Shoptalk With Tito! Bear Hunting With a Pocket Knife

The wind blows cold across a frozen meadow somewhere in the Alaskan outback. You scan the scene from a make-shift blind you constructed out of broken juniper branches. You squint at the sun as it peeks from behind a cloud. You shiver slightly as the breeze whistles across the back of your neck. A rustling in the scrub brush from the far side of the meadow alerts you to the coming of your quarry: Ursus Arctos Horribilis…the great grizzly bear. The giant boar ambles into the clearing and sniffs the air as if it perceives something in the wind. A great beast of easily a thousand pounds, plods forward into the clearing, pausing to use its incredibly advanced olfactory sense to determine where the apparently enticing scent emanates from. Its head turns in the direction of your evergreen blind. You sit motionless, barely breathing, as the bear begins to move again…this time directly towards your position. Like some primal ritual from ages long past you wait at the ready as your trophy approaches. the bear is now a mere twenty yards away, the time is now! You fire your projectile with deadly accuracy striking the animal in the left shoulder. It doesn’t even flinch. Your pocket knife, which hit the creature handle-end first, swings like a pendulum, entangled in its silver-tipped fur. The hairy, half-ton juggernaut charges forward as you fire your secondary weapon: the dreaded cell phone headset followed closely by your treasured cell phone and an ink pen! Undaunted the bear barrels forward. Time is running out! The monster is ten feet away as you launch your final assault with ninja-like precision striking the bear squarely between the eyes! It skids to a stop toppling your make-shift blind. You are now nose to nose, your eyes locked to his and in a moment of ethereal psychic connection you can actually read the creature’s thoughts! “Did this moron really just throw a set of false teeth at me?” the bear thinks as it begins to put its own huge teeth to use, which are still in his immense mouth. All that remains are a couple scattered bones, a single cowboy boot and a tattered Epes Transport ball cap. Unless one has a death wish, surely one would be more prepared. Why would you leave home each week in a machine built by someone else without any means to help yourself??? You don’t always have to be a professional “wrench-slinger” to help yourself out of a difficult situation. When Billy Bob’s road service pulls up to your truck in a ’69 Buick station wagon to tighten a loose air-line, you will wish you had a wrench or a pair of pliers in your possession. Some of these roadside thieves destroy more than they repair then charge five hundred bucks to do it! A few simple hand tools like a hammer, the afore-mentioned pair of pliers, a few extra fuses and a West Virginia socket set (a.k.a. adjustable wrench) are often enough to fend off the predators of the open road. No one expects you to rebuild an engine in the side ditch but you’d be surprised what someone can “talk you through” if you keep just a few little things in your side box. Face it, without any means of helping yourself you are just a “babe in the woods”! ‘Til next time, y’all come see us! A grizzly bear amongst Teddy bears…the Tito!