moosehead

June 2, 2019

“Coastal Camaraderie”

            GRANDVIEW, WA -- Does anybody have a moose skull hanging on the back porch or in a shed? Maybe one stashed in a rented storage unit? Perhaps you won moose skull in a divorce settlement and are about ready to take a baseball bat after it. Well, don't. I need it and am willing to buy it on the cheap. --The cheap? You know, somewhere in the two-figure range.

            My sister Sue has a moose skull in the garage that's been here for about a decade or more. Sue’s family doesn’t kill moose for the skull and antlers. They’re in it for the meat. They say it’s the best there is. I’ve heard the same of goat, emu, caribou, and Sasquatch. I’m not believing any of it.

            No one up here has offered me any of their moose. I can only assume they consider me unworthy. Either that or they’re trying to hide the fact that roasted moose tastes like marinated water hose. Right. I’m unworthy.

            However, Susan considers our brother Big Al worthy of the moose skull. She offered it to him a few years back, when Al was visiting. Unfortunately, Big Al didn't have room in his van to haul it back to Conroe. Lady Gaga doesn't have enough room in her entire equipment hauling convoy for a moose skull. The things are huge.

            You could chop the antlers off, but all you’d have left is a much smaller moose skull. Unfortunately, an antlerless moose skull looks somewhat satanic. It would only look good if you stuck it next to a "Private Property – Keep OUT!" sign. I must say, even with the antlers attached, it still looks grim as all get out. Big Al just wants to hang it in his rustic patio area.   

            On this trip, I planned to ship Sue’s moose skull home and surprise Big Al with it. My kid brother has done so many favors for me of late that I wanted to give him something I knew he wanted. Our sister’s antlered moose skull. Susan wanted to keep it in her garage in Washington as a way of coaxing Alan back for another visit. For a movie role, Al would show up tomorrow. For a moose head? It’s a tough call.

            Truth be told, I'm not even sure Big Al still wants the thing. What I am sure of is there is still a lot of work to do on the skull. There is a bunch of dried out flesh and moose fur hiding all over the thing. If they had piranha in the Columbia River, I could throw it in that thing for a few seconds. I could throw it in an ant bed and let them clean the thing, but I’m yet to find an ant bed. I assume the ants on the desert-side of the Cascades, travel in small packs. I seek reasons for everything.

            Even if I could degunk the skull, the head weighs a ton. To box and ship a giant moose skull would cost me more than double figures. Better to buy one from a reader. Either one of you.

            Right now, we need to get past the moose and move along to go-carts. Stay with me here. Last week during one of the rainy days at the beach in Westport, we decided to take in a movie at the mall in Aberdeen, a town just a few miles inland from Westport. A beautiful town, Aberdeen. It’s a town on the east coast of Scotland that was named after a girl called “Aberdeen,” which is another name for “Wanda.” – The Wanda part was just a guess.

            Col. Don, Curt and I went to see “John Wick 3,” and Susan, Rhonda and Kay went to see “Poms,” the movie about some older women who become cheerleaders. If that’s not a draw, I don’t know what is. Turns out, the women picked the better movie. “Wick 3” was a two hour and 15 minute fight, with the storyline – “Kill John Wick.” After the first hour, I was begging someone to kill him, just to put me out of my misery.

            Fortunately, the Aberdeen mall has a go cart track inside the mall. The one and only time I ever drove a go-cart, it was powered by a lawnmower engine and ran on a simple oval track. In Aberdeen, they had battery-powered cars that were streamlined as all get out. And the track had some hairpin turns that would have your right kidney trying to head-butt your left.  

            Many tourists would consider it stupid to drive through a scenic mountain pass, walk along a beautiful shelled beach, see the sun set across the less than placid Pacific Coast, and then drive to town to see a movie and ride a go-cart. For me, a big part of a vacation involves the camaraderie with family and friends. Our clowning around about the go-cart race and the John Wick movie was an important part of the vacation experience. I can’t speak for the others, but I doubt Curt and I will soon forget our go-cart race. He lapped me once, but had the timekeeper added one more minute to the challenge, he would’ve lapped twice. It was the most fun I’ve ever had losing.  

             

            This isn’t the end of our Washington trip, but it is the end of this article. Friday we cross over the mountains at Chinook Pass on our way to SeaTac Airport for our flight back. We’ve had the time of our lives, but it will still be good to get home. Big Al will be picking us up at the airport. I’m not going to tell him about the moose head. It might be prudent to wait until I get a response from one of you who have a spare moose skull you care to unload.

           

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