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Richard Jernigan -> RE: Carved/stippled headstock, new guitar underway (May 16 2020 2:29:00)
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Sorry to hear about the neuropathy HR. For an old fart I'm pretty lucky. The recent (first) bout of plantar fasciitis seems to have almost gone away. When you get to be 82 and something gets out of whack, there's always that little question in the back of your mind, "Is this the way it's going to be from here on in?" So far, the answer has been "No."
Next time i'm in Alaska or other moose country I need to ask for some well prepared moose. My first encounter with moose meat was fortunate. In July, 1949 we drove from Oklahoma City to Anchorage, Alaska in the 1948 Lincoln Continental Dad bought before he found out he was being assigned to the Alaska Air Command. Twelve days of adventure for Mom, Dad, my brother, Bubba the Boston Terrier and me.
First stop north of Edmonton, Alberta was a log roadhouse at Lesser Slave Lake. The owner/chef was a relocated Quebecois. He wore watch cap, a full beard, a flannel shirt, "tin" pants and logger boots. The main course for dinner was moose meat pie. The owner told us he shot the moose the day before. The pie was delicious. The crust was rich and flaky, the filling expertly seasoned.
Subsequent encounters with moose meat were less fortunate. My Anchorage Junior High homeroom met first thing in the morning in the High School cafeteria. A couple of times a month in the dead of winter we saw a dreaded moose carcass hanging in the kitchen.
The snow piled up so high on either side of the Alaska Railroad tracks that a moose on the rail line couldn't get off it. The railroad crews had no option but to kill such an unfortunate animal. They didn't carry rifles to do the job. They just ran them down with the locomotive. Then they picked up the carcass and loaded it into the baggage car. By the time the train got to Anchorage the moose was frozen. They donated the carcasses to the public schools, maybe some other institutions.
In the winter the moose were skinny. Just about all they had to eat was spruce and fir needles. The piney flavor combined with the gamey taste of a skinny half starved moose was repellent. The meat was full of little bone splinters from the encounter with the locomotive.
So when we saw a moose carcass hanging in the cafeteria kitchen we checked our emergency funds, and ate hamburgers for lunch at the drugstore across the street.
But I still remember that moose meat pie at Lesser Slave Lake.
RNJ
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