Posted by
John Caile on Tuesday, September 22, 2009 9:49:33 AM
His name was Ross. He stood six foot four and weighed 205 pounds, and even at 57 years of age, he still wore jeans with a 34 inch waist. He had closely cropped white hair, a face tanned a leathery brown by years in the Wyoming sun, and icy blue eyes that scanned everything in his path - "hunter's eyes" one of my friends once called them.
I first met him in 1995, but it was at a Minnesota camp ground in 1996 that I got a genuine insight into who Ross really was. Like most such camping facilities, there was a curfew - at 11:00PM all radios and other devices were to be turned off, and conversations were to be kept to a level that would not disturb those who had turned in for the night.
Sometime around 11:30, it became clear that one group of rather rowdy young men either couldn't read, or (more likely) had perhaps consumed a bit too much alcohol. Because they were not only shouting and laughing loud enough to be heard a mile away, they had a "boom-box" blaring obnoxious music that echoed through the still night air.
Someone down the way even yelled "turn that thing down!" - but the late night revelers went on undeterred - staggering around their fire, laughing, drinking, swearing, and generally making a nuisance of themselves.
It was then that Ross grumbled something under his breath, stood up from our fire and walked to his tent. A few seconds later he loped off down the path in the direction of the noisy camp group - they were perhaps 50 yards or so down the line of tents and small RV's.
Something in the tone of his voice told me I shouldn't miss what was about to happen, because I too got up and headed down the lane, on the other path that went behind the campsites. I took up a position just behind a tree about 30 feet from the young men.
Ross couldn't have come up with a more dramatic entrance if he had planned it. On the opposite side of the campsite from where I was, he suddenly appeared between two trees, facing the young men circled around the fire.
First one, then another, and eventually all of the young
men turned their gaze in Ross' direction - the conversations dwindled
down to whispers. Only the boom-box continued to disturb the night.
The firelight illuminated him in a way that made him look even more forbidding. The massively broad shoulders, the narrow waist, the ruddy face, those piercing blue eyes made even more so by the flickering of the fire. He was wearing a light blue chambray shirt with the sleeves rolled up exposing his muscular forearms, faded jeans, and dark brown cowboy boots.
But it was more than just his appearance that stopped the young men cold - hanging easily in Ross' strong right hand was a massive, double-bladed axe, with a handle over three feet long, the kind that lumberjacks in Alaska use. The blade gleamed as the firelight caught it.
It was then that Ross spoke, in his deep and booming voice that required no great volume to command attention. "Boys" he growled, "you wanna shut that thing off..." then, after he brought the huge axe up and cradled the blade end in his left hand, "...or would you like me to do it?"
After an agonizing second or two, one of the boys practically fell over his buddies to get to the offending device, slamming the "off" button so hard the boom-box tipped over. "Sorry..." he squeaked.
"Thanks, boys," replied Ross, who then stepped back into the darkness, vanishing like some demon the boys all wished they had only imagined.
Ross died the following year - a massive heart attack doing to him what few mortal men could have accomplished. But I will never forget that night, and what it taught me.
I thought about Ross the other day, when I read that a new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey found that 31% of
voters agree with the decision of the Obama administration to withdraw the U.S. missile shield from Poland, but 38% disagree.
Thirty-two percent (32%) are not sure what’s best to do.
More to the point, fifty-eight percent (58%) of Republicans oppose the
president’s decision, a view shared by the plurality (43%) of voters
not affiliated with either major political party but only 15% of Democrats opposed the withdrawal. A paltry 15%?
I couldn't help wondering what Ross might have thought...