In a message dated 98-02-16 17:55:51 EST, you write: << I yelled back "No, it's the deer yelling back at you, you moron". >>
Let's see now...the guy was drunk, armed with a rifle and obviously in range, you're (presumably) unarmed and deep enough in the woods that your whereabouts weren't obvious. And you called him a moron... :) I think my mouth would have been too full of the forest floor to yell much of anything and give him an audio target... This reminds me of a time when I was along on an investigation by a very enthusiastic Santa Fe special agent at Eton Jct, MO (about 20 miles out of Kansas City). Some of the locals had actually cut a couple of telegraph poles in half with gunfire and ruined some 136# rail by shooting some evidently armor-piercing large caliber ammo through the web. The local signal maintainer had just finished telling the story about one night when he answered a trouble call at the same location about 1AM. A few minutes after he parked his truck, a large black car pulled up, 4 guys got out and got some automatic weapons out of the trunk. They spent the next 20 minutes shooting up the Missouri River, which flows just a few yards north of this location. He spent this time in the weeds near the signal box, hoping they wouldn't see his truck. He figures they were either gunrunners or local Mafiosi testing some new toys. They eventually packed up and left without noticing his presence. All of a sudden, BOOM! BOOM! With the maintainer's story fresh in our minds, the maintainer and I ate ballast. When we surfaced, the special agent, a Rambo type, was gone. A minute or so later, we heard him screaming at the top of his lungs to drop the weapons and face down on the ground, you assholes!! A few minutes later he came back laughing and explained that it was a couple of farmers sighting in their deer rifles (on their own property), and boy, did they jump when I drew down on em! He thought it was a lot funnier than we did. We never did find out who the phone pole shooters were, but I never spent any more time at Eton Jct by myself than was absolutely necessary. Mark -> SPORRS: Serious Photographers of Railroad Related Subjects -> Web Site: http://www.anet-stl.com/acphotog/sporrs -> Message © SPORRS® 1998 - All Rights Reserved
