"Dances With Coyotes"

[J0nny Ling0]

Dances With Coyotes

The morning breeze was crisp and cold as I looked across the snow-covered prairie. The snow wasn’t deep, maybe about five inches, but it certainly gave the normal carpet of sage brush a new and refreshing look. I had just let Mr. Starbuck out of my old blue ’79 Ford F-150 pick up truck, and sure enough, he was off and racing along with his nose to the ground, “seeing” what was out there. Starbuck, as I called him, was, at the time, a five year old German Short Haired Pointer. His coat coloration was considered to be “liver and ticked” which, in the world of German Short Hair Pointer breeders means mostly a liver colored brown, with white flecks here and there like a dappled gray horse. But Starbuck was mostly all liver color, causing some less informed folks to mistake him for a skinny Chocolate Lab. I picked him from the litter with his mostly liver color in mind, for, I have always liked solid colors. Naturally, I considered his temperament as well.

The reason I called him Mr. Starbuck had nothing to do with the coffee company known as “Starbucks”, although many a yuppy has assumed that his name had something to do with that. The real reason I named him that is because I have been a U.S. Merchant Marine from my youth at sixteen, and had read the classic novel Moby Dick. I knew that the honorable First Mate of Captain Ahab’s cursed ship Pequod was named “Mr. Starbuck”. And thus, my beautiful pup was named.

And there it was, a beautiful morning with me looking across the snow covered prairie of the Anchor D Ranch in the Oklahoma Panhandle, as Starbuck was getting his morning run under way. As usual, he was wasting no time sniffing up mice, jack rabbits, and various other scents, his incredibly sensitive bird dog nose captivating him like a slave to his master. And, as he nosed along, all seemed normal and usual, until he stopped dead on point. Like the true champion he was, he was pointing rock solid at something about fifty feet in front of him that was gray, and had the unmistakable shape of another dog. A dog, that looked like a skinny wolf, and was unquestionably a coyote. “Oh geez”, I thought, “what’s going to come of this?” I had always thought that Starbuck had come in contact with coyotes from time to time out there on the prairie, but I had not seen any as of yet, at least not while I was letting Starbuck get his exercise. I had seen a few along the highway, and I had certainly heard the maniacal sound of coyotes howling at the moon from time to time, but never had I seen Starbuck mixing with any coyotes. And there it was. He was on point; immovable with his right front leg hiked up looking at this coyote with a serious intensity. I stared through my binoculars in fearful fascination. I had heard of how coyotes, as a pack, would lure domestic dogs by having a pack member seduce a domestic dog into following it into an ambush, only to be attacked and consumed by his ravenous coyotee brethren. I was really tense as I watched the panting coyote look at my Best Friend with a sly look in his eyes, while Starbuck pointed intensely at this wild dog. Starbuck’s class as a highly bred, finely tuned hunting dog stood out against the coyote’s unruly appearance. But then again, the magnificence of the wild dog and his primordial ability as a hunter was also extremely impressive to me, a long time admirer of the animal world. To Starbuck, this was nothing more than a “macho stand off”, but I feared that to the coyote it was only a game, with the prize being “food”. I knew a bit about the American Coyote, and I have known for a long time that even though the wolf is a very formidable creature, the coyote is the one who has survived the onslaught of American civilization, where the Wolf did not fare quite so well..

I was mesmerized and transfixed, wondering what was to happen next out there during this unfolding drama on the Anchor D Ranch. Starbuck was pointing, the coyote was grinning, and I was worrying behind those binoculars. And all of the sudden, the coyote bolted in the opposite direction, running towards a mesa in the distance. Starbuck, on it in an instant, sprung like lightning and was in hot pursuit of this, his ancient relative El Coyote. And the race was on, with Starbuck gaining with his superior speed. The coyote dashed straight toward the mesa, and with great agility and surprising power, began his sprint toward the top of it with Starbuck in hot pursuit at his heals. And me, at the other end of the drama, was cussing and asking God at the same time to let him live and not lose his life in what appeared to be a very cleverly laid trap. A trap that would end the life of my Best Friend, Mr. Starbuck Von Der Weg. They sprinted to the top of the mesa with a speed and energy that makes we humans wonder how they do it. The coyote was first over the rim, and after about ten feet into the flat top of the mesa, out of no where, at least fifteen gray, dog shaped forms emerged, and converged on Starbuck. This was the end I thought, as I watched, still mesmerized. But shaking it off, I yelled the Hollywood version of; “Noooooo!” But to no avail. He couldn’t hear me at that distance of a thousand yards or more, and even if he could, it wouldn’t have phased him, for he had business to attend to. He was surrounded by a pack of very intense coyotes, and I was too far away with my 9 mm pistola to help him out. Oh, I would have fired some elevated rounds to help him out, but, it would have done him no good, for he was too far away, and in my mind, he was a goner.

And then, the most amazing thing happened! Instead of the entire pack converging on him and eating him like a bunch of Texans on a pork chop, miraculously, they all started jumping up and down in the air like pop corn! It was weird almost. They were sniffing each other’s butts and doing what I call the “dog dance” with raised hackles on their backs, but there were no hostilities at all! And this went on for at least two minutes, without a single demonstration of aggression. I was mystified but smiling as I stared through my binoculars. And when they popped up and down, they seemed to be having the very best of times as dogs, meeting an old “lost friend”. But then, just like that, poof, they were gone, melting back into the sage brush as if they’d never even been there, leaving Starbuck looking around and looking as if he were thinking; “Now, where’d they go?”

And so I whistled, and the wind carried my call to him, and he immediately began to sprint in my direction. And when he got to me, he was all happy and tail waggin’ as if to say; “Didja see that boss? Didja see alla those wild dogs I was hangin with? And I hugged him and patted him, and told him that; “Ya know bud, I think I’m gonna hafta give you a new name. An indian name. I think I’m gonna hafta call you “Dances With Coyotes….”

[coolchef]

damn jonny you should write a book

what a great story!

[FreeAtLast]

What a great story. You have an awesome way of telling a story! What an awesome scene.

[Linda Z]

Great story, JL, well crafted!

[ChattyKathy]

You make it alive. Beautiful! And that dog, too cool!

[J0nny Ling0]

Hey! Thanks! Ya know, when people say things like; "Never let go of your dreams", my wife has said to me at times; "Kevin, What are your dreams? Do you have any?" And I usually say that; "I just want to raise my kids successfully, and love you like I should". But then she says; "Yeah, but what is your "Dream"? And then I confess that I would like to be a successful writer. And so, I keep putting out short stories, and I actually have a few more in my "archives" if you are interested...

Would you like to hear an Eskimo Adventure?

[J0nny Ling0]

Here ya Go:

Racial Intolerance,

Or,

Just pass the whiskey please!

By Kevin C. Nye

Daryl, one of the few whites in town, was the proprietor of "Lamont's Bed And Breakfast” (B and B) in Emmonak, Alaska, where my partner James Smith and I stayed for three weeks. We were there working, and fine tuning some government housing that our company had built earlier that summer. Daryl’s wife, Rachel, was one quarter French, and three quarter Eskimo. Yupik Eskimo that is. “Yupik” means “raw flesh eater” by the way. Daryl was forty five years old, and Rachel was twenty five. Her grandfather was a Frenchman named Lamont who used to bring the mail from Seward to Nome via dog sled back in the 1920's. They have pictures on their wall of her Grand Pa Pa with his sled and dog teams, mushing along the trail to Nome. His son, Frank, Rachel’s father, is half French and half Eskimo. Now Frank, keeping with his dad's pioneering ways, became a bush pilot as a young man. He flew the mail around Western Alaska, as well as flew hunters around, looking for the big game, and flying them back out when they were almost always one hundred percent successful, mainly taking moose and caribou. Frank was a really nice guy, and would come over to the B and B most evenings to visit with his daughter Rachel. He would usually bring a bottle of cheap vodka stashed in his parka so he could keep the perpetual buzz going.

Now. Concerning alcohol in Emmonak : “Emo”, as the locals call it, is a "dry town" where alcohol is completely illegal to buy, sell, or even have in one’s possession. However, the black market sales there are a booming business. As a matter of fact, to buy a cheap bottle of any kind of hard liquor in Emo, one has to pay $200.00 a bottle! Yeah. A fifth of any kind of hard alcohol will cost you that much in Emmonak, I kid you not. And, because we knew of this, we brought down eight "traveler" bottles (the plastic kind) of Jim Beam Whiskey with us from Nome, which is a “wet” town, where all normal sales are legal. Our intention was that of maybe selling it if it looked like a safe bet, or, to at least have some "refreshment" on those long cold nights by the wood stove. Yes, in truth, we had planned on selling some firewater to the indians for a profit. Beer would have been nice, but as you can imagine, smuggling beer on a small, single engine plane brings about a bulk and weight problem. The trick with the "whiskee" is that you take the plastic traveler bottle, open the cap, squeeze the bottle so that the whiskey comes to the top and forces the air out, and then you run the cap back down real tight and then tape it with duct or electrical tape. This way there is no sloshing sound when the pilot loads his airplane up. For, if a Bush pilot knows that there is alcohol on his plane, then he is bound by law to check it out. Most pilots really don’t care and would rather not hear that “sloshing sound”, leaving them with a sense of “plausable deniability”. Transporting illegal whiskey this way is a "cultural thing" that we learned from the local Indiginous Peoples, something that they have become very adept at. Anyway, we decided not to sell it because, even though the Tribal Police buy and sell it to their own people at exorbitant prices, they love to bust the "whites" when they try to do it. So, we just kept it to ourselves and the B and B guy and his wife. We figured we'd better share with them so that we wouldn't get reported to the Tribal Police by Daryl, who actually implied “jokingly” that; “I only have one rule about alcohol here at Lamonts: “If you have it, you have to share it. And if you don’t….”

And so. One night at the B and B, we were out in Daryl’s’ snowmobile parts shop, sitting around the wood stove. The "shop" was little more than a glorified wood shack with a six foot seven inch tall ceiling. All of the ceilings in the homes in the Arctic Bush have low ceilings, because it is always sensible to save on heat. Heat rises, and the sooner you can stop it from rising, the warmer yer gonna be! And so, the village Huskies were howling (they howled every night), and it was clear and very bitter cold out. Twenty below, but nice and calm. With Northern Lights blazing, this was one of those great times in my life, right on the banks of the mighty Lower Yukon River, ten miles from the Bering Sea. As cold as it was outside, the shop was cozy. Whenever we did any hanging out and “bs-ing”, we had to go out to the parts shop because my partner, James, smokes cigarettes, and smoking was only allowed out in the shop. So, there we were out in the shop when the door blows open and old Frank comes in and takes a seat on a milk crate. The reason I said “blows open” is because even though it was calm that night, when the door is opened at temperatures that low, the cold air coming in instantly freezes the moisture in the warm air and appears as a “tumbling frozen mist” invading the warmth of the inside of the shack. Like opening a very cold freezer and seeing the frozen mist come billowing out. But in this case, a very large and bitter cold freezer. And so Frank says hi to us all in his unique Eskimo accent, and proceeded to produce his plastic bottle of Popov Vodka, which he in turn passed around, with all of us taking an obligatory pull. Even though he was a really grizzled looking "old man with bad teeth Eskimo dude", we minded our protocol and took a coupla more swigs of the Vodka as it came our way a couple more times. I was inspired to do so by remembering a story my big brother Miles told me about taking a swig off an old black guy's bottle, down on the Potomac River, even though he had a big tumor on his face. And so I swigged right after Frank swigged.

After we got a slight buzz on, James and I decided to break out the Jim Beam whiskee, both to spare us the torture of drinking that vodka, as well as to not polish off too much of Franks two hundred dollar bottle. And, also because we could tell that a good time was coming on and we wanted to make a good time better. So, I went into the house, got some paper cups, got a "jug" of Jim Beam, (all of the Eskimos call it a "jug" by the way, no matter what the brand) and came back out and we all listened to Frank tell Bush Pilot stories from when he was a young man. He had even met Wiley Post and Will Rogers before they met their fate in a plane crash up by Point Barrow, Alaska. He was a really neat guy, and I gloried in the fact that I was actually in this remote place, drinking whiskey, and learning of this history, and making my own history for that matter. Just one of those great times in Life, and I guess that’s why I am writing this down….

During this time, the B and B guy, Daryl, slipped into the house and apparently made a phone call, and invited a couple of friends over to the shop for the “party”. So, over comes this guy Al and his cute young wife Lucy, both 100% Yupik Eskimos. She was really cute with beautiful “Chinky’ eyes.

So, naturally we shared our stash, and before long, I had to go in and get another jug of Jim Beam. We started to pass this one around, and the old party just got livelier and livelier. At one point, some body mentioned "niggers", and from that, commenced one of the funniest times I have ever had in my entire life. After the "n" word came up, old Frank took the floor and started telling us his story about “niggers”. Apparently he knew alot about 'em in that he had actually “been around some of ‘em” in his younger years. But before I go on, I have to explain something so that you can get a better impact from the story.

For some strange reason known only to God, the Eskimos speak with their teeth clenched and with their lower jaw thrust out slightly more than their top jaw, kind of like piranhas. They are kind of breathy and soft spoken when they speak, and is very pleasant to the ear. Go ahead, and quote Chief Dan George from the movie "Little Big Man" while clenching your teeth and saying; "It is a good day to die", or, "I am a Human Being", or, "I will endeavor to persevere"...

Now, that's how old Frank sounded when he piped up and said; "When I was in the Air Force, we had niggersh", and began nodding matter of factly, looking from one face to the next. Everybody stopped talking when he said that, and to this I laughed and said; “What do you mean you had niggers? Do you mean you had 'em for breakfast or something?" Just the way he said it sounded so funny. But he went on and said; “Well no, but we had niggersh in the Air Force. Lots of ‘em!” We all looked quizzically at Frank and I said; so there were blacks with you in the Air Force back in the day, huh Frank"? And he says; "Yeah, and this one time we were on this bus going some where, and these niggersh (because of his “teeth clench thing”, it sounded like “niggers” ended in an "sh") were on the bus. And we white guys (Frank is half white and apparently proud of it) said; "Hey you niggersh, you go to the back of the bus! We don't want you niggersh up here because you talk funny. Now go to the back of the bus! But those niggersh told us that no way that they weren't going to ride in the backa' no damn bus and we said you niggersh better go to the back of the bus or we're gonna make you get off this bus! But they told us "no!". "So Frank, what'd ya do?" James asked. And he gives a grin and said; "Well, we stopped the damned bus and told those niggersh to get off and we made 'em get off that damn bus!". Apparently this was back in the early sixties by the way…

So, my partner James says; So you don't like niggersh, huh Frank?" And while Frank looked sadly down at his hands, his daughter, Rachel, gives Frank a stern look and says; "Dad, why don't you tell 'em about your grand kids, my nieces and nephews?" And so Frank takes another swig from his jug and gets this downcast look on his face and says resignedly; "My other daughter married a nigger"…Which really shook me, to see his anguish over this fact. But, I said; "So, Frank, you mean to say that your grand kids are "niggersh?" Then he gets a mischievous yet sheepish grin on his face and says, "No, my grand kids they are not Niggersh, they're "Niggemos", little Niggemos!. That's half Nigger, half Eskimo!" Then he looks back down shaking his head but all of a sudden is grinning a bunch because he obviously loves these grand kids of his…

As I was taking another pull off of the jug, it registered in my seriously fuzzy head what I had just heard, and I snorted raw whiskey straight through my nose! And we all were laughing so frickin hard we had tears running down our cheeks. And I was coughing and choking and laughing all at the same time, with James beating me on the back and him laughing hilariously! I couldn't speak for five minutes. Gawd it was funny! Niggemos! And of course when he said it he had that "sh" sound tacked to the end of the word making it "Niggemosh" . And Frank was grinning from ear to ear and smiling that beautiful Eskimo smile because he got to be the funny guy. And gawd, my nose was burning, and it took me at least ten minutes to fully recover from that episode. I mean, raw whiskey, fer gawds sake! And since we polished off the better part of four bottles of whiskey, let the record books show that we done took an went an drank eight hunnert dollars of worth a whiskey in one night!! Niggemos. Made me laugh so damned hard I like to have died right there on the floor of that shack out there on the banks of the frozen Yukon River. I just can’t see why it is that God has allowed me to have had such fine adventures in this Life. Mind you, I only reported it as it happened, and I don’t use the “n “word, except to tell this story…

This happened back in December 2001 And, you can see an aerial view of Emmonak if you’ll copy this url, then paste it and google it.

http://www.explorenorth.com/library/commun.../bl-Emmonak.htm

Edited August 9, 2006 by Jonny Lingo

[I Love Bagpipes]

:

Thanks Jonny Lingo. You paint quite the pictures.

Let us know when you get published.

Colorful they are. :)

[dmiller]

Jonny -- find a publisher.

Your stories are riveting.

They will sell. You can quit sheet-rocking/ fish hatcheries, etc.,

and do whatever you want.

Heck -- you could even go down to Tejas

and smoke cigars with Tom Strange on a whim! :D

Repeat after me ---

Find a publisher ----

Find a publisher ----

find a ----------------

You've got the gift. :)

[ChattyKathy]

I know nothing of such things but I think you should submit some of your stuff without question. You put words together nicely. :)

[FreeAtLast]

Go for the dream JL. You definitely paint a picture!!!

[coolchef]

jonny

i want to be your agent

i want to get rich too!! put this talent of yours in the right direction and you will only have to sit at your desk and pump this stuff out and make lots of $$$$$$$$$$

[J0nny Ling0]

Oh geez. I hope you all are right. It's a big step. But I really want to do something. I actually started a novel once, about my first ship and going to Sea when I was sixteen. And man, this novel will be loaded with violence, SEX, and high adventure and intrigue! And it all really happened. And, I have mentioned it here before, I almost went down on that ship in the North Atlantic in 80 foot seas. Scary, that ..... but hey. I have a coupla more short stories. Mind if I post 'em? Okay. I will go and hunt them up from My Documents, ans then post them. Well, one at a time anyway.....

[J0nny Ling0]

Okay. This one is a total satire, because one of my shipmates was pretending to be sick with a "swollen foot", and got off the ship early (or at least out of work) complaining of a "spider bite" that may have been a brown recluse. Now, the bite wasn't from a Brown Recluse or a Fiddleback Spider, because if it was, he would have had some major epidermal damage, which he never experienced.

The second half of this story was inspired by the fact that I actually hid a rubber snake under a plate in the ship's galley of the Kennicott, which in turn scared the living crap out of poor Brenda McCluggage, the breakfast cook. The Kennicott is the 386 foot Alaska State ferry that I used to work on. I was on her maiden voyage and then worked her for three years more.

http://www.pbase.com/kstapleton/image/44466243

"M/V" stands for "motor vessel". There is lots of silly "author's license in this one making it a major hit on the Kennicott because it named so many of our different shipmates, who become like family after so much time aboard, week after week after after week. And so, I hope that you do in fact....Enjoy!

FIDDLEBACKS IN THE FIDDLEY, GABOONS IN THE GALLEY,

OR….

WHICH WAY TO THE GANGWAY?!

Thomas J. Wallender of Juneau, AK. had no idea things would turn out the way they did when he went to work last Friday. While working up in the fiddley (upper reaches of the engine room where the exhaust and steam pipes go up to the stack) of the M/V Kennicott, Thomas Wallender was bitten by a vicious Brown Recluse, or, as they are known down South, the deadly Fiddleback Spider. The Fiddleback gained it’s unique name because of the extraordinarily clear outline of a Stradivarious Violin on top of it’s back. I have captured a couple of them down in Oklahoma, and I am here to tell you that nature’s artwork in this case is quite amazing with it’s ironic twist of the macabre. For obvious reasons, it has also been known as the “Violin Spider”. Although a benign looking little fellow, the Brown Recluse is responsible for many deaths as well as horrible bite scars in the U.S. of A.

According to many in the Penguin Department (Steward’s Department), Wallender felt a sharp pain in his left foot when he was reaching for the next rung on the ladder as he was moving up to check the level in the waste heat boilers. When he got to the next catwalk, he quickly pulled off his shoe and could see that a vicious and deadly Fiddleback had its’ ¼ inch fangs buried deeply into his foot. Apparently the vicious little bastard had bitten him right through the material of his sock! Imagine that, right through the material! Apparently these mad Fiddlebacks are completely out of control! Immediately upon seeing the little horror “glombing on” to his foot, Wallender, beside himself with terror and consumed with a rage to kill the little son of a bitch, grabbed the 12 in Crescent wrench out of his back pocket and swinging wildly, began to beat the living .... out of the spider and his foot! As the spider was dead with the first whack, Tom’s crazed smashing of the now brown goo of what once was the spider’s body, managed to infuse all of the spider’s venom straight into his bloodstream! The result being that Tom’s foot swolt up bigger than a West Virginia mushmellon! By the time we got to Bellingham, Wallender was declared unfit for duty and had to ride home to Juneau with the ship under a watchful eye and also under heavy sedation. This is the second of a series of incidents that have involved unwanted creatures aboard the Motor Vessel Kennicott.

Just prior to the ugly Fiddleback incident, Brenda McCluggage, the breakfast cook, encountered a beautiful yet deadly Gaboon Viper in the ship’s galley. The Gaboon Viper is native to Africa, and part of it’s camouflage system is that they have the marking of what looks like a beautiful golden Aspen leaf right smack on the top of it’s head. It is extremely deceptive, and in my travels, I have almost stepped on them a number of times. I have also spoken with many villagers whose loved ones had succumbed to its deadly bite. It is not known how this deadly Gaboon got aboard the ship. It is suspected, however, that it may have dropped out of the trees as the ship passed through the Panama Canal on it’s trip up from the Fiddleback infested shipyard in Mississippi where the Kennicott was recently built. What the deadly Gaboon was doing in Panama is anybody’s guess.

At any rate, it was 0400 in the morning when Brenda showed up in the galley to get the home fries and the bacon going when she lifted a plate that was sitting upside down on her cutting board. To her absolute horror, there, staring directly into her eyes in strike position, was the deadly Gaboon! With a shriek, she ran screaming from the galley into the food court area shrieking; “It’s a deadly Gaboon! Run for your life! It’s a deadly Gaboon! ” causing great alarm among the two other early morning galley workers having their Pop Tarts and morning coffee. When the watchman, Pam Wittanen, arrived on the scene to investigate, the deadly Gaboon had slipped down onto the deck and gotten away. Fortunately, 3rd Mate Jane Wayne (also known as “GI Jane”), disregarding any sense of self preservation and with a dedication to the safety of the ship’s crew and passengers, hunted down and hacked the three foot Gaboon into a bloody mess with the machete which she wears strapped to her back at all times. Having the machete on her back is a habit she picked up while guarding a gold shipment down the Amazon a few years back.

Apparently, when Wayne was bending down to look at a pile of mooring line, the vicious viper which was hiding amongst the coiled line struck like lightning right for her lovely, yet unprotected face! Wayne, with more than equal lightning speed, whipped the machete off her back and cleanly sliced off the Gaboon’s head in mid air leaving the sickening sight writhing and spewing all over the car deck! With glee she commenced to finish the job, hacking it into a bloody mess for all to gawk at later… When Wayne was asked if she felt any fear when she took the Gaboon out, she tilted her head back and just laughed! It was only shortly after that when Wallender encountered the Attack of the Fiddleback. Once again, it is apparent that these wild and deadly creatures are completely out of control! When the ship finally docked in Juneau, Brenda, stonefaced and silent, walked stoically up the car deck ramp, got in her car and drove off. We don’t know if she will ever come back…

Wallender, on the other hand, (and under heavy sedation), was last seen laughing maniacally as he was driven off in the handi-capped van to Bartlett Memorial Hospital for treatment. Wallender, a most excellent guitarist, received the grave news that, even though an amputation of his foot from the ankle down would not be necessary, he may never be able to play the guitar with his toes again, which has always been a delight to his audiences. Wallender is now recuperating at his home in Juneau and being ministered to by a host of very lovely ladies who are his fans……

So, it seems as if things turned out well enough for the crew of the M/V Kennicott, in that there was no loss of life. Fortunately, the ship’s “herpetentemologist”, Kevin Nye the Oiler Guy was there to identify these deadly miscreants. It was equally fortunate that Jane Wayne was aboard, and that, well, that Tom had his wrench…..

When Day Oiler Jack Slaght, from Petersburg AK, was asked what he thought of this weeks’ peculiar turn of events, he mused for a moment and said with a wry grin; “Well, it’s a ghastly, stranger than fiction, twisted sort of tale…….

For the record: Everything described about the Fiddleback Spiders’ characteristics are true except the part in the story where it is mentioned that it had “¼ inch fangs”.

That was embellishment pure and simple.

Also, everything about the Gaboon Viper, including it’s name is true

The rest of the story is completely true, and I’m not making this up……………

.K.C. NYE

Edited August 11, 2006 by Jonny Lingo

[Tom Strange]

Lingoman, why don't you send "Dances with Coyotes" to Readers Digest?

Don't post too much here... it's an open forum and anyone on the internet can steal from you...

I don't know if putting that "no part of this may be reproduced" thing on there will help or not...

[J0nny Ling0]

Good idea, and good point my Strange Friend Tom...

[FreeAtLast]

Tom has a point here. If your stories aren't copywritten you could find someone else benefitting from your wit.

I have thoroughly enjoyed the tales though.

[coolchef]

damn i want be your agent great stuff

[J0nny Ling0]

Thanks Cool Chef. I really do appreciate that. Send Lobster! :)

[likeaneagle]

Johnny ~

THanks so much for the good read..It's very light and you surely bring and capture the essence of a good story.

You have a gift.

[doojable]

Jonny, - Do you need an illustrator for the cover of the book?

Edited August 12, 2006 by doojable

[J0nny Ling0]

Ya know Dooj,

I have an awesome idea for a children's book. And I would need an illustrator for that. I have kept this story under wraps for the longest time for fear that someone would steal my idea as a matter of fact.

[likeaneagle]

Here is a topic for a book..The life of a Merchant Mariner, setting Alaska!!

I read a series of books, written by, (Jennings?) cant remember. His topics were walking across different counries. He did one on walking across Alaska, Russia, China and America..YOU kind of remind me of him..there is life and motion in stories...and the adjectives he used were sweeping......before a writer, he was a history teacher in a Public school here in the USA.