It's time to go home

ST.CHRISTOHER KEY, Fla. -- The one great indulgence my wife and I allowourselves each year is to run away to Florida in March and live in atent. We fish, cook our catch over a Coleman stove and fall asleep at nightlistening to the breeze rustle through the palms. It's the only month of the year I don't mind being away from Montana.Winter there has worn out its welcome by then and spring remains littlemore than a rumor. When I was 13 growing up in Indiana a friend and I planned to hitchhiketo Florida late one summer. The night before our departure, however, Ijumped over a fence and landed on a broken Coke bottle. The next few weeks I spent on crutches and then it was time to go back to school.When I was old enough to leave home with my parents' blessing, I wentwest instead of south. It was the rest of my family who eventually ranaway to Florida. My parents lived here until Mom died and my sister still lives outside the tiny town of Live Oak near the Georgia border. But unlike my family, I have no plans to live here. Too hot most of thetime and too many people all of the time. A few weeks in March is just about perfect. The sea trout are plentiful on the grass flats and in the boat we can escape the crowds. We walk the beach along the Gulf of Mexico at firstlight picking up shells and I catch bait with my castnet in the shallowbay across from our campsite. It's warm enough during the day that shorts, a T-shirt and flip-flops areadequate, yet still cool enough at night that sleeping is comfortable. Like any runaways though, after a few weeks, we start to get homesick. We miss doors that don't zip, a bed off the ground, a landscape not filled to the horizon with buildings and people. The days keep getting warmer. It must be about time to head for home. Parker Heinlein is at pman@mtintouch.net

There's Nothing Like That Old "Lid"

I bought a new hat recently.My wife said it was time.The lid I'd been wearing for a couple of years had taken on a personalityof its own. The emblem on the front was illegible, the color hard todescribe, other than earthtone, and it was beginning to smell a bit likethe dogs.But it still fit, shaded my eyes from the sun and provided shelter for mybalding head.What more could I ask?Something a little more fashionable I suppose.Maybe a trucker cap.Favored by rappers, skaters and the heavily inked, trucker caps -- atfirst glance anyway -- look a lot like the baseball caps I've worn foryears. But instead of a curved brim and a snug fit, these roomy lids feature a bill flat enough to play cards on and are usually worn askew. As in "heydude, your hat's on crooked."An admonition that seldom draws a friendly response. It's doubtful, however, that I'll ever wear a trucker cap. Like baseball caps worn backwards, hats that fit too loosely to stay on my head in astiff wind or don't shade my face, make little sense to me.Besides, I'm too old for such a fashion statement.I've always favored utilitarian chapeaus, like my oldred-and-black-checked Scotch cap with ear flaps. Elmer Fudd be damned. It sheltered me through blizzards and made do as a pillow when I forgot tobring one. Or the straw cowboy hat that keeps my ears and neck from frying in thesummer sun. I even have one of those long-billed fishing hats with a Lawrence ofArabia flap across the back that billows out like a cape when I'm runningthe boat at full throttle. But I prefer a simple cap. One that shades my eyes and covers my head.With an emblem appropriate in the company of women and children. Mine says Montana State.Does away with the need to ask: "Bobcats or Grizzlies?" I've worn hats that advertised bars, ropes and the feathers used to tieflies. It makes little difference. In a few months the logo will beillegible, blurred by sweat, grease, mud and blood. The color will fade and the new cap smell will vanish, replaced by an earthier aroma enabling me to find my hat in the dark. Then my wife will tell me it's time. And I'll begin looking for another. Something simple. Snug-fitting with a brim.I ask little of my lids. Parker Heinlein is at pman@mtintouch.net

Comfort is a Glock in Yellowstone

It’s time for a couple of corrections.
I’ve found a few mistakes.
One, I discovered myself.
The other was recently pointed out to me by a concerned reader.
I wrote last summer in a column on the cravings I experienced during a trek across the Bob Marshall Wilderness that “comfort comes on a long stretch of downhill trail.”
Wrong.
Comfort comes on a long stretch of level trail.
Downhill trails kill me.
What was I thinking?
I get shorter with each step down the mountain, little cushion left in my knees to lessen the pounding of a downhill slog on my aging carcass.
I suspect I wrote that line because for much of my life it was true. Downhill trails were a treat, especially if I was dragging a large piece of meat out of the hills.
But somewhere along the way pain crept in and now awaits me every time I top a rise and head down the other side.
A recent column I wrote on an amendment to allow the public to pack easily accessible firearms in our national parks also begs a correction.
It was pointed out to me in an e-mail that securing a parking spot in Yellowstone isn’t the primary purpose of the amendment.
“It’s about having the freedom to not have to worry about Nazis come thru your door to take your daughter and your mother and your grandson down to the local clinic for their tattoo or their community shower,” wrote Ron C.
I obviously didn’t understand the real issue.
On occasion I don’t.
Fortunately Ron C. cleared things up for me.
An armed populace is apparently necessary to combat the “international cops who carry 40s, tazers and hand cuffs,” in our parks and forests.
Again, I didn’t know that was a problem, and silly me, I wasn’t even aware Nazis were still a threat.
It’s been a while since I visited Yellowstone. I suppose I should pay closer attention.
Perhaps I was in pain following a long stretch of downhill trail, my thoughts focused on that happy place I head to when the pounding begins to takes its toll.
Had I been walking on flat ground I’m sure I would have seen the threat and written about it in a more serious manner.
So I stand corrected. Comfort is a long stretch of level trail and a Glock in a shoulder holster to fend off the Nazis in Yellowstone National Park.
Parker Heinlein is at pman@mtintouch.net