Along with beer, whiskey, huge steaks

and companionship (including Cody, the border collie who was just a pup at the first of these annual meetings, seven years ago), Thursday evening at the cabin in the Bighorns

also brought hunting tales and jokes.

Some good, some bad.

There were three really terrible jokes. Fortunately, I only remember two:

A young redneck got engaged and took his future bride home to meet his family for the first time. As the womenfolk cleaned up after dinner in the kitchen, the menfolk gathered on the porch.

The young man was disappointed to find his family was not as thrilled with his bride as he was.

"But," he exclaimed, "she's still a virgin!"

His father angrily reared up out of his chair, "If she's not good enough for her own family, what makes you think she's good enough for ours?"

A young cowboy got caught out in a summer storm, and finally arrived at the cookshack only to find the dinner pot empty. Dejected and hungry, he noticed one tall, thin cowboy sitting with a still full bowl of chili, staring blankly at the wall.

"Hey, Slim," the young cowboy asks hopefully, "how's the chili?"

Without a word or a look, the thin cowboy slid the bowl over to the new arrival. Who quickly snagged a spoon and started to dig in.

But as he reached the bottom of the bowl, he discovered a dead, rotten mouse. His stomach began to hurl, and in moments he had retched the entire dinner back into the bowl.

"Ayup," said Slim.

"That's as far as I got, too."