So I'm at my friends' house in the East Bay, and I'm teaching their toddler son Josh how to use my Sony CyberShot digital camera. Lesson #1: pointing the camera, keeping fingers off the lens (a hard one to teach); Lesson #2: composing the scene:
William Faulkner, in his acceptance speech for the Nobel Prize for Literature, called upon writers of the future to not write merely "for the glands." Of course, at that moment, Faulkner was being rewarded for being the best writer for the glands this country has ever known. Incest, serial killing, insanity, race war, castration, burial of the dead, biblical flood, hunting bear, rape with a corn cob - Faulkner did it all. The guy played our genome like a xylophone. Faulkner, in a suddenly noble moment, called upon writers... to transcend the endocrinological. He didn't set the best example.
[This is the second of two articles contributed by my friend Franklin David Van Ardoy Jr. - Russell]
The Method of the Hunt
The following is a synopsis of the hunt Clayton Cameron and his crew ran with Frank Maestri and me [Van Ardoy]. Every aspect of the hunt is systematic and orderly to ensure efficiency and effectiveness.
The hunt is run with great organization. Two handlers lead the Pit Bulls on leashes while the hounds move about freely and detect the hogs. The Pit Bulls, which are protected with a chest and rib pad that also serves as a harness, remain under human control until the handlers verify that a hog has been bayed. The hounds, which remain unprotected, howl to each other and the hunting party when a hog is located. The hounds descend on the location of the hog and all hounds encircle the hog to keep it at bay. When the hunting party arrives, the dog handlers confirm baying of the hog and they release the Pit Bulls. The Pit Bulls charge the hog with a fury only surpassed in an armor assault. Each Pit Bull rushes the hog with his eyes on the hog’s ears and each takes an ear. They then pin the hog to the ground and await the handlers.
The handlers must then assume separate roles. One holds the hog in an ankle lock while reaching for his pry bar. Clayton takes this role. He pins the hog and removes the Pit Bulls from the hog’s ears with his pry bar. The Pit Bulls will have their jaw clamped down so hard that only the pry bar will remove the dogs from the hog’s ears. A second handler approaches with the leashes to attach to the harness and pull back the Pit Bulls. With the hog in an ankle lock, someone from the hunting party approaches and stabs the hog in the neck and heart. The puncturing of the heart often results in blood spraying fifteen to twenty feet. At this time, the hunter cannot avoid getting hog blood on his knife, hand, arm and legs.
[This is the first of two articles contributed by my friend Franklin David Van Ardoy Jr. - Russell]
The most exciting hunt of my life occurred late last month, March 2006, in Texas. My friend Frank Maestri invited me to the family ranch in Mount Pleasant for a week of hunting feral hogs. I took my Browning BAR in .30-06 with a Tasco Illuminated Reticle Scope. I had zeroed the rifle and scope with 150 gr. Winchester Power Point bullets. Frank used his new lightweight Weatherby in .25-06. Both rifles were up to the task of hunting the big fields of the ranch.
The first four days of the hunt were unproductive. Only Frank’s father, Mike, saw a hog. He shot the young boar through the heart at 75 yards with his .243 caliber “truck rifle.” The constant rain of the first half of my visit drove the animals into the dense woods along the creek and the river. Apparently, feral hogs do not like cold, heavy rain and they were seeking cover. The hogs did not begin to appear until the day after the rain slowed to a gentle shower.
My friends Mark Quon and Franklin David van Ardoy Jr. have been patiently awaiting my posting of their articles contributed to this blog. My apologies to both of them for having waited so long to do so. I'm off to format and post them now.
Now this is funny...
exocortex:~/Documents/src/java$ file *
UnitTest.class: compiled Java class data, version 49.0
UnitTest.java: ASCII C++ program text
