We used to hunt Deer and Elk over Bethel Ridge from our friends Old Hunters Cabin on the Tieton River in Trout Lodge, WA.
I remember as a boy having to sleep in the cold attic as all the beds down below were filled with snoring adults.
When the fire in the stove burned low, boy did it get cold! I don't remember if it was the excitement of the next day's hunt or the cold breeze blowing through my sleeping bag that kept me awake?
I do remember the ice cold drinking water in the in the 5 gallon milk can on the front porch. The sound of cornflakes with the frozen ground under foot in the predawn as we made our way to our deer stand.
I guess that's why this poem strikes hits the bulls-eye for me.
Doug
Palace in the Popple
It's a smokey raunchy boar's nest, with an unswept drafty floor, And pillow ticking curtains, with knife scars on the floor.
The smell of a pine knot fire, from a stovepipe that's come loose, Mingles sweetly with the boot grease, and the Copenhagen snoose.
There are work worn .30-.30's with battered steel stocks, And drying lines of longjohns, and steaming pungent socks.
There's a table for the bloody four, and their game of two card draw, And there's deep and dreamless sleeping, on bunk ticks filled with straw.
Ed and Lawrence, by the stove, their gun talk loud and hot, And Rob, has drawn a pair of kings, and is raking in the pot.
Harvey's drafted again as cook, he's peeling spuds for stew, While Gus, wanders by in baggy pants, reciting Dan McGrew.
Nowhere on earth is fire so warm, nor coffee so infernal, Or whiskers stiff or jokes so rich, or hope blooms so eternal.
A man can live for a solid week, in the same old under britches, He can walk like a man, spit where he wants, and scratch himself where he itches
I tell you boys there's no place else, where I'd rather be come Fall, Where I eat like a bear and sing like a wolf, And feel like I'm Bull Pine tall.
In that raunchy cabin out in the bush, in the land of the Raven n Loon, With a tracking snow lying new to the ground, at the end of the rutting moon.
George Augustus (Gus) Bixby
Circa 1905
