Wrinkly Bits
A Blog by Gail Cushman
We went to church last Sunday and the sermon got me to thinking, not so easy to do any more. The preacher said, “The main thing is to keep the main thing, the main thing.” Whoa, that’s a lot of things to remember. So, I started thinking, “What is the main thing?” I’m no expert, but it seems to me that there could be a lot of “main things.”
The preacher was talking about God, and he reminded us of that several times, but I don’t think he realized that it was fall in Montana, so although God is important, the main thing might be something else: HUNTING SEASON.
I know that Hunting Season is important. Men and women in Montana, hunters of all ages, genders, abilities, from the mountains to the breaks, are out to get the big one, whether it is an elk or deer, doe or buck. Antlers or not, although antlers help with the story. Bambi is tabu, but almost anything else is up for grabs, if you have the proper license and tag. Hunting has nothing to do with killing an animal and everything to do with the story. Good stories can last for generations. Here’s my hunting story:
Earlier this year (January) we went to Alaska to go hunting. Musk Ox Hunting Season is in January and it seemed reasonable. Musk Ox are big, slow-moving, cow-like critters, something between an overgrown bull and a buffalo. They aren’t really known for their beauty, but they are known for their wool.
My son, Cole, lives in Nome, Alaska, owns all kinds of cold-weather gear, and invited the Cowboy to join him for a week in the wilderness because he had a tag for a Musk Ox. He said I could come along if I wanted to. He has a few snow-machines and a cold-weather tent with heat, so we said OKAY. Cowboy dug out all his best cold-weather gear, rifles, sleeping bags, and a half dozen caps and gloves, and plunked them in a couple suitcases and off we went. Everything was good.
We arrived in Nome and I was dressed like Frosty the Snowman, on steroids. I could hardly move. I was excited to see my son and daughter-in-law, except they had forgotten to tell us about a cold front that dropped the temperature to -36 degrees that week. To make sure you got it: That’s negative thirty-six degrees. Colder than a witch’s you know what. Nothing worked. Water was frozen, including everything. At that moment, using the bathroom was The Main Thing. Toilets didn’t flush. Cars wouldn’t start. Snow-mobiles didn’t work either. They heat with wood, so we were warm, also a main thing.
The next day, they got the snow-machines going. Sort of. I opened the door once and rethought my idea of going outside. They drove the two machines to town, about five miles down the road and then towed one back.
Cowboy and Cole disappeared into the shop, which was heated, kind of. They fiddled with the snow machines and eventually fixed the problem. Later that afternoon, the big announcement came, “Mom, you can flush now, it’s all working.” Hallelujah.
They were set to go on the Great Musk Ox Hunt and the temp dropped again. Well, sometimes logic prevails, but the two nimrods needed a face-saving gesture to agree with that logic, you know, they are men. Cole walked in with all his warm clothes on, “The dang machines froze to the floor in the shop, the heater quit, I am out of kerosine, and we can’t get to town, so I guess we gotta call this thing off. I noticed at the cut-throat Scrabble game that night that the two mighty hunters positioned themselves mighty close to the stove and by golly, the whiskey seemed to disappear as they told the story of the Great Musk Ox Hunt of ’24.
At that moment in time, the main thing was a great story, of -40 degrees, of snow machines frozen to the floor and the heroic effort of two men against the great Alaska wilderness. “Another shot of that whiskey, please, because, by golly, and that is the only thing that saved us!”
