage) in about 2 hours, so off we go, cocked and loaded for bear. Barts toating a Mossburg 30-06 w/scope, Toms got an old Russian Mauser 7.92mm, and I have Marlin 44.4 cal. w/scope. The stratagy was to walk paralel from one another untill we find bear tracks, then follow the tracks to the bear, then shoot the bear. Huh, sounds easy enough.

  We get about 100 yards into the woods when we spot these huge set of deer tracks heading east, and theres a pile of deer shit shit there that looks pretty fresh. I bend down and scoop up a handful of them nuggets and sure as the shit in my hands they are fresh, they're still warm. I smell them and says, he's been eating Aspen buds, Tom looks at me says, you can tell that by smelling them? Bart smacks him on the back of the head and says, you idiot theres no Aspins around here, and I said, yah there is, theres a stand right there. As they turn to look at the Aspins up pops this buck and was gone before we could even bring our guns up. I mean he was like greased lightning, fik'in gone like a fart in the wind. We decide to stay put for awhile to let him calm down then Bart was going to track the buck since it was heading in the general direction of the dumps. Tom lights up another smoke and we ramble on about going back to Alden with both a buck and a bear strapped to the Torino.

  Well about 20 min. later off we go, Bart to the left and me and Tom continue down the trail bullshiting away. About a half a mile up the trail Tom says hey dude whats that? I look at him and he's looking staight ahead. I look closer and see what looks like a snowmobile went across the trail about 40 feet in front of us. We walk up to it and it's a trench cut through the foot and a half deep snow about 3 feet across and theres the biggest set of bear tracks I ever seen, hell the only set of bear tracks I ever seen. Thats a lye, I seen a set up in Canada once and they were as big as these. I knew they had to be bear cause they were 4 inches across and 6 inches long. We just stood there and stared at those tracks for a good minute then we both thought the same thought at the same time, we started looking around are general direction just in case it was watching us like that buck was, but there was nothing around but us, with our hearts pounding out of our chests. I crawl right down into the trench and take a handful of snow and take a wiff, female I says, about 400lbs.. Tom looks at me and opens his mouth to say something then shuts it. He's catching on.

  Tom asks what do you want to do dude, split up? I thought back to something my grandpappy told me once, "so if you ever go bear hunt'in take along a friend, I ask why? In case you get hurt he can help you? and he says no, if you get chased by a bear, you don't have to out run the bear, just the friend your with". So with that in mind I say "nah, lets stick together". Tom goes, you lead, your the better tracker, I said fuck man a blind man can follow these tracks. I can still to this day remeber clearly walking those tracks, our senses were at there keenest, heart pounding, looking everywere, smelling the air. It was pretty exilerating. We walked a mile that took about 2 hours when we spot this old farm house off to our right. I look at Tom and Tom looks at me and I says, you thinking what I'm thinking, and Tom goes, fuk'in aye dude I'm froze.

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 What do you say we take up short nap before we head out and check on some hunting sites. Well we set the alarm clock for noon and hit the sack. some dumb ass forgot to wind up the clock because when we woke it was already dark out. Too late to check out anything outside so we did the next best thing, we went to the Kahushkahora Inn, right there in the middle of downtown Poland N.Y., population 150 and that's counting the people just passing threw.

 The Kahushkahora Inn was a typical small town watering hole, pool table, bar, juke box you get the picture right? As soon as you walk into the bar everybody shuts up and looks right at you. The moment we walked threw the door they new we were out of towners and treated us accordingly, but they warmed up to us as soon as they found out we were the idiots that were leading the plow truck on rt.28, it's amazing how news travels in a small town. Some of the abuse we took was, "hey Stanley here is fixin to go plow the road in about an hour, do you guys want to lead the way? HAA HAA HAAA" or "which one of yous was the first to push? HAAA HAAA HAAAA" or "who was the idiot driving? HAAAA HAAAA HAAAAA" Fuk man we felt about 2" tall. But once the jokes were all over with and everybody had there laughs at our expense we all became pretty good friends, hell they even bought us drinks, some of the old timers even told us were to go hunting but also made sure to inform us to let the plow truck go first.

 About 2 am we headed back to our motel to plan out our next days hunt and catch some shuteye. We wound up the alarm clock and set it for 5:00 am. It was 6:00 am when we fell out of bed, we got dressed and loaded up our guns and walked over to the restaurant for our breakfast. we all ordered double of everything which cost us and extra $1.50 each. I think the old broad liked Bart because she gave him an extra egg, either that or she figured since he was the first one to push the car that he walked the furthest so he needed more food, who knows, we never asked. With our breakfast done and our cups empty we went up to the counter paid our bill, while I was there I bought a pack of Marlboro's for $.42, which I thought was a little high but what the hell we were on vacation. We hopped in the car and headed for Speculator with our new found bar buddies hunting map in hand. Tom lit up another cigarette and we were off.

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Bear hunt, sometime in the 1970's, Adirondacks, N.Y.,(Doug,Tom,Bart)

1970's Hurrah. (remember them days) Steppenwolf, Neil Young, Bob Seagar, and lets not forget The Charlie Daniels Band, which was the 8 track of choice throughout pretty much of this journey. The Orange Blossom Special album (A country boy can survive)Well enough reminiscing, lets get on with the story.

September 16th. 1970 something, 74deg.,Alden, N.Y., 3 boys, ready to kill something bigger then them, which back then the biggest thing we killed was a deer and hell they're vegetarians. Well anyways were sitting around smoking this thing that looks like a cigarette, hell it was a cigarette, what the fuck do you think it was? Well anyways we had this vision about going up to the mountains and doing some bear hunting, you know, they're bigger than us, and they'll eatcha if they catchya, so we load up the car and off we go. We leave Alden at about 6:00pm. Friday night, hit the I-90 by 6:30 the same night, you following me so far? We are on the road about 1 hour when Tom says, hey I know this little bar in Rahchacha you guy's might like, well seeing how this is the short story kinda thing going on here I'll put it this way, that bar was one of many we hit on that journey, it took us 12 hours to do a 5 hour trip, but you see the bars weren't the only thing adding time to our journey, it was the weather, cause when we finally hit the mountains we had SNOW. Know I don't mean the kind of snow that you wisp off the hood of your car with your snow brush before you go to work in the morning, I mean fuk'in snow, feet of snow. Were heading down Rt.28 about 15 miles outside of Utica heading toward Speculator, which by the way was the best bear hunting area in the state back then,, It's about 4:30 in the am., no street lights, no mail boxes, no nothing, were taking turns driving Barts 1970 something Ford Torino, with the side pipes and the 50s slicks on the back, let me tell you what, every little incline in the road the one riding shotgun had to get out and push the car to get going and then hop back in while the car was moving, you get the picture so far?

 Hey, look there's headlights behind us. Now picture this, in spots there's 2 feet of snow on the road, snow is falling, I mean flakes the size of golf balls, no wind, not really that cold out, just a lot of snow, at times it was coming up over the hood of the car so the visibility in the front was pretty much nil, but there was the headlights behind us lighting the way. Although I didn't know it then, I know it now, how lucky I was that it was my turn to drive. I'm driving, Barts riding shotgun, and Toms in the back seat. Toms passing around another cigarette when we hit another 10% grade it the road, well you know the story, Bart gets out to push the car, and by the way, those lights behind us belong to a county plow truck. Well Bart pushes, and we get going and the plow truck picks up Bart and me and Tom finish that cigarette that we started. Well roughly another 7 or so miles down the road we hit another incline, yep you guessed it, out goes Tom, and the cigarettes by the way, to push He gets me going and off I go on my merry, but, lonely way. Now I'm think'in like most boys do when they're by them selves what I wouldn't do for half a dozen of Louie's Texas Red hots right about now, I mean with the steamed buns, the all beef hot dogs, all topped with that shitty canoe sauce of theirs, it's to die for. My God I would have given my last (cigarette) right then and there.

 It had to be at least 10 miles later, another 10% grade, Well nobody left riding shotgun, so I'm fucked, I'm sideways in the road, stuck, but no worries, the plow truck pulls up and out comes the driver, Bart, and Tom. I get out of the car, Tom, Bart, and the driver of the plow truck gets out and we meet about half way between the two vehicles, I look, I see the driver, and the other two guys and there not Tom and Bart. Now I'm pissed, I says wheres my buddies, didn't you pick them up? He says back, listen son (because he was older then me) It's me and these two fellers in this truck, I just didn't have the room for them, but I did tell um that sooner or later you'd be back for um., and by the way, why the hell didn't you just pull over about 20 miles back and just let us go by? Well with a comment like that how could I still be pissed. Well all three of them fellers got me back onto the plowed part of the road and off I went back tracking towards Bart and Tom 17 miles in the dark, no street lights, no mail boxes and no Louie's Texas red hots.

Well it wasn't quite 17 miles, it was more like 10, there was Bart and Tom, none to happy either, It seems that Bart figured out sooner than Tom or I that we should have pulled over to let that plow truck go by, and that Tom being left behind also, had some sway in the matter of settling Bart down before I got there, plus Tom had the cigarettes. Either way they loaded up and we turned the car around and headed back towards Speculator.

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