If you enjoy ‘the outdoors’ then this little community is for you. I’m not a fisher or hunter, I like my dead animals processed and stacked neatly at the grocery store, thank you very much. That said, I do love to hike and there are too many trails to count around here.

One of my favourites is a 4.3 kilometer trail around Cobra Lake. Why it was called that, I’ve no idea. I noticed back a few weeks ago the remnants of a little campfire. There weren’t any beer cans strewn about the place so I knew it wasn’t a teenager’s “bush party”. There were however upright sticks at  the north/south ends of the pit. “Somebody’s been cooking”, I thought…

I walked that path every day until I finally ran into a guy I came to briefly know as Harold. Harold was a veteran of the Afghanistan war and ‘just needed to be alone for a while’. I learned that the ‘alone’ had been going on for about four years now. I also learned that Harold was very good with snares and other kinds of traps. Squirrels, rabbits, small aquatic creatures-despite his slight frame he wasn’t lacking protein in his diet.

“But you must miss something, being out here away from everything?”, I asked him one day. “A steak”, he replied. “A nice juicy steak”. He then went on to explain that the dad that he could never please took him out to a fancy (to him) steakhouse when Harold told him that he was going overseas to participate in the Afghanistan War. “Jesus Christ! My boy is gonna kill himself some brownies. That’s what we called them in Vietnam, you know.”

Here was my chance… “Whatta ya say, striploin or t-bone or what?” “Bone-in ribeye”, he responded. “So much more flavour.” This guy knew his cuts.

We met by the open fire on a Friday as the sun was going down. I brought out a cast iron pan and got it ripping hot. I added a touch of oil and the steaks (rubbed with sea salt, cracked pepper and granulated garlic) crackled and smoked when they hit the cooking surface. The smell was amazing. Harold was wiping saliva from the corner of his mouth.

Much later my friend was sprawled out, happy as can be. “I don’t think this night can get any better”, he said. “Oh? I know one thing that would improve it”, I replied.

I jumped on him and pinned his arms with my knees. I didn’t feel one way or another about Harold but felt that strangling him would be our most intimate moment. The small cleaver in my shirt pocket was begging to be used but he was so slight that it took very little time to squeeze the air out of him. Bye Harold, your Chipmunk Stew was actually palatable.

TO THE GAME!

Rams/Bears:

When them Bears win they give up just 15 points per game on average. Can they hold the Rams to that? Let’s see.

How do you get blood off your hands?