Shortly after sponsoring my buddy John Gibson through Phase I FCF testing, with the help of my own sponsor, then District Commander D. Stroud, back in 1981, John and I went camping on my parents land. With us was Andy Hymer, another young man from outpost 171 whom John would be sponsoring into FCF; and my younger brother, Clifton. We were making Sassafras tea. John and I had heard rumors from some of the old timers in FCF about hivernants getting intoxicated by breathing the steam produced from boiling sassafras root, and decided that we had better investigate this for ourselves. Besides, this sasparilla tea was pretty good stuff in it's own right. So, a week or so prior to the campout, in preparation, I combed the creekside in search of the easily identifyable leaves which the sassafras tree bears, and reasoned that Root Beer surely must have derived it's name from this reported phenomenon. I found a tree easily enough, and dug it up by the roots with my hatchet, chooped them off, and went on my way. Friday came and I got off work from Nichols department store at 6pm. Went home and waited for everyone to arrive, which they all did in short order. We packed everything we expected to need in our backpacks, and headed for the shack on top of the hill in the woods. We worked on Andy's phase I requirements, built a fire, and washed and boiled sassafras roots. Now, I do not recall any intoxicating effects from the steam produced by these boiling sassafras roots as we made our tea over the campfire, but I will claim insanity as a result thereof in reference to the events which transpired next. After we had finished making our tea, boiling it down to a syrup as recommended, we were sitting in a circle around the pot, waiting for it to cool down. Along comes this oppossum, pretty as you please, and walks straight up to our pot of tea. He walked right up there in amongst us, just like he had done it every day of his life, took one whiff of our tea, and commenced drinking. Well, as any self-respecting Frontiersman knows, this is unacceptable behavior, especially coming from a species of lower order than oneself. So we set about to seek justice for this wrongdoing. I chased the oppossum down in an attempt to give him a good thrashing. John said "Be careful, oppossums can be vicious!" So I got myself a weapon, a club, and promptly executed the offender. Then, we skinned him, parboiled and roasted him over the fire, and ate him. I do not remember how he tasted, but I do know that my possum eatin' days were over shortly thereafter when, while squirrel hunting, I came upon a dead cow in the woods. As I gazed at this cow, I noticed that something was moving inside it, so I grabbed a stick and poked it. Out of the hind end of this cow comes a possum, and that was the end of my possum eatin' days, over just a quick as they had started. Later I tanned the hide of this possum we had eaten, and made a belt buckle from it. I put this buckle on a belt made from a chicken snake we had eaten from John's wilderness meal from phase I testing. If you were at the 1982 camporama in Pidgeon Forge, you may have seen it. In fact, you may have stolen it, someone did. If the guilty party happens to read this, please repent and make restitution. Outtobein Effcieff Get more from the Web. FREE MSN Explorer download : http://explorer.msn.com |
