There's a statute of limitations for stuff like this, right? They can't come after grand kids? Ok, I hope not. Penske's awesome hunting story reminded me of this one of my Grandpa. When he was a kid they lived in a dug out earth house thing they built in the side of a hill between Idaho Falls and Swan Valley near Antelope Flats. This is a pretty funny story that gives a glimpse into the life of labor they lived in those days. They were poor as dirt and basically had to grow or kill anything they ate.

I wish I still had this rifle or knew where it was. My dad thought it was an old 303 enfield. Anyway - here's the story. My grandpa is Mel.

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Mel’s "Elk"

One night about dusk the sun had gone behind the hill and we were out in the front of the house, when someone called, “What is that up on the hill?” Joe Mason said, “It looks like a donkey with a box on it’s back!

Dad said, “Mel, go get the gun. It looks like an elk!” It had jumped over the fence in the pea patch as if it weren’t even there, and made for over the hill toward what we called “the point”, with Mel, Dad, and all of us kids in hot pursuit. We got there just in time to see Mel shoot, and the animal, which was drinking in the canyon, fell. It was getting so dark we couldn’t see much. About all we could see was a big black lump. Dad restrained us from running down until he could make sure that it was not still alive and fighting. Cautiously, Dad and Mel went down with the gun, ready to shoot if they had to. Dad said, “My gosh, it’s a moose! Where would a moose come from? And it’s dead! Where on earth would it come from? Dad thought maybe it was from the river, and had come down from the park. The only thing dad could think of was that it had come from Yellowstone and it was from that River, the snake river.

Anyway, there was the moose! And there was a $500 fine for shooting a moose! So what to do now with it? It was early fall, and no refrigeration. It was a big thing. We surely needed meat. Something had to be done…quickly. Some of the men went to the stable to get the horses and wagon. Someone got on the horse and went to the neighbors to get help, as that thing was heavy. They brought the wagon back, and dug holes at the back of the wagon wheels, close to the “elk.” (It became an elk right away, as there was a money fine on a moose. So we called it an elk.) Everybody in the whole country got a hunk of “elk” for the threshers.

Well, they lowered the wagon wheels down into the ground, even with the elk (the moose), and everybody pushed, and pulled and tugged, and pushed and pulled…that thing weighed a ton! Finally got it up on there enough so that they could haul it over there into the timber. Dad hustled a pulley from somewhere and fixed it into a tree and they attached it to thing thing…and pulled it up into the tree. I can’t imagine how a quakey could be strong enough to hold that big thing up, but anyway, they got it up. By this time it was getting dark. Mother had come down with a couple of lanterns. They had to get it taken care of. They couldn’t leave it out, or the coyotes or something would eat at it, but anyway they needed to get the insides out and get it taken care of. We needed the meat. We’d never even seen a moose before. We didn’t know what moose meat tasted like, but they hoisted that thing up and skinned it out. I’ve never seen so many insides. It just boiled out! I guess they left! those for the coyotes. Well, they cut it up, put it on a wagon and brought it up to the house. Now what to do with it? We had no refrigerator. No place to keep much meat, anyway. Dad was up all night, cutting that thing up. Sending it over to the neighbors, “Here’s a nice big hunk of elk for your threshers.” That meat came just in time. Everybody was having the threshers and had to have extra food.

Mother put it down in brine, made jerky, she did everything she could think about, and ate it until we couldn’t gag it down anymore. The smell of it! We cut the head off, and those old horns were hanging around there for so long. Mel was going to mount it. Anyway, he kept the skin. We had that skin ! around for years. We had it in his bedroom. He was taking a course in taxidermy so he thought he would have it tanned. Every time we would sweep we would get a big dustpan full of that old hair! I got tired of that old hide, and it meant a lot to Mel because he killed that thing with one shot—downhill. He couldn’t believe it. That thing died right in it’s tracks.

Now came the fun of getting rid of it and taking care of it. I don’t know what they did with all of it. We cooked it. Everybody cooked elk. Everybody had “moose” for their threshers, (of course it was elk, and nobody knew the difference, unless they saw the head, which has just kicking around. Mel was going to mount that but neve! r got to it.) The ssmell got so bad, he just cut the horns off and he finally buried the rest of it. Big old Roman nose it was. We couldn’t believe it. We’d never seen a moose before, we kids. I mean the moose, we didn’t dare call it the moose. We had meat. I can’t remember how we got rid of it, but it was so much red meat! Once in a while, when we needed meat, we got it somewhere or other. I’m sure the neighbors knew it wasn’t elk, but nobody squealed on us because we were so darn glad to get the meat. It was elk to them, and manna for them, too…so no one ever told—or we’d have a fine to pay.