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 This be me, on a floating and fishing expedition on the Gallatin River near Three Forks, Montana, one fine August day not long ago. The fishing was mostly slow but the day was fine and long.
.... and this is my lovely Aunt Bee at a family picnic summer-before-last, literally "dressed to kill" and playfully handing out the "s.w.a.t." awards to all the kids for their many "shenanigans and stunts" throughout the previous year. OUCH!
 This amazing woman is not just a "memorable relative," but was also locally famous as a star on the high school power lifting team. In her college years, I think she was the '88 runner-up for the northwest regional Olympic tryouts in the Human Fly Division, and was actually quite good, maybe the best ever in her class and species, but she never actually won the gold because as we all know, members of the order Hymenoptera (ants, wasps, etc) can all lift up to 150 times their own body weight. They say she never really got over her disappointment at the second-place finish in the last qualifier. Personally, I don't know. I sometimes felt sorry for her. She was so anxious to acheive. As far as high-acheivers go, she really wasn't such a bad person when you finally got to know her, except for her tendency to swarm when she was around her friends; and of course you had to get over her fondness for poop. Her "old man" (actually, it was her "old MANTIS," a member of the family Mantidae and a guy who preyed alot, almost constantly in fact, my poor old Uncle Buzzy!) - as an aging drone with a weakness for fermented fruit, he told me that she had a kiss that would put you into orbit and send you straight to heaven and I was inclined to take his word as fact, especially after she devoured his head and laid her eggs in his poor old carcass. |
