Monday, April 4, 2011

Peeping Park Techs by S.E. Hicks

Peeping Park Techs
Written by Fletcher “Butchwax” Ferguson

I was twenty three, in grad school and in need of a good summer job. When told of an opening at Lake Perry for a park technician I applied and was granted an interview with the Colonel Joseph M. Millencamp a U.S. Army Corps of Engineer full bird. He was the commander of the lake and park operations. He lived on site with is wife of 35 years. The Colonel commanded a staff of three full time personnel and three seasonal park technicians. The second in command was a park ranger of notable character. Mobe Wilson was six foot nine of well groomed officer, the epitome of park ranger professionals, a beast of a man. Mobe unfortunately had a deputy ranger Travis Craig who was by all definition a cross between Barney and Gomer but a tireless worker nonetheless. Maggie a full time park technician was the most intelligent of the bunch, a friendly kind person whose love of wild things was beyond reproach. Then there were the three seasonal summer park techs. Nash a fifty five year old teacher/track coach from Topeka and Benedict also a teacher/track coach who was old as the lake itself. It seemed Benedict and Nash had been working for the Colonel since they had started teaching. They were great guys and a real pair, full of tom foolery. When I was hired there were now three track coaches on the staff. Turned out the Colonel was an ex track star himself. He claimed to have been a hammer thrower back east some where, prior to the Korean war. Thus his partiality towards track coaches.

The job was a breeze. All I did was drive around in a little pick up truck and collect camping fees from the campers. Of course there were a lot of pubic relations, an occasional request for directions to stores, gas stations, liquor stores, bait shops and the like. There were fringe benefits, left over fresh cooked fish, of course cold beer and great scenery. It was not all fun however. Once we had to drag the lake for a drowning victim. The fifteen year old Mexican kid had been under a hour or so before we started the dragging. I was volunteered to man the drag connected to a wench mounted on the stern of Mobe’s Park Ranger boat. The drag had several large treble hooks on it strung from a piece of heavy five inch angle iron about eight feet long. When we hooked him and winched him up, the hook was set in the soft place behind the victim’s Achilles tendon. The first look at a drowned corpse caused me to puke and I dropped the drag. Mobe who was driving the boat caught me as I had turned white and nearly fainted. I got the kid but not without a military style ass chewing by the Colonel and Mobe.

The next day, a slow Monday, I took a lunch break and fished at the mouth of a little stream where the white crappie were spawning. I caught my limit (50) in thirty minutes and brought the creel to the Colonel who was fond of the taste of crappie. By the time my shift was over the Colonel had them filleted and mostly fried up. We ate good that night. The Colonel had a new appreciation for me, all was forgotten.

On weekends I was usually paired up with Nash as the camp sites were too full for one man to cover by himself. Benedict would take the small camp sites on the other side of the lake. Occasionally there would be a bathing beauty that warranted a shared observation. Due to the fact that we used a two way radio that was monitored by the Sheriff, Mobe and the Colonel, code was used to notify each other of the various locations of such beauties. Now Benedict and Nash were both dirty old men but harmless other wise. They just enjoyed a peek at bikinis just like any other red blooded American boy does. Once the beauty was located a call went out for everyone to come look at a fisherman’s legal stringer of fish. Over the course of our shift we would venture over and take a gander. Legal meant over eighteen. Nice little stringer meant possible under age or small in size. You know what I mean. A big pair of catfish meant the obvious, with lbs of fish referring to over all estimated size i.e. 40lbs. etc.

Well, one particular Friday afternoon the lake was not so busy. Nash and I were collecting fees together and came upon a couple, naked in a lawn chair doing the herty gerty. As the lawn chair collapsed at the surprise of our arrival there were port holes and elbows frantically trying to cover up. We politely said we would come back, did so in a few minutes and collected the fee. Then a call went out over the airways to Benedict who was on the other side of the lake. He was told to bring his car jack as we had a flat tire--code for peep show in progress. Benedict was there before we told him where we were. Spotting scopes and binoculars were used to view from a safe spot the goings on in the back of the van. It was my idea to sneak down a deep grass covered ravine and get a close up. Well the boys were in the ravine before I completed the suggestion.

After using great stealth we were perched no more than fifteen yards from the couple with the back end of the van fully open. They were really going at it. We each took turns with a high powered binocular and got way to close a look at the details. This went on for some time. When Benedict said he could see the sweat dripping of her----nose. We laughed a little to loud. Suddenly the biggest dog in the world came boiling out from under the van. It was the biggest Saint Bernard I had ever seen. Really big because it had teeth, was roaring like a lion and was on our asses. Adrenaline charged flight was the urgent result. Thank God for track training and the gift of speed.

Still being fleet footed at twenty three I out ran the old guys like a mountain goat evading a cougar and beat feet all the way up the steep ravine. At the top of the grass covered ravine was a steep bare slope that was covered with a thick thicket of wild plum. When I grabbed for a hold on one of the trees to pull my self out, to my surprise, I grabbed Mobe’s leg. He then grabbed me by the collar and yanked me out of the thicket. He started laughing and I turned to watch Nash struggling up the hill with the 275 lb 65 year old plus Benedict right on his heels plowing through the buffalo grass, as was a dog the size of a dinosaur. Nash tripped over a sapling that sprung back up and hit Benedict square in the nuts, knocking him down. The dog was then seen licking Benedict, mounting and humping him like the big puppy had two peters. That’s when the Colonel who was still in Mobe’s truck busted his gut laughing. I can still hear the Colonel’s deep throated belly laugh.

The Colonel had a pair of binoculars hanging from his neck, as did Mobe. They had seen the whole thing. “Let’s go Mobe. Fun’s all over,” said the Colonel. It seems our code was busted and so were we. They gave us the business for the rest of the summer.

No comments: