Without Us There’d Be No Salmon
Any One Of These Had A Dream of True Love đź’•
Hi, I’m Lance Ghost Merrick (posted by niece Amy Jo) and I’ve got a love story with salmon.
when I was a lad of 38,
I had a long distance relationship. Texas to Alaska. She said she was a moose princess. I believed her as she believed I was an oil man. (I was an oily man from changing oil and brakes as a part-time job during college.) But I got some scratch together and got on a plane. Luckenbach, Texas where ain’t nobody feeling no pain. Then the drive to Austin in the old ford truck. Jumped on a jet and skipped to Denver, Seattle and Anchorage.
stayed at the mush inn.
merrill field guy said he was a pilot of a Cessna of some type high wing prop with a healthy cargo area. Pretty small if you ask me 8 people cramped it up. Funny someone had a rifle between their legs on the plane!
bristol bay! here we come thru hill and dale mountains and what not to Dillingham.
saw some browns fighting over diapers at the town dump. Kinda like a drive-in movie only to the bears our white and brown bodies was like a concession stand for them. I say that when mama and cubs ran by the truck panting heavy breathes taking 4 foot strides. I was terrified. Betty just lit another cigarette and cracked open the window!
Any One Of These Was Heading Home 🏡
next day got in a way smaller plane and flew to kolignek. Junior brought plane gas in a drum pulled by a four wheeler to the gravel runway.
grandma had been on the traffic talking to the pilot and lining things up for landing and refueling.
then there with blue jeans and some kinda smock mid drift with colorful patches apparently handmade was my moose princess.
boom.
It hit me the fever but not able to be spawned yet.
Sweat lodge. Then splash in icey cold water. Yeehaw the fever was gone. But the moose princess was smiling big.
junior told me grandma called me “Cha-guy-AK.”
“huh?”, I queried.
the Snow White owl. Spiritual sentry, the guardian of the path to The afterlife!
at least that what I thought he said.
”wow I’m pretty kewl” I said “a guardian of the path”
”naw grandma don’t call you white owl because you are kewl.” He snickered.
”she calls you guardian because you are the whitest thing in the woods!”
”hahaha”, I knew then if the cousins and elders were joking about me I was in.
i married my moose princess and I moved to Alaska.
bada bing bada boom.
Any One Of These Didn’t Make Their Date
the story could have taken a different slant had the process of building airplanes was as loosey goosey as the free styling permitting process dealing with industry and salmon habitat.
Really all habitat.
yes a plane designed and built with no open process could fly but might fall.
planes don’t bounce on impact like the cartoons. I would have been a moose turd on a hot tarmac in the summer of 42.
(writers comment the dates, names, ages have been fictionalized to protect the true Alaskans of the Bristol bay fishing meca.)
Any One Of These Died Alone
it is not a surprise to see a lot of dead salmon that don’t make it to their spawning grounds.
it is the cycle of life. Yet the few that do replenish and seed the field of the next generation of boys and girls itching to run to the ocean and later lovesick with no desire to feed. Just one thing in their brain and a body engorged in blood. Fearlessly swimming thousands of miles times thousands upon thousands of bachelors and brides. Racing to the church on time on cue.
Any One Of These Could Be Me
i learned later there wasn’t a church wedding for salmon and they were kinda promiscuous just looking for egg.
egg must be like bean.
cuz I flew for one date with a moose princess
And what would have happened if the icey waters I splashed in had been soiled and polluted with acid and chemical runoff in high concentrations beyond imagined expectations?
i would have burned my pickle and the smell of bacon fat from a white beer bellied Texan would have lead me straight to the path to the afterlife. Cha-guy-AK.
just shoot me now to see my moose princess with sweat dripping down graceful paths to promised land and then to yank it from my grasp!
maimed scorched disfigured I would be looking for an AK47.
no bean for me no pickle for her
no spawn,
no life
no more me
no legacy ever
my proud name ended in shame.
all for what?
pennies? Copper? Gold?
money?
i don’t see any money?
i just see bean and egg.
”you’re telling me chimed in the red devil I had snagged as it squirted past but not quite making it”
so I let him go!
he put on some after shave that smelled like skunk bait and jetted up stream leaping tall rock laden spillways climbing higher and higher!
bear paws scrapped the waters. Rod and lure beat the eddies. Fish gates and counters clocked in the valiant champions straining for the prize.
then the sight.
pebbles and current with nestled eggs by the millions.
Target acquired and a quick strafing run of ❤️ love sauce clouded crystal clear fresh untarnished ph balanced wedding bed.
”if the honeymoon was going to be after coffee, then it looked like they where skipping the coffee!”
Please I beg you to save yourselves.
Dont’t throw away your dreams for some pennies and gold.
Keep Love Alive!
VOTE YES ON #1
Save Salmon, Save Our Dreams!
