Last Updated on November 16, 2018 by Terry
I do believe that everyone is good at something. One of my good ats is getting lost during a hunting or fishing adventure. (Speaking of Good ats, don’t ever forget that I’m also the goodest bass fisherman of all time.)
I have been turned around/confused many times. I have been all out lost five times. I have been all out lost for an extended period of time three times (as in overnight). The three overnights happened around 1979 (hunting), 1981(hunting), and 1996 (fishing).
Each one of these adventures will be a Friday blog adventure of their own. Today I just want to give you the preliminaries.
About 1991 or 1992, a few days before Christmas, I found something on my front porch as I arrived home after work. I suppose it could be referred to as a Christmas gift. There it was, standing up against the wall next to the front door, a Rambo knife.
You know the one. It was made famous by a movie series. It had the big blade and the hollow handle. If you unscrewed the end of the handle it had all kinds of goodies inside.
Let’s see now…
- It had a built-in compass on the end
- Snake bite kit in case you were attacked by a monster. It consisted of razor blade to cut the infamous “X” across the bite mark in order to suck out the poison
- Needle and thread to sew yourself up if you got stabbed
- A few matches in order to build a fire if you got cold
- A couple of fish hooks with line in order to catch a fish if you got hungry
Yeah, everything you might need if you were lost, FOR a MONTH! My getting losts were simply being mis-placed for about 6-8 hours.
The Christmas gift, this did not happen only once, oh no, I received the special gift three times over five Christmas seasons.
So, let me think, who would have/could have done that? Only one person ever came to mind and I never let on to him that I even found the gift. I said nothing and he said nothing about it, ever. But I know it was him. It was that JR Dodson fellow.
Many of you know him. The most famous hunter in our area. He was as close to a wilderness explorer as there was in West Pulaski county. He could have traveled with Lewis and Clark, Kit Carson, Jedidiah Smith or even Jeremiah Johnson. He was a mountain man if ever I knew one.
On a personal note, I really liked him. I know he liked me a lot also. We had many adventures of our own together. Our adventures were more of a spiritual nature. JR loved Jesus and everyone knew it.
Some of you may remember that I was a speaker at the Union Rescue Mission’s Transient Lodge in North Little Rock in the late 80s to the mid-90s. I spoke two Saturday nights a month for eight years. Guess who went with me almost every time? Good ol’ JR. It was an opportunity to tell someone about Jesus and he wouldn’t pass that up for anything!
But he liked to prank me a little. “Keeping me honest” he would say.
I always cherished the knife and knew it was given in love and JR simply having a little fun. He thought it was funny that a guy like me, that hunted as much as I did, could get lost as many times as I have. For some reason, he thought it was funny and insisted on continuously reminding me of my wanderings.
I always felt honored that I knew four extremely special men during my life. There were other pretty good fellows, but these four were the most special. JR Dodson and Mark Olson definitely top that list. If ever you want know how to be a man, have someone tell you about JR or Mark. It will be worth your time. (My grandfather and “Crazy Legs” himself were the other two) (Crazy Legs, as in Dewey Robinson.)
In the next few weeks I will post a few of my getting lost adventures. Some of them involved other people. Yes, in my excitement, I have been known to convince others to participate in my crazy adventures. (Allan G, Tommy H, and Gerald L as examples)
Please share and like. If you knew JR, you might leave a note for others to read.
Thanks
See you next Friday.
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