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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