A couple of weeks ago, I received a surprising call from an old friend that I had met while in the military.
It turned out that he was writing a book he called “Backtrackin” and was looking for some “memory joggers” from those he had served or worked with for confirmation of the facts as he recalled them.
We had a fine time reminiscing about our work together along the pipeline, which included everything from the enjoyable to the grim, plus a dash of the unbelievable. But, mostly about the situations that made us laugh.
It’s amazing how something as innocuous as a simple phone call can set one trekking down their own trail of memories which becomes clearer with each step of journey.
Take for example a couple of flashbacks we shared about two little Rambo wannabee creatures we both ran across while rolling on the Dalton Highway during what seems to be a millennium ago.
The first was a rather stunted ball of fur generally acknowledged as a fox and I’m positive that if the cutesy cur was hangin’ in your back 40 you would have probably name it “Puffy” or something equally insipid.
Well, that nomenclature would have sucked like a nuclear Hoover. The guy was a land shark that self-identified as “Super Vulpes, the Tundra Terminator.”
This crimson canine had the bloated ego of Kanye West and the personality of a piranha. We called him, “King Taz” ‘cause the cur would have tried to whoop the fur off a Tasmanian devil if it crossed his turf.
I first met KT when I came rumbling around a corner in the middle of a moonless night where my lights caught him feeding on a seriously deceased caribou crumpled near the side of the road.
Normally, scavengers bolt for the bush when a rig rolls by, but not him.
He looked up and instead of splitting for cover, he jumped up on the carcass and stared at me like I was dessert. Since it was a slow night, I eased to a stop, backed up and had a stare-down with the diminutive warrior.
The youngster continued to display an aggressive attitude until he decided that I wasn’t there to duke it out for a piece of his buffet and returned to gnawing on his bou-butt roast.
When I finally became bored watching the greedy cur trying to devour something 25-plus times his size in a single setting, I proceeded south until I met my friend and gave him a “heads-up” about the intractable Taz.
The critter remained on that carrion for days until it began to resemble a condo framed up in a rib cage. We figured if he kept it up, the carcass would be sporting a satellite dish and a mail box in another week.
Now, don’t’ start to think that it was all gravy for TK. He started having some significant issues with a few local gang members of the Raven Crew. Those bad boys would swoop in to snatch a quick snack every time he tried to take a nap or turned his bushy rump.
He also began gaining so much weight that he started looking like a fluffy bowling ball with paws and both of us started to worry that if he didn’t get his act together, the only thing he’d be able to do when mating season rolled around was wheeze.
The other diminutive denizen that caught our attention was a dizzy owlette who hung out near the old Dietrich River pipeline camp. The winged maniac looked to be about 18 inches tall and reflected the IQ of oatmeal.
The micro birdie seemed to sport a death wish and we figured that he’d be Mac truck grill cheese sooner or later.
Why? Because the funky fowl was as greedy as Taz, only he was in to bunny brunches. Especially, those of the newly flattened kind.
I gave him the nom de plume of “Road Kill” not only because of the mutilated cuisine he preferred, but because of the recalcitrant raptor’s obvious future.
The idiot refused to let go of roadkill until he could see the treads of the front tires threatening to turn him into a Frisbee with a beak.
He’d sink his talons into his compacted prey and then damn near herniate himself trying to jet off with the road pizza.
Of course, ole RK might as well have been attempting to air-lift a rhino.
Once he realized that he couldn’t lug the road stew to his penthouse, he’d just sit there looking like he wished he had a cellphone to call in chopper support. This is not a healthy habit when your dining pleasure is laid out in the middle of a straight stretch of a highway but he never exhibited any discernible brainwaves to ascertain the fact.
We went on to share a plethora of memories and it will be my honor, along with the rest of his brothers, to help him clear his trail while backtracking his life’s journey. Plus, it might just help me kick the dust off some of my own rusting memories.
I wish him luck.
Nick can be reached at ncvarney@gmail.com.
