Lovers of the wide open spaces aren't necessarily stupid, but the environment brings out some rather unusual situations.
My friend, who drove a sub-compact car, had left the trunk open while getting his canoe equipment up from the lake shore. It was in a popular national forest camping spot and black bears had become a nuisance. When he toiled up the grade with gear that included a paddle, he found the broad transom of a bear projecting from his car's trunk while the bear prospected for goodies in the interior.
Fed up with bear depredations, my friend wound up and whacked bruin's stern with a paddle, whereupon the bear began to run without bothering to reverse first. Bear power being what it is, he bulged the entire outline of the car, which then required expensive body work.
The insurance adjuster probably needed detailed explanation of that one, but another friend of mine tells an equally intriguing car-animal story involving the sometime irritability of moose. While traveling a Wyoming mountain highway in early spring (lots of snow on the ground, but the highway was plowed, leaving a narrow passage) he came upon the battered remains of a fine foreign car that appeared to have tumbled a great distance. Upon investigating, he found a California couple cowering beneath the dash and inquiring if the moose had gone.
My friend took them to the nearest town and recalls with relish one end of the ensuing telephone conversation. The car's owner was calling his California adjuster--at 6:00 a.m.--and it went like this:
"Yes, George, a moose kicked my car to death. Yes, it's totaled. No, George, I am not drunk. Yes, I am calling from Moose, Wyoming, but I am cold sober. You see, this road was narrow and we drove up behind this moose and he didn't pay any attention so I honked the horn and he became upset and jumped on the hood with his front feet. Then he kicked the car all over the road with us inside. Yes, George, I am calling from Moose, Wyoming, but I am not drunk. We came up behind this moose..."
I had a friend who was hunting in some mountain country and let his four-wheel-drive pickup get away from him and it rolled off a trail and down into a steep draw, so he hiked out and looked for someone who could retrieve it. He found a rather rugged looking garageman who had a wrecker that looked capable of going anywhere on the planet. Yes, the garageman said, he would pull the rig out. Did my friend have insurance. He did.
Evidently insurance was the magic word for the wrecker man. He got my friend's truck all right but he dragged it out on its side and top. Up to that point it had suffered only scratches from trees and brush.
Evidently, being a long way from the amenities of civilization can reduce our emotions to simplistic attitudes. I knew a fellow whose truck gave him trouble in a Georgia swamp, and since he'd had difficulties with it before, he became almost as upset as the Wyoming moose, so he clubbed it to assorted parts with an axe, after which he felt better.
And the fisherman who had outboard trouble a considerable distance from shore asked my friend in another boat if he would give him a tow back to the dock. My friend said he would, whereupon the fellow thanked him graciously, unbolted the offending motor and shoved it overboard.