Bud #4: Stuffed Birds of a Feather

I was surprised when I walked into Bud’s Geauga Corners. Bud’s is an old tavern at a crossroads in eastern Geauga County. Bud’s was usually populated by a few regulars. Today was different. Randy wasn’t there.

All the guys at the bar were gathered around Gary, looking at his smart Phone and laughing at the picture. “That judge looks so goofy” laughed Gary. Gary who owned Gary’s Gravel rarely came in to Bud’s. He was usually busy with his dump trucks hauling gravel. With him was a tall skinny kid named Ricky. Bud brought me a beer.

“So who’s the new guy and what’s all the laughing about?” I said.

Bud said “they’re laughing at the judge’s staged hunting pictures. The new kid is Ricky. He just got back from Afghanistan a month ago. He’s Gary’s new mechanic. Bud told me that he’d known Ricky since he was in high school. He said that Ricky loved anything that had an engine. In high school he couldn’t get to auto mechanics class fast enough.  After high school Ricky signed up for the Army. He got himself assigned to the motor pool. The army made a good choice. Ricky could fix just about any kind of military vehicle from a jeep to a tank.  Ricky volunteered to go to Afghanistan to a repair depot.  His job was to recover damaged or disabled vehicles and bring them back to the depot for repair. One day as he was loading a Humvee onto a lowboy tractor trailer truck a nearby IUD exploded. The blast shoved his head into the side of the truck.  He had a concussion and 10 stitches on his head. It took a month to get back on duty.

Ricky finished his service and was discharged and came back to Geauga Corners.

One day he walked up behind Gary who had been peering under the hood of his dump truck. It had broken down. Ricky offered to take a look. He tightened up a loose wire and said “Try it now.” The truck immediately started. Gary hired him on the spot. There was more to the story, but loud laughter interrupted from down the bar.

“What’s all the laughing about?” I asked. They were looking at that judges Facebook page. It showed pictures of him going hunting. They were laughing at the new starched camouflage outfit. Harold said “Dave look close. He forgot to take the price tag off. That sent out big guffaws. The laughter came from guys who had hunted all their lives. They never had fancy camouflage clothes. Most wore an old brown canvas coat, barn boots and an orange ball cap. They weren’t hunting to show off, they were hunting to put meat on the table and they just loved the outdoors

Harold grabbed a couple of sausage sticks off the display on the bar.

He threw them in the air and with a pretend shotgun he shouted pow-pow .

This sent everybody into stitches. Ricky, the new guy, stood off to the side. As the laughter subsided Ricky spoke up. He said “My mom used to know a taxidermist. He stuffed lots of birds for private hunt clubs. They wanted them stuffed kind of limp so they would look like they had just been shot. Lots of the private hunt clubs out here would buy a couple of dozen of them just to make the hunters look good.

Everyone looked at Ricky. Gary spoke up and said “Is that what happened to those pheasants in the picture? Ricky studied the picture on the Smart phone. “I’m not sure. That taxidermist guy was really good. He made them look like they had just been shot. Harold stood up and put his ball cap on sideways. He began tiptoeing around the room imitating the cartoon character. He said “be vewy vewy quiet.” That broke everybody up again. After the laughter calmed down, Gary put his smart phone in his pocket turned to Ricky and said “come on, we got lots of work to do” Ricky smiled and followed Gary out the door. The conversation turned to previous hunting trips. I sat wondering about Ricky and the ‘limp’ birds. I would have to ask Bud more about Ricky, but that would have to wait for another time.

NEXT TIME: Good Deeds Are Not Always a Good Deal

The opinions expressed are solely those of Dave Partington and of course Bud, Randy, Harold, Larry and the rest of the guys sitting at the bar at Bud’s. Bud’s Geauga Corners is a work of fiction. Bud’s Geauga Corners is paid for solely by Dave Partington.