|
Find these story
titles: The World of Technology -
Yeller Dog - Hunter? Lost? -
Night Hunting -
Howard Johnson's, Route 95
Howard Johnson's, Route 95
By Joe Perham
Two hundred miles from the sea
and still the coffee tastes of sand.
Maybe it's the color
that makes it seem that way,
or
maybe it's the light orange
and pale blue of the place.
Sterile, obscene really....
not like the writing
on the wall downstairs,
tasteless in a different way.
The coarse laughter on the walls
sharpens awareness; the Johnson hue
dulls the appetite,
dulls the taste.
No one in the place but transients,
everyone no more than just halfway there;
even the cook belongs to another hearth,
a long way down the road.
The one tough, living
thing about the place
is the truck drivers,
capable, not always looking
but always seeing,
if you know what I mean.
When they leave their Rios
and their Whites,
leave them idling in the lot,
they carry some of the power
of the engine with them,
energy lighting up their eyes,
viewing the waitress
reaching at the counter
white hem slipping upwards of the thigh,
a hint of lace,
more than a hint.
Something inside them
slipping into gear.
"Time to go."
Time to ride the black route
just inches to the right
of that white line.
Don't slip over that line.
"Time to go."
by Joe Perham
~~~~~~~~
The World of Technology
By Joe Perham
There’s this guy I know in town who always has to have the very best fishing and
hunting equipment that is available. He heard they had a new computer at the
Radio Shack down at the Oxford Plaza in Norway, Maine that could answer all your
fishing questions.
Well, he went on down to the Radio Shack to get a good look at such a machine.
After staring at it for some time, he sat down and typed in the following
question: “Where is my father?” Within an instant the computer answered him,
“Your father is fishing at Moosehead Lake.”
He jumped up and yelled, “This computer ain’t no good! My father’s been dead for
3 years!” A salesperson heard all the commotion and came to see if he could
help. After collecting all the information the salesman told him perhaps it
needed more detailed information. So the fella writes again, “Where is Wes
Cooley of Trap Corner, Maine?”
Again, in an instance, the computer answered back, “Wes Cooley of Trap Corner,
Maine has been dead for 3 years! Your father just caught a 4 pound trout at
Moosehead Lake!”
~~~~~~
By Joe Perham
I got this friend. He said to me the other day,
“Joe, I got this yeller dog, the best coon hound in the State of Maine, and
probably all of North America. The thing about my yeller dog, he never needs
coaching. He can figure things out himself. You see what I do is I whittle out a
board the size of the coon I want and I lean it against the old pine tree out
back. That yeller dog, he’d study that board, and then he’d go out in the woods
and catch him a coon to fit it. Only problem is, a week ago, my wife leaned her
ironing board against that pine tree – and we ain’t seen that yeller dog since.
I’m curious to see what he is going to drag home.”
Joe also writes for
Maine Hunting Today and
Laugh Maine
~~~~~~
By Joe Perham
Did you hear about the hunter from New Jersey who came up to Maine to
shoot himself a deer? He didn’t hire a guide, you
see, figured he didn’t need one; too tight to hire
one anyway.
He got lost, of course, had a compass but couldn’t
read it. A few days later he staggered out of the
woods and fell into the arms of another hunter and
said, “Oh, god, am I glad to see you! I’m from New
Jersey and I’ve been lost in the Maine woods for 5
days and 5 nights!”
The other hunter says, “Don’t get you hopes up,
Buddy, I’m from Massachusetts!”
Editor’s note: The doe story is an original Joe
Perham story. The anecdote is one of hundreds you
can find on Joe’s many cassettes and CDs available
everywhere.
Joe writes for
Maine Hunting Today and
Laugh Maine also.
~~~~~~
By Joe Perham
“To sleep, per chance to dream, aye there’s
the rub”
Shakespeare’s Hamlet
I dream a lot and every dream I have manages to wake
me up. Which is good. It used to be that I could
recall my dreams with a fair degree of detail. Now
that I am older, I awake to whispers of sound and
broken images. Always I stand at the center of my
dream – doesn’t everybody? Most often I dream of
doing unfamiliar things in familiar places; like
searching for money and gems at the old house on the
mine road – crawling through the culvert on High
Street – hiding from various creatures in the
building at the home farm where the machinery was
kept – places that no longer exist.
Calamity visits me in my dreams; fire on the
mountain – the crash of a BI-plane – paratroopers
dropping down from the sky – things that never
happened – enough of that……
In late October, usually around my birthday, as the
hunting season nears, I experience a recurring
dream. That dream is always the same. It’s like, you
know, “Here we go again!” The reason I have this
particular dream is that I anticipate the coming of
the deer, the challenge of the hunt. That’s my
guess. The hunting season is special to me. It’s
like being released out of the routine into a more
natural, outdoor world of marshes and hills and
ponds and fields and dark running water….the land
bare and brown. I can see more of what the land
really looks like in November, before the snows come
and fill up the hollows and smooth things out.
In my dream I’m asleep in my bed and I awake and
reach for my rifle leaning at arms length away. I
know that in the field outside my second-story
window at the home farm, there is a buck swimming in
a lake of fog, the moon full and bright. I know this
because I’ve had this dream before. I raise the
window with my right hand and place the barrel of
the rifle on the sash with my left. The buck is
there but I cannot pull the trigger. The safety! I
throw the safety and try again. I manage to move the
trigger slowly toward the guard but not before the
deer has passed from sight. The gun fires…..I see
the flash but I hear no sound. I sense other deer
hiding behind stone walls and more lurking within
the shadows of the trees that border the fields.
Does this dream suggest that I have some unresolved
issues relating to hunting? Reluctant hunter? Do
most hunters have dreams about hunting?
I know one thing for sure: I do not recognize that
dream hunter as being an extension of myself. I do
not have a loaded weapon in the house. All
ammunition is stored in a separate place.
The bottom line with me is simple: Stay within the
rules of constant awareness of others – never fire
unless you are certain you have a 99% chance of
harvesting the animal you’re firing at.
Joe writes for
Maine Hunting Today and
Laugh Maine also. |
