Ricky Harpole
Balladier, raconteur extraodinaire

I saw something this morning that I wasn’t sure was there. It is an embarrassment that I had doubts of my own eyesight.

At first I thought I was sleep walking again or just having a vivid dream. The medication I sometimes take keeps me sleeping in erractic leaps and bounds.

If I sleep soundly for one to two hours, I wind up on my back which allows my lungs to fill up with what can graphically be compared to concrete snot. It has to be dealt with using the Nebulizer, which is noisy as a cotton gin, or with a mist inhaler, which leaves a taste in your mouth and lungs that cannot be described in a family newspaper.

The thing is, although the stuff works and dissolves the concrete, it sets off a sequence of coughing and gagging (as well as more embarrassing noises which tend to wake up the watch dogs). Once they get cranked up they will raise hell for at least another hour.

It was one of those mornings. I had nothing on my agenda except sleep. I took a mild tranquilizer to offset the side effects of the Nebulizer, one of which is to make your extremely nervous and  shaky, which amounts to a poor aim, so I opted for the shotgun when the yard dogs wouldn’t shut up.

I checked the premises where I saw what appeared to be a seven-foot-tall looter ransacking the party truck where the BBQ leftovers and Sunday beer were stored.

That sort of thievery cannot be tolerated. He appeared to be wearing a fur coat with a hood on it. Considering the size and mass of the burglar, I substituted the shotgun for a .45-70 caliber Buffalo Gun.

My hands were still shaky, but my eyeballs were too and I figured if I could get ‘em in time with one another, I could put an end to this pilferer. I cocked that massive piece of artillery and made sure I had a sharp butcher knife close to hand, took a deep breath and hit the spotlight on the porch.

What I saw was revealed by the light. What I was looking at was a 3-to-5 year old black bear with two cubs about the size of half-grown Rottweiler puppies, with a taste for leftover barbecue.

I sat and watched her demolish the barbecue cooler (with the butcher knife still at hand and the shotgun within easy reach and the .45-70 cocked) until she shared the remains of the barbecue with the cubs and left.

The dogs had long since shut up and hid under a neighbor’s porch. If that old sow had busted into that Sunday beer cooler, this story might have wound up with a bloody ending. I still might shoot those sorry runaway yard dogs, but probably not. I’ll just make sure they never get another bite of tailgate barbecue for the rest of their cowardly lives.

Still thinking about it,
Ricky Harpole
P.S. Thar’s bars in them thar woods.
(Contact Harpole at www.facebook.com/harpolive or www.colespointrecords.com)