Do meetings in your outfit begin with someone showing off, and then passing around, their new $1700 handgun?

Ours did.

We haven't met like this for a while. Like since before the fall hunting seasons. One member also passed around the framed photograph of he and his wife on the ferry.

With the World Trade Center Towers in the background. No real reason, just wanted everyone to be able to see them again.

One attendee was late, but excused. Injured deer call. When he showed up, no one asked how it came out.

Best quote of the meeting: "I don't care if you're right. I'm still gonna do it my way."

Five of us received new pickups in the recent bid cycle. One of whom was the fellow who had the little incident with a can of bear spray back in May. He wanted to know if anyone had a can of pepper spray he could borrow, because his new truck "doesn't smell right."

Since the conversation was on pepper sprays, it was pointed out by the bear guy that the "Saber Red" foam pepper bear spray does not work in high elevations (i.e., bear country). It just dribbles out of the can. His advice if that's what you bring to a bear encounter? "Just smear it on yourself and hope he doesn't like the taste."

At this point, the guy who brought his new gun to the table commented that he would "never go into the back country without a gun." The comment from across the room was that "you wouldn't take a shower without a gun."

I will spare you the macabre jokes and discussion about how you could ever put down an injured horse in the wilderness with only a can of bear spray.

There was discussion as to why the dinner banquet at the big outfit meeting in May is "mandatory." A warden asked if Happy Hour was also mandatory.

The boss's quick reply?

"Yes, and there's a three drink minimum."

Really.

In an effort to be efficient, I have been deleting all the emails I consider irrelevant to me, usually without opening them. So at this meeting I discover the Stress Management Workshops that I have been deleting are mandatory. Talk about stress...

Every year we all have to view the Defensive Driving videos. They had new ones this year, which included real accident scenes, rather than the old faked ones with state employees pretending to be actors. Little less jocularity. These videos were not from our state, however. I was amazed to see footage of wet streets and water just falling from the sky! Are there places where it really does that?

You could tell these videos were made in an urban area. One of the primary winter safety rules in this country is never leave your vehicle. It is your only shelter from wind chills. Every tough winter there are cases of vehicles of missing people being found stuck or broken down on a road, with footprints heading off into the snow. And then sometime next spring some sheep herder finds the bones.

In one tough winter in our community, a fellow died trying to walk the 300 yards from where his vehicle broke down to the grocery store. Really. Died of hypothermia on the shoulder of an open city street.

Anyway, in these urban videos, they tell folks to hike to the nearest house or store, rather than risk being robbed or attacked by staying in their broken down vehicle. Not a good survival strategy here. The video went on to suggest items drivers should have for personal protection in their vehicles, like alarms and steering wheel locks. Quite a few in the room were pissed that they didn't suggest carrying handguns.

Seriously.

Found out why the handles of the new truck keys are so large and fat. Each has a microchip in it that the vehicle senses. If you try to use a copied key without the chip, the steering wheel locks up after three starts and the vehicle will not start any more.

Supposed to be an "anti-theft" device, but I suspect it is a device that allows the dealerships to steal $12-$16 from us whenever we want a spare key made with the chip.

There were complaints about the "one size fits all" flight helmets. The response from across the room was "I can tell from here he has a big, fat head."

On enforcement matters, one warden was complaining about fishermen smuggling fish out, hidden in their snowmachines. His proof? He had watched five anglers fish for eight hours on Brooks Lake, and they only brought two fish out in their coolers. "Nobody can fish that bad on Brooks Lake," he said.

Case closed, I guess.

Final note for yesterday:

At lunch, the new guy in our region finished his 6" sub sandwich, and then looked longingly at a warden and I still eating our 8-inchers. "Guess I shoulda ordered 8 inches," he said.

My response?

Yeah, six inches just doesn't cut it.

Took him a couple seconds to get it.