Stayed busy and away from the computer over the past 3 or 4 days....basketball Thursday and Friday nights, along with a Junior High double header on Saturday morning...yesterday I sat around and watched the Bengals play poorly, and get stomped by a very good Vikings team in Minnesota. Even though a Bengals fan, I have been to more games in Minnesota the past 10 years(8 between baseball and football), compared to only a handful of Reds and Bengals games....usually me and Nick meeting up with Jim Olson. Not that I can remember most games....usually under the influence of beer and food for the duration of the trips.Along with the basketball officiating at Spencerville Thursday, Elida Friday, and Delphos St. John on Saturday....I also drove down to Columbus early Friday to pick up the vehicle less Sam for the break between Fall and Winter Quarters at Ohio State....he will be around until the first of the year, before heading back to Columbus.
I was supposed to head over to Nick's for his outdoor winter Bar B-Q on Saturday evening, but the old man was just to wore out from the trips and basketball to get out of the chair...such is the glory of aging.
Remembering an Albino Wild Boar from Venice, Florida____
I stopped by a web site, I frequent on occasion the other day, and saw a thread talking about the increase of Coyotes in Ohio{I saw a large dead one on US 33 on the way back from Columbus on Friday}...someone asked then if Wild Boar, or Wild Hog as some call them, have increased in numbers in Ohio...That I don't know, but it did remind me of an incident while growing up outside of Venice, Florida.
From 1957 through the summer and fall of 1959 we lived a couple miles north of Venice on a wild stretch of road called the Venice By-Way that ran between Nokomis and Venice a few miles to the east of the Tamiami Trail(US 41), and by passed the town of Venice. The folks rented a house that sat on a few acres of scrub grass and was bordered by Roberts Bay and a creek that flowed out of same....{today it has been disposed of by "progress}. Large acres of woods also lay next to the property.
Our next door neighbors were the Blackburn Family, whose forefathers had helped found the towns of Venice and Nokomis back near the turn of the 20th Century....One son Teddy was my classmate at Venice Elementary, and his folks owned acres of Orange Groves directly across the road from us{this portion of the By-Pass in now Albee Farm Road}...Teddy and I, along with his brothers and my older brother Mike spent many hours, along with the passel of mongrel and hound dogs both families had, exploring the back water areas....Alligators, Snakes, and even Wild Boars be dammed!
One windy afternoon in the Summer or early Fall of 1958, Teddy and I, along with his old hounddog "King" were walking back through the brush near the water line, when we heard a rustle in the bushes...and what we though was a grunting sound...we were not sure, but we knew it was "something". Old King ran into the bushes, and about a minute later he came hauling ass out...like his butt was on fire. Well Ted and I didn't wait around, we got our butts in gear as well and with King keeping pace we headed back to our house and the relative safety of the front porch.
A few other dogs greeted us and we talked about what might have been in the bushes.....within 5 minutes we knew the answer.
Off in the scrub bush between our house and the creek appeared a large Wild Boar....2 nice tusks, and something I had never knew existed...he was white. An albino? Perhaps, but today some 50 years later, I believe he was just a dirty white color...big son of a bitch he was, no matter what color. Old King and a couple of our dogs alerted as the wild hog snorted the air...pure evil we thought, but with him being a hundred yards or so away, we stayed on the porch, and watched. The dogs started raising Hell, but not being stupid, they knew they were overmanned by this giant porker....the hog looked our way, and then without a care headed back into the wilds....
I would have said after the incident, that scared us from going out alone or even with the dogs...but it didn't. Snakes, bugs, Gators, snappers, and even an occasional White Wild Hog were common stuff of young boys back in 1950s South Florida....and we were better off for the time outdoors.
Venice, Florida, was once a wild place that sat along the Gulf of Mexico...today, overrun with Blue Hairs, overcrowding, and traffic....you wouldn't recognize my childhood home....the history though is worth the read:
Our kids and future generations have not clue on what life was like back then....Video games, Computers, rap music, and cable TV, have nothing on the children of the 1940s and 50s. We left Venice for Ohio back in 1963....it had changed 10 fold by the time I returned for a visit in 1975....and continues to change on a monthly basis today.
Good News on the Obama Front____
While our resident Kenyan-in-Thief, one Barack Insane Obama, and his lap dogs in Congress and the media continue to try to shove Global Warming, Taxes, and Health Scare, down our throats...there are signs, big time, that the majority of American Voters are starting to wake up:
Scott Rasmussen has been the most accurate of pollsters for the past several elections, and usually gets it right on the nose. He hit the 6% win by Obama over McCain right on the money for 2008...when his poll numbers come out, most folks heed the warnings. Apparently our Kenyan Warrior and his staff could care less that they are now as hated as any President has ever been after only 1 year(less in Obummer's case) has ever been.
Keep pushing Barry, eventually you will get buried....and quit having your lap dogs telling us the Recession{actually a Depression} is over....it's not, and no matter how much printed money you throw at Your(not Bush any more) Economic Problems, the problems are going to last....get off the American Republic's back and leave us the Hell alone, you miserable bastard!
Sam will take over the Dartball chores tonight....I will be back at Temple Christian for a Junior High boys double header......a full week of basketball, along with Sam's birthday on Thursday and Patricia and my 33rd Anniversary on Friday the 18th.
Back Later>>>>
Photos-top The Blackburn boys with me and my sister Marty on March 16, 1958, in our yard on the Venice By-Way...the event was my 9th birthday. That's me with my new catcher's mitt, and Teddy on my left in the middle. Mom's 1956 Chevy{her first car} sets in the background. And a wild hog{boar}...ours was much whiter, and had large tusks....considering the size of Ted's hound king, my guess is the boar weighted in at somewhere in the 150-200 pound range.
3 comments:
It really does hurt, when you return to the place of your birth, or maybe where you'd "learned to be a kid", only to discover it totally changed by "progress", as you put it. I lose a little more of my current "kingdom" each passing year to that same type of "progress".
But at least I(we!)still are able to remember those days. Hopefully for some time to come yet.
I don't know if life was simpler then---or if we were just more logical about how to be a kid, in those days of "hands-on" fun...?
Yes Bruno...I'm thinking my mom might disagree with my views....doing wash in tubs with sulfur water, No Air Conditioning, no power steering, and a thousand other things that were not as nice as they are these days...
But for Kids like me the 1950s will always have top billing in my memory banks...the good times and the few bad.
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