A news release came out of a state, the name of which we will not mention to spare it embarrassment, to the effect that whale sperm makes a marvelous gun oil.
Apparently what was meant was that sperm whale oil was good for gun maintenance, but either the writer didn't know any better or his copyreader assumed "sperm whale" was some Freudian typo and changed it.
The whole thing reeked of those stories that everyone knows are true, but they can't quite lay their hands on the proof. "Well, I didn't see it, but my brother-in-law knows a guy who was there..."
It's easy to create a story. The late Ed Zern once claimed there was no Ted Trueblood because obviously no one could have a name like that. It was manufactured, he said, like Mark Trail, and Ted Trueblood actually was a bunch of nail-chewing New York sub-editors with terminal dandruff.
Well, Ted Trueblood was real, because he once wrote a book and in the dust jacket photo he was consorting with not one, but two Brittany spaniels, God's own dog. Thanks to Zern, he had a terrible time proving his continued existence for years after.
There is the story of the Atlantic salmon angler who came home with a beautiful fish. He and his wife invited several couples to share in the eating of it. The wife prepared the fish, left the kitchen on an errand, and when she returned found the family feline whisker deep in the steaming salmonid. She pitched the cat out the back door, found the damage to the fish wasn't irreparable. She did a bit of piscine plastic surgery and the dinner party hugely enjoyed the fish and parted, amid happy, replete farewells.
The wife stepped onto the back porch making a final check around before bedtime...and found the cat laid out there, deader than a mackerel...or an Atlantic salmon. She had instant, horrified visions of botulism. She sobbed out the cat story to her husband who called the family doctor. The doc said, "You'll have to contact everyone who ate the fish and have them go immediately to the hospital to have their stomachs pumped."
So, the husband cajoled everyone off to have the magnificent meal rudely removed. Next morning the wan angler stepped out the front door to get the morning paper and was greeted by his neighbor.
"I have some bad news," the neighbor said. "I didn't want to disturb your dinner party last night, but I accidentally ran over your cat and laid him on the porch..."
I know you won't believe me, but one of the urban folk tales actually happened. In the classic account, some Sad Sack is asleep in his pickup camper while his wife drives. He is either in his skivvies or totally naked. His wife stops at a stoplight. The half-asleep man stumbles to the back door of the camper to see what's going on. The light changes. She steps on the gas. The man hurtles through the door to land in the middle of a downtown street in a strange town as his wife speeds away and vanishes.
Well, I know a wildlife biologist who, while on a trip, was napping in the back of his camper. When his wife stopped for some reason, he decided he would drive, got out of the camper...and she sped off without him. At least he had his clothes on.
Another oft-told story involves the game warden who becomes suspicious of a local fisherman who always returns with a boatload of fish, even when no one else is catching any. Finally he talks the angler into taking him on a trip. They row far back into the aquatic boonies. The angler lights up a quarter-stick of dynamite in front of the astounded game warden, pitches it overboard. Boom! And dead fish begin to belly-up.
"Hell, you can't do that!" cries the outraged possum cop. "Anybody dynamiting fish oughta be th'owed in jail forever!"
The angler calmly picks up another chunk of explosive, puts a short fuse on it, lights the fuse, hands it to the warden. "You gonna talk or fish?" he asks. And the warden promptly hurls the dynamite overboard.
But there aren't all that many good hunting and fishing stories. A favorite concerns a dedicated bass fisherman who is telling a friend about a dream from the night before.
"I was in my bass boat and it was night," he says. "I was drifting along this weedbed and the moon was full, just enough breeze to make my Jitterbug work and keep the boat moving. The air was warm and scented with sweet blossoms.
"And in the front of the boat, facing me, was Michelle Pfeiffer. She wore a diaphanous nightgown and looked at me with melting eyes, glistening lips. Her expression was one of unbridled lust. She began slowly to move toward me."
The friend, by now afire with lustful curiosity, exclaims, "Geez! What happened?"
"It was wonderful!" enthuses the angler. "I caught an eight-pound bass."
Then there was the guy who stops at a farmhouse to ask hunting permission. The farmer is slopping hogs in the barnyard, knee-deep in pig fallout. The stranger has been gnawing at a horrendous cold sore and he keeps this up as he and the farmer talk.
"Mean cold sore," the farmer observes.
"Driving me nuts," the guy agrees.
"B'live I can help you out," the farmer says.
He reaches down to scoop up a fingerload of pig whooey and rubs it on the hunter's lip. Thinking this is some sort of folk medicine, the hunter asks, "Will that cure my cold sore?"
Nah," says the farmer. "But it'll sure make you quit lickin' your lips."
Finally, you know that in a hunting or fishing shack the cooking chore is about as popular as diet soda. Whoever complains about the cooking, no matter how gut rending it is, immediately is elected head cook: "You don't like the marinated liver cheese? Okay, you cook."
In this story, the disconsolate new cook, stuck with spatula and rusty frying pan, goes for a walk while everyone else is out hunting. He spies a moose flop, an enormous pasture pastry, and he says, "I'm gonna cook up a moose flop pie and the first guy that complains about it has to do the cooking."
So he rolls the thing back to the hunting shack, makes a lovely pie shell, decorates the moose flop filling with tasteful garnish, and bakes it.
Presently one of the hunters comes in and declares, "My belly's rubbin' my backbone! Bring on the chow!" So the cook shovels out a generous helping of moose flop pie. The hunter takes a big bite, a stunned expression crosses his face. He roars, "Great Godalmighty, that's moose flop pie!" He pauses and swallows painfully. "It's good, though..."
Copyright (c) 1997 Joel M. Vance. All rights reserved.