A Great Friend Passes On

I haven't been very faithful of late in sharing with you all about Elk camp and what makes Elk camp so doggone enticingly interesting. One of my huntin' buddies, Randy, sent me an email the other day that reminded me of so many absolutely hilarious and heart warming moments spent at camp. This email message was sent to let me know that one of our own had passed. Never again will Elk camp be quite the same, even though Rosco had not been out on the mountain for a few years now, we never failed to spend a moment or two each day reminiscing about our dear old friend.

Rosce started showing up at camp when he was just a pup. A ball of fur, chocolate lab, happy to just be there, pup. Always up to something and keeping those big ole "don't you really want to scratch my belly" eyes right on whoever was nearby. Now Rosco had a boy, named Ryan, and Ryan loved this ole lab just as much as a boy could possibly love a dog, and Rosco loved him back just as strong.

Now to illustrate this, I gotta share a story that was passed on to me. Ryan and his best friend and huntin' & fishin' partner were out huntin' ducks, as they often did on an Autumn weekend and along with them, of course, was Rosco. They were huntin along the river bottom and along the old railroad track near home having a great time shootin' ducks, watchin' Rosco retrieve and generally havin' as good a time as a couple of teenage outdoor types could have. Now this was all about to come to one real abrupt close, when to all of their surprise, a big ole Mountain Lion decided that this here trail along the railroad line was his and he wasn't interested in sharing it. This big ole tom has his ears laid back and his teeth bared and he is just about to have a real up close and personal pounce on these boys when Rosco jumps right in between the cat and the surprised hunters. Well here's the deal, this here Chocolate Lab would have gladly sacrificed himself for these young fellers, but because the boys were able to both unload their shotguns into the cat, Rosco was spared. Now I ask ya, can you have a better friend than this? I think not!

Rosco was protective for sure. He even protected entire meadows from invaders who dared to think that it would be all right to set up camp too close to his people's camp. We had been up at camp for 3 or 4 days, gettin ready for the upcoming opening morning. We had hauled wood, scouted for Wapiti, readied our packs, studied the maps, and just generally allowed the joy of all that is Elk camp to soak in. On the afternoon before opening morning we were all sittin around camp tellin tales and havin good ole belly laughs, when along comes this early 70's chevy pickup with a canopy on back, it slows down and the occupants take a gander at OUR meadow and then they drive on by. We commence to sayin things like; whew, sure glad they went on by, and looks like we've still got the meadow to ourselves, when here comes this ole truck again. This time they pause for a few seconds and pull on ito the meadow and start in to gettin ready to set up their camp, in OUR meadow. These fellers spread out their tent and are about to start puttin' it up, when along comes our dear friend Rosco. Well, he plants himself right smack dab in the middle of the canvas and starts in to barking. Now Rosco does not have a soft little bark, nor does he have a rather normal bark. This guy has a big ole deep chested, I mean business, type of bark. He's standing his ground and has the invaders standin back not knowin what to do. Here's where this gets funny! Randy's wife comes over to him as he sits there in his camp chair and says "aren't you going to do something", and Randy remarks, quite simply and very matter of factly "nope, he's just protecting our privacy". Well, he eventually calls Rosco off, and we have a chat with the invaders, who are darned apologetic about being invaders. They seem like pretty decent fellers and I guess they figured we were as well. Anyway, we shared OUR meadow, and had to remind ole Rosco now and then that it was gonna be okay. They were only there for a couple of days and then the meadow was back to normal.

I'll share more about Rosco later, but I sure hope you get the idea about what kind of friend he was. We miss him dearly, and we'll share Rosco stories at every Elk camp from now until we can't get up on the hill anymore. Rest in Peace ole friend, you were like no other.