Illinois Valley News, Cave Junction, Ore. Wednesday, June 21, 2017
Page A-9
Winding Trails: by Al Hobart
Thursday, June 15, 1967
Illinois Valley News
Farewell to Beartrap
It’s a sad commentary on our madly
ballyhooed peerless social structure that justice
can be distorted, law and order perverted, and
plans for a rosy future ripped asunder by the
adept manipulation and transference of those
pretty little oblongs of green paper.
To my shame I must confess I myself
have been a willing, if hesitantly so, party
to this deplorable disintegration. I was only
recently trapped into selling an old friend down
the river; when my palm was crossed with a
piece of that deliciously evil green wampum
(one that bore a suitable number on its four
corners), my supposedly sturdy character
buckled, and I let the man drive away with one
of my most treasured possessions –my old bear
trap.
That big old steel trap, a family heirloom
that had been in my private possession for
nearly 40 years, was more than a friend. When
times were tough it stood by me through thick
and thin, doing its mute share to make my
drab life more bright and my belt less tight. In
its irresistible iron embrace it has held more
than 20 bears securely, while nearby I stood
whetting a keen edge on my hunting knife, and
otherwise preparing for the macabre chore at
hand.
Yet, after all those years of unfailing
service, when the man waved that green
frog-skin under my greedy nose I heartlessly
betrayed my rusty old friend, and tried not to
watch when the man triumphantly bore the
reluctant big trap from its cozy corner in the
garage and dumped it with a rattle of despair
into the back of his pickup.
True, I had no further use for the old trap.
It had lain idle in its out-of-the-way corner for
a number of years, and there it would no doubt
have remained, as I don’t intend to ever trap
another bear.
Still, I feel I have committed an act of
gross treachery in letting the old trap go. To
me there seemed to be an aura of cheerful
comradeship enveloping the big iron hulk,
due, of course, to the many trail trips we have
had together, on trails that wound off into the
mountains in all directions.
With my 25-lb. load of trap, cable,
clamps, and other paraphernalia in my big
trapping packsack I have many times climbed
my way back into the wooded hills to a likely
spot and there made my set, sometimes as far
away as 5 miles or more from home, from the
head of Packer’s Gulch to distant Dunn Creek
Swamp, and high up on Crazy Ridge.
The thrills I enjoyed in those past years
of bear trapping were so great that even
now I savor their memory with shamefaced
delectation. But those happy days are gone,
replaced by ones that are stillmore satisfying,
if not quite so richly spiced with those heart-
quickening instants of sudden discovery, as
when I met my captive face to face and realized
my advantage over this great wild creature, so
many times more powerful than I–even though
I had to stoop to such a cowardly means of
bringing about his downfall.
I guess the abrasion of time has worn
away a lot of my bloodthirstiness. The eroding
acid of old age seeping into my bones has
softened me up to the point where I feel a touch
of sadness at the necessity of having to crack a
flea; and while grinding a cockroach under my
heel I feel constrained to offer him my sincerest
apology.
The old beartrap, of course, can’t really
care; and the feeling of friendship that has
always seemed to exist between us has been,
in reality, strictly one-sided. Still, I had to
over come a feeling of guilt when I allowed it
to be taken away; and when the man with the
pickup drove down the lane, I felt like shouting
after him to bring back my old beartrap and
take back the evil piece of green paper that
had tempted me beyond my weak power of
resistance.
But, stoicism triumphing over
sentimentality, I impatiently brushed away
something that was tickling my cheek, hurried
back into the cabin and, with sudden eagerness,
and renewed confidence –thanks to my old
beartrap – began scanning once more the magic
pages of that new sporting goods catalog.
The
Archive
Zone:
by Hillary Mohr from the Illinois Valley News archives
What happens when you take an isolated
area, add a little “crazy” with a dash of “what
the heck”? You get small valley crime of all
kinds at any time, and every now and then it’s
not a crime, just plain bazaar. Now that we
have your attention, please enjoy a chuckle
with this week’s Police Blotter Archive Zone.
The Date: February 2, 2011. Location: Cave
Junction and the Illinois Valley.
REAL DADS.
STIHL DADS.
female students said they found marijuana
in bathroom and were smoking in a shed
on Illinois Valley High School property. *A
woman left her green Dodge Caravan running
as she ran inside the video store; when she
came out her car was missing, and there was
another green vehicle matching hers sitting in
the parking lot. Sure enough, a few minutes
later her van came back’ the driver just realized
he took off with the wrong vehicle.
JEREMY HART
3RD GENERATION LOGGER
& FATHER
Friday, Jan. 21
*Deputy assistance was requested to
reconnect power in the 5000 block of Westside
Road when someone threatened to shoot the
Pacific Power technician if he came back to his
property.
Sunday, Jan. 23
*One neighbor is digging a ditch to stop
a right-of-way in the 6000 block of Upper
Deer Creek Road, while the other is filling the
ditches back in again.
Monday, Jan.24
*It was highly unusual for the woman to
have a full drink on her coffee table outside
not answer the door, so her visitor requested a
welfare check. When the woman at the Secret
Trailer Park was re-contacted, she explained
that she was napping and didn’t hear anyone
knock on the door the first time. *They
weren’t “smoking in the boys room,” but two
B ingo
for
Tuesday, Jan. 25
*At first the woman in 27000 block of
Redwood Hwy. thought it was a bear making
strange noises, knocking on her window, and
running across her porch. Since then she has
found beer cans, yogurt containers, salsa and
chip bags and believes there may be transients
on her 16 acres, and is requesting extra patrol.
*A man in a red king-cab truck was punching
another man over a parking lot space on S.
Redwood Hwy. *“This isn’t your bathroom,”
the bold grandmother yelled at the tall, thin,
intoxicated man with long, white hair in a
ponytail, wearing a white cowboy hat and
light tan jacket while urinating in an alley on
S. Redwood Hwy. When she hollered at him
an hour later for the same thing, he took off
running. *A small amount of marijuana was
found during a traffic stop on Redwood Hwy.
at Gold Canyon Drive. The marijuana, which
the driver denied was there, was destroyed on
scene.
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