“Real men don’t eat quiche”

Al Hansen

Well-known member


I first met Razz and his wife, Deb, when they stopped at our home in the southwestern high desert village of Luis Lopez, New Mexico where we have lived since 1997. They drove down from the Albuquerque area to check out our Labrador retriever pups that we had for sale. We had a nice talk and it was apparent that the one thing we had in common was our love for the outdoors. It is going on three years now since they bought a very light yellow lab female who now goes by the name of Rio. We still email one another with what we are doing. Not too long ago I sent him an email and this is how he responded to one of my questions;

“We are taking a quick overnight to Chloride. Hunted out of there a while back and thought the town was interesting. There's a small museum to see reminiscent of the silver mining days. Plan to ride home tomorrow via the dirt road up toward the VLA and maybe stop in Magdalena for some egg pie. (real men don't eat quiche!)”

When I read that it was like a vacuum cleaner began removing cobwebs from my brain. In a split second I was thinking of a moose hunt that my hunting buddy, Lee, and I were on when I lived in Alaska back in the 1960s. It was a typical meat hunt in which I was after a small Mulligan bull so that my freezer would be full for the year. As an old timer had told me just a couple of years prior to that, “You can’t eat the horns, Cheechako.” I thought about that for a moment remembering this whiskered gent who reminded me that soon he would be leaving for Australia because guys like me were making it damn uncomfortable for him. He hated crowds and looked me square in the eyes when he said it!

I had found a spot on the Kenai peninsula that always seemed to have at least a couple of bulls in the area. One of the reasons was it was far enough off the highway to make most hunters squirm in their boots just thinking of back-packing one of these critters out. I loved that because even though this gorgeous spot at the base of the mountains was only about 2 1/2 miles from the highway, it always seemed pristine to me.

Lee and I had arrived the afternoon before the season opened. After setting up our two man mountain tent, we got comfortable and started scoping the area out. It didn’t take long before a good sized bull came out of the alders up on the mountainside. He was a dandy, maybe in the 57 to 60 inch class. I told Lee that with the new law that Alaska had I would be damned if I was going to leave the scrotum attached to any hind quarter of meat that I was carrying to my Bronco. My hunting partner nodded in agreement and chuckled. I had a fanny pack that would be perfect for having that scrotum to be carried in. I sure as hell wasn’t going to be tainting our moose meat with urine and other body fluids. Damn near made me sick to think of it! A few cows and their calves came along and quickly disappeared in the shadows as night began to settle in. We had no trouble getting to sleep that night.

The following morning after a quick breakfast, we got up early enough to get back to our vantage point to be glassing the area. I’ll bet we hadn’t been there 20 minutes when I happened to be looking at a small meadow on the mountainside that looked like a perfect opening surrounded by alders. At that moment a cow moose stepped out, looked about and then began grazing. A few moments later out stepped a Mulligan bull and we hastily put a plan together. No wind to worry about yet so our ascent was perfect and before I knew it, I had the crosshairs on the bull. He dropped like a ton of bricks when my Remington 7mm broke the early morning silence.

On our first trip back to the Bronco, we each carried out a hind quarter. That didn’t seem too bad because we still had the energy of the young guys we were. I was 27 and Lee was going on 38.

With our return trip behind us, we stopped at the edge of the opening where our bull was and decided to sit and take it easy. I can tell you that my energy was being sapped out of me quickly since we didn’t eat much for breakfast. Not only that I cleaned out my pack to make it as light as possible for that last trip that we still had to make. I looked at Lee and asked, “Do you have anything to munch on?” He gave me a sideways glance and said, “Nope.” It was just then that I remembered my fanny pack where I had tossed the scrotum of the bull moose. In there was an orange that I carried for just in case. I took it out with my thumb and index finger because it was dripping with all those body fluids that not too long ago was making me sick to think about. “Hey, Lee, I can wipe this off on my pants leg and peel it—are you all right with that?" I asked. It was easy to see he was as starved as I was. My gosh, that orange was so delicious and we never once talked about it again. I guess that was 47 years ago now!
Al
 
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Enjoyed the story! I remember those "younger-I-can do-anything-and I'm-bullet-proof" days. I use to do a lot of spelunking in my younger days. Wouldn't dare go into some of those tight places today I went into back in my 20's. (Probably couldn't fit anyway.)
 
Al~

The "quiche" caught my attention.... I have been serving Quiche Lorraine to my duck and deer hunting companions for many years now - it is THE traditional gunning breakfast among the burly and rugged old gunners who foregather here at Pencil Brook Farm.

On the other hand, maybe we Easterners are nowhere near as tough as you guys from the "earlier" time zones. As far as I know, none of us needs a fanny pack just to carry our scrotums around....

All the best,

SJS
 
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