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Tip o' the Day

There've been a few times when a fire became more than a mere pleasant accompaniment to outdoors adventure -- Like the time I was alone, bringing out the last of our hunting camp on the first day of December. The temperature hovered below zero, and two feet of snow lay across the frozen land. And I lost a mitten.

It was while my packstring trundled silently along the trail. I took the mitten off to dig in my saddlebag for a sandwich. After I'd eaten the sandwich, and wished to slide my already freezing fingers into the fur-line glove, I missed it! My first thought was to stop the packstring and flounder back to look for it. But there were eight laden packhorses back there and I had no idea how long it'd been gone. Besides, it would certainly have been buried by the churning horse hoofs. Later, though, a quickly kindled fire from dead fir limbs broken from trees near the trail saved deadened fingers.

Another time a friend and I returned to road's end after backpacking all day in a drenching rain. We reached a three-sided Forest Service shelter well after dark, scrounged what poor wood we could find with a flashlight, then huddled around a fluttering fire that seemed as if it'd never take off. Then I remembered the battered piece of magnesium wedge (used by tree cutters to tip a tree in a desired direction). An old sawyer had told me they sometimes used battered pieces of old wedges to make warming fires burn hot.

Dumb me! I threw the piece of magnesium (not even as large as a man's billforld) into our fitful fire, then promptly forgot about it while I tried to boil coffee, water for soup, heat campwater for rinsing hands and dishes.

For the uninitiated, magnesium is one of the most difficult metals to weld because its melting temperature and its flashpoint is so close together -- in the neighborhood of 500 degrees. Apparently, some point at the bottom of our little fire, the temperature hovered at 500 degrees.

My friend and I had piled wet wood all around our campfire in hopes it would dry sufficiently to allow us to cook breakfast the following morning. Meanwhile, our coffee water and our soup water and our dishwater barely simmered. Then the magnesium caught!

Instantly the temperature of our fire shot to 2,000 degrees! Flames leaped toward the shelter's shingled roof! Instantly our coffee pot boiled over, the soup pan boiled dry and melted, Luckily I managed to kick the dishpan out into the drumming rain. The wet wood we had scattered around the fire instantly steam-dried, began smoldering, then turned to blaze! My friend and I threw coats over our faces and tried to push the wood out into the rain with long sticks. For a moment we thought we'd lose the building.

Then the magnesium chunk burned out and the flames receded to lick merrily at the charred firewood left in the firepit. Sheepishly we gathered our scattered wood, now all dry, and ricked it along one wall. Then we started cooking all over again.

No, Roland Cheek hasn't been in a gunfight at the O.K. Corral or punched dogies down the streets of Abilene. But he has straddled rawboned ponies over 35 thousand miles of the toughest trails in all the Northern Rockies and spent five decades wandering the wild country throughout the West. Now, after crafting six prior nonfiction books, hundreds of magazine articles, and thousands of newspaper columns and radio scripts about his adventures, the guy has at last turned his talent to Western novels, tales from the heart, dripping with realism, and based in part on a plethora of his own experiences.

MIDAS TOUCH IN REVERSE

Midas, so Greek Mythology goes, was a greedy lout, not satisfied with more money than God and almost as much as Croesus, so he petitioned the residents of Mount Olympus to grant his heart's desire: that everything he touched turned to gold. This the Gods did.

Never mind that having the gift wasn't everything King Midas hoped -- was in fact, after the new wore off, something of a boor. His gift, however, gave rise to a phrase since used to describe those who are outrageously successful at whatever they do, particularly making money: "The Midas touch."

Like Midas, I have a touch . . . sort of. But mine's more in reverse. Instead of gold, most things I touch turn to . . . well, it ain't good.

I buy a dog with an impeccable pedigree and a long line of hunting ancestors and he's gun-shy, or she won't hunt for anyone but Jane.

I bring home a horse that's long of leg, deep of girth, and quartered like an NFL linebacker and it's barn-soured, kid-spoiled, or won't lead unless hooked by a log chain to an 18-wheeler with ice chains installed.

My axe handles always shatter at anybody's first lusty swing.

The sounds of brush popping just ahead turns out not to be the bull elk of my dreams, but a pine squirrel cutting spruce cones from 50 feet overhead.

My new boots won't stretch if I buy 'em too tight, or never quit stretching if they're made-to-fit.

Other folks talk of "bluebird weather" or "Indian summer," but with me it's a moral victory if I don't see rain, snow, wind, and dust all on the same day.

I climb lofty mountain summits for a spectacular view at the same time the U.S. Forest Service touches off smokey slash fires throughout western Montana.

My mail never contains the hoped for juicy writing assignment or the overdue royalty check. Nope. It's chocked full of window envelopes, most of which has "Third Notice" stamped on the outside, or "Please!!!" penciled on the inside.

My "used" cars haven't been merely used, but over-used.

My fly boxes are all filled with bass poppers or ice jigs while I'm standing alongside a South Fork gravel bar where cutthroats splash the water in a feeding frenzy.

The package of steaks i grabbed from the freezer the night before, thawed all day, and opened 40 miles from roads end, ready to throw onto a campfire grill turns out to be a hambone for a dog that won't hunt for me anyway.

If I'm well stocked with lantern mantels, then I forgot the white gas.

Roland's Rule has it that my cinch always breaks right after I installed a new latigo strap.

And when I twist in the saddle for the raincoat tied behind the cantle, it fell off miles back up-trail.

I even get an electric shock from a safety razor.

The pounds I wished for on a high school football field have become the anvil of my middle during my dotage.

Pretty young girls used to avoid me; now -- when it's too late -- they want to put their arms around me in order to help what they see as an old duffer across the street.

They say there's some Irishman who has a corner on the anti-Midas touch, but Murphy has some first-rate competition. Even should my dreams of having things I touch turn to gold come true, five will get you ten it'll be -- you guessed it! -- iron pyrite.

To those of you who may not know, iron pyrite is commonly known as "Fool's gold." I've almost got that market cornered!

 

 

Roland Cheek wrote a syndicated outdoors column (Wild Trails and Tall Tales) for 21 years. The column was carried in 17 daily and weekly newspapers in two states. In addition, he scripted and broadcast a daily radio show (Trails to Outdoor Adventure) that aired on 75 stations from the Atlantic seaboard to the Pacific Ocean. He's also written upwards of 200 magazine articles and 12 fiction and nonfiction books. For more on Roland, visit:

www.rolandcheek.com

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