Very carefully, David Crockett checked the equipment being taken on this trek by himself and his two young cohorts. David was a big man, 230 pounds ranged on a 6 foot 3 inch frame...no extraneous fat anywhere. He was, of course, stuck with the obvious nickname, whether he liked it or not...yep, there was standing there a real, live Davy Crockett.
His two young friends would be carrying .22s, while he carried a 30.06...just for safety purposes, of course. After all, today they were going out to find lions. Not to shoot, of course. They had cameras for that. The only things shot with guns were bottles and cans and other things inanimate. Fortunately, both of his friends had been shooting since they were small children...they knew how and they knew how safely. But, the guns were necessary...just in case.
The equipment was loaded up, the boys were ready, all was prepared for the journey...and off they went, heading out of the sparse neighborhoods of Apple Valley and toward the remote canyons of the High Desert. Farther and farther out they ventured, eventually into a wilderness that few people had seen...the canyons where the lions lived.
He was taking these kids out on this trek so he could get to know them, because he was interested in being with their mother, Marthe. She was, at this time, seeing two men...Davy Crockett and Bill Hurley. Davy was trying to get to know her two sons, aged 9 and 11. And so, a hunting trip looking for lions...and anything else they might find.
It was reasonably late in the year...the heat of summer had dissipated, the cold of winter had not yet arrived. They parked the car where the dirt road petered out to nothing but desert, and started to hike...and soon they came into a canyon...and before they even entered the chasm, they saw the first lion. It wasn't an overly large specimen, but most mountain lions aren't. As they entered the canyon, the lion disappeared into a cave. They came into the canyon...and met a being who would forever after be known as "Sweet Lips".
"Sweet Lips" was a mule...at least three months before, he had been a mule...oh, c'mon, folks...the mule was in a lion canyon...what kind of shape did you think he'd be in? The name? Well, that was pretty much the only non-bone part left. Gee, I hope nobody recently ate...
At any rate, they came, they saw, they photographed...and photographed...and photographed. They photographed lions, they photographed "Sweet Lips" (hey, boys think that sort of thing is cool, right?), they photographed the mountains, the canyon, just about everything. And they started home...the boys and Davy had bonded quite nicely...and Davy was thinking his chances with Marthe were lookin' pretty darn good.
Unfortunately, Marthe, my mother, had lousy taste in men (with the exception of my father). She went with Bill Hurley instead of Davy Crockett, a choice that would have dire consequences. Davy was a neat guy, a fun-loving, gentle individual who loved my mother unconditionally. Bill was an abuser, a cheater, a violent individual who once threw my brother THROUGH a wall. This was before the time of child abuse laws and all that, so the matter was handled internally. While her third husband (Bill Lamb) tried his level best to shoot his entire family, her fourth husband suffered the opposite fate, as my brother stood in the front yard and I stood in the garage, both aiming guns at Mr. Hurley, who had been trying to break into the house after the breakup.
Fortunately for Bill, he realized that both of us were quite well trained in the use of those guns, and he took his leave. I have often wondered what the results would have been if she had chosen Davy Crockett instead of Bill. I would like to think we would have all been happier for a lot longer...and Pete and I might not have ended up in a Foster Home a year after the divorce. But that's another story...
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