Things I did I shoulda didn't

 

Things I  shouldn't have did

1. Sleeping on the ground in rattlesnake country.

At a place west from Three Rivers, north about half way to Jourdanton on Hwy 16 I encountered some huge rattlers:

• 1972 a six footer plus, on trip with Bob Emisson.

• another, about six feet — Stan milked the eggs.

(You can read details of these in my “Rattlesnakes I Have Known.”)

And just up the road, near Uvalde, I spread my sleeping bag on the ground beside the fire and slept soundly all night, on a 1967 hunting trip w/ Stan Russell, Bill Johnston, Cecil Polvado, and Andy Quillan

2. Running alongside a pig to kill it. It had run into the road in front of Stan's truck the night we were returning from a lease near Freer. The hog was injured, but not dead. Turning and spinning around in the road, I perceived that it was a traffic hazard. I chose to terminate it, for the sake of safety to oncoming traffic. I walked toward it, and it ran toward the far side of the road. I ran beside it, nearly touching it, with my leg near its body. It was a large pig — a hog, about 12” across its shoulders, two feet high, and four feet long. A big animal. Knowing now of the tusks they carry, and the damage that they can inflict I regard it as foolish to have run so close alongside it. I was lucky that it didn't turn and hook me — either when I approached, or when I reached down with my forty-four, held in my left hand, nearly touching the pig's shoulder, and shot it in the middle of its back.

3. Swimming out in the bay along the jetty. At night. I knew that the Bob Hall Pier shark fishermen chose to put their baited rigs out at night because that is when the sharks are feeding!

Summer night. Calm, warm water. I fearlessly swam alongside the jetty on North Beach out to the area where the water was about eight feet deep.

Luminescent organisms saturated the water, and illuminated my every splash and kick. I was fascinated, and entertained. And lucky. For there well may have been sharks in the water.

I had watched a 13 foot Great White swim across the beach from the 39^th street groin to the 37^th street groin in three foot deep water.

 And I saw a fisherman pull in a three foot bull shark, fishing near the shore from the 61st Street pier, in water eight inches deep. Sharks go where they can. In water deep enough for them to swim.

From the perspective of age, experience, and acquired knowledge I shudder at the memory of some of my exploits. And I am grateful for the guardian angels that rode on my shoulders.