Let's Go Bron-Cos! Or not.

Of the many afflictions which plague me, perhaps the one which hurts the most is my inability to watch the Denver Broncos on television. Oh, I can watch them of course; it's just that whenever I do, they suck. I can listen to them on the car radio, or follow them on the Internet, but the moment I turn on the TV, they throw an interception, miss a field goal or give up a touchdown. It's a curse not easily explained, but this year I've dealt with it by finding other activities while their games are being shown. And as a result, they've had their best season since I first started following them six years ago.

Coincidence, you say? Superstition? Don't be naïve.

They've been playing so well this year that I was becoming concerned about what I would do if they made it all the way to the SuperBowl. I knew what my presence in front of the tube would mean and I had to put the team first so it was looking as though I was going to have to sit this one out. But of course, that was getting ahead of things. Before the SuperBowl appearance became an issue, they'd have to get past the Pittsburgh Steelers.

That was something of a technicality in that the Steelers were the number 6 seed and had already played road games for the last 3 weeks while the Broncos rested at home. However, there was one point of concern. I was going to be at the game. That in itself didn't worry me; I've seen them play live before and they won that time (quite handily too) so it was apparent my television curse didn't extend to me being present at the stadium. No problem.

This time though, I wouldn't be in the stands, but on the field as part of the half-time show. Me, and a hundred or so other drummers and pipers from local area bands. Oh and the cadets from the Air Force Academy brass band who came up from Colorado Springs to keep us on track. We met in a High-School parking lot, very early on Sunday morning. The cold was bitter but we had practicing to do.

The coordinator marched up and down with a bullhorn in his hand. Unfortunately, he never put it near his mouth, so it was a challenge hearing what he wanted us to do. An even bigger challenge was for him to choreograph that many people, who've never played together before, few of whom know how to march, each with different levels of musical talent, and who have all learned slightly different variations of the tunes, into a formation that will impress 78,000 people. After we'd marched up and down the parking lot a couple of dozen times, while simultaneously butchering the tunes, his task was beginning to look impossible. My cadet friends told me the military term is 'clusterfuck'. However, before long it was time to load up into a series of school buses and head for the stadium. We were soon ensconced in the hospitality tent with free food, expensive beer and delight of delights, Port-a-Potties outside.

And about a dozen big screen TVs inside.

It didn't take long to realize that this was a bad mix. The Broncos started out impressively enough, turning over possession in the first few minutes. But the Steelers challenged the call and it was overruled. And things went down hill from there. The bad guys put the first points on the board a few minutes later and in short order I found myself looking for a way to escape the televisions. I wasn't at all sorry when the time came for us to leave the tent and march around the side of the stadium to prepare for our grand entrance.

Once I'm inside, I thought, things will be fine. After all, hadn't I watched them pound Houston while up in the nosebleed section last year. The jinx couldn't hurt them while I was inside the stadium. That thought consoled me as we shivered outside for what seemed like an age before they walked us down the tunnel. In here, the crowd sounded strangely muted but once we stepped out into the sunshine, we were deafened by the roar of 78,000 rabid fans. I like to think they were cheering for me so I waved my sticks in the air and high-fived a cute blonde hanging over the wall.

This was my time.

Remember how I said the jinx couldn't hurt the Broncos while I was inside the stadium? Four minutes I saw of that game before mercifully, they broke for half time. Four minutes in which the Steelers scored not one, but two touchdowns; the second of which was a virtual gift from Jake Plummer who threw the ball to them with an accuracy he seldom showed when aiming for his own teammates. I was standing at the 50 yard line, just a couple of feet behind the Pittsburgh bench and it was obvious they were a lot happier about the way the game was going than I was. I recognized the names of a few of their players but was just glad none of them turned and shouted "Hey look everyone, it's the TV jinx guy, thank goodness he's here!"

Finally the players trooped off for their cup of tea and slice of fruitcake or whatever they do at half-time in America, and our show began. And I have to say it was pretty darn good, even if one half of the pipers did begin 'Amazing Grace' a good two beats behind the other half. I myself played with a talent that would have made Mozart start looking for alternative lines of work and screwed up just once when for reasons known only to the Gods, I began drumming a well known tune with my right hand instead of my left. But mistake or not, I still took the time to appreciate the enormity of it all. Here I was in Invesco Field, playing in front of thousands of people, at the biggest sporting event Colorado has seen in years, and the moment was very sweet. All too soon, our eight minutes were up and we trooped off the field to hand things back to the real warriors.

Who repaid our courtesy by continuing to blow chunks for the rest of the game. Even though I didn't so much as look at a television. Which meant Pittsburgh ran out 34-17 winners. This means they'll be going to SuperBowl, while the Broncos watch it on TV.

Just like me.

Shootin' the Breeze

"No really, it doesn’t hurt - you won’t feel a thing."

It’s been a while since I was a child, but not so long that I’ve forgotten that those words, when uttered by a friend, are invariably followed by pain only marginally below do-it-yourself brain surgery or a trip to the Department of Motor Vehicles. When the friend is holding a gun, I’ve learned one should be especially careful. However, in this case, she was right.

Pointing the weapon at my chest, Melissa pulled the trigger and from a range of a little over six feet, fired directly at me. And sure enough, it didn’t hurt although I felt a slight thwack, as the bullet hit home. But, as the gun was of the paintball variety, and the bullet filled with purple goop, I was able to bravely stand my ground with Schwarzenegger-like impunity. Oh, and the heavy canvas coat and Kevlar vest probably helped too.

In fact, I was kitted out in such a way, that a charging rhino would probably have stopped dead in its tracks upon impact with my chest and with my riot helmet and protective goggles I looked like something you’d see on the evening news wielding a baton during a South America soccer riot. That or in a photo on a post-office wall, so I was more than a match for a little paintball. (See here)

Living as we do in the foothills of the Rocky Mountains, it’s not uncommon to find houses built precariously on the side of hills, and many of them have large open decks, built on stilts to afford residents the full benefit of the glorious scenery. Another benefit to this elevated vantage is that paintballs fired off the deck go out forever, over and through the trees. I learned this on Christmas Eve which we spent with friends who had opened their gifts early. The hippy in me was a shade concerned as to the ecological bad karma of zinging paintballs into the forest but having been assured that they aren’t really filled with paint, but a food-dye like biodegradable substance, my conscience was salved and I blasted away to my heart's content. After a while I got pretty darn good and once I’d found the range, could ding a beer can off a rock. Yeah, that one – way over there.

I didn’t have quite the same skill with the potato gun, although people who know about these things tell me that the hitting is less important than the noise-making here. In case you’re unfamiliar with this particular form of artillery, a potato gun is a PVC tube, some 5 feet long, down which a raw potato is rammed. Hair spray or some other combustible is squirted into the wider portion at the other end before a cap is screwed on. These ones had triggers fashioned from camping stove lighting mechanisms and a quick flick; similar to a snap of the fingers was all it took to send the spud winging its way into the wild blue yonder with a bang loud enough to satisfy any forty-year old adolescent.

After a few hours of drinking beer and loosing off shots into the night my blood lust was up. I was ready for bigger game; real shootin' with live bullets and everythang. No, not at animals silly, this is me we're talking about. I was up for some target shooting, skeet or clays or something else non-breathing. Again, Melissa was my gal and as she and her partner Robin had been given some freebie passes to a local range, we were soon off down the hill laden with shotguns, shells, ear-protection and other paraphernalia of the hunt. Trap shooting was the game; whereby a little clay disc is flung from a rotating arm out into the blue while the marksman picks it off at will.

Unfortunately, before we got started, I had to confess to affliction, which has plagued me since I first took aim at a moving metal duck while at the funfair on Blackpool seafront. Namely, that although I'm right handed, I can't close my left eye while keeping my right one open. Which means I can't sight a rifle or a shotgun properly. Which means I can't hit a bloody thing. The burden is known as "wrong eye dominance" and I resolved it in my Air Training Cadet days by wearing an eye patch. With that in place, I was a more than passable shot although I didn't stay in the quasi-military environment long enough to learn just how good. But, I had no eye patch today and it was soon evident that I was doing little more than wasting shotgun shells.

"You're shooting low." came the calls from behind as yet again I blootered a shot into open space. The problem was, it didn't seem that way to me and if the shots weren't going where I thought they were, I might as well just close my eyes and hope. Or try and wallop the clay with the blunt end of the gun as it whizzed by. It was Ransom, The Trap Release Guy (Ransom's not his real name, and I'm sure his job title isn't "Trap Release Guy", but as he introduced himself by the nickname and it's his lot in life to hit the remote which springs the clay from the rotating arm, so you're going to have to work with me here) who correctly diagnosed the problem.

"Try shooting with your left hand." he suggested, "You'll be able to sight better." I don't know if you've ever fired a shotgun lined up on your less dominant hand but it feels very weird. However, once I'd been taught to hold the stock further up on my shoulder to avoid cricking my neck over, an amazing thing happened. I started to hit the targets.

Oh not every time, it's true. But the majority of the time and when I missed, it was usually due to the awkwardness of my left index finger on the sensitive trigger, rather than poor aim. Most people nail the clay as soon as it appears out of the trap but I found it easier to wait until it was skyborne and I could get a decent read on it. It's a really quite satisfying feeling to stare down the blue-gray barrel of a shotgun and see the clay shatter into a dozen tiny shards a moment after you pull the trigger.

"Hell, we bought you a fishing rod for Christmas, and now we've got you shooting trap" said Melissa later. "We'll make a redneck out of you yet."

The Way of the Wolf

"O grandmother, what large ears you have!" "The better to hear you with."
"O grandmother, what great eyes you have!" "The better to see you with."
"O grandmother, what large hands you have!" "The better to take hold of you with."
"But grandmother, what a terrible large mouth you have!" "The better to devour you!"
~ Little Red Riding Hood

I’m not a huge fan of the movement to pad the world in cotton-wool to ensure that today’s children need never have a bad experience. However, I wish Little Red Riding Hood’s parents hadn’t let her make the half hour’s journey through the woods to her grandmother’s house alone. Not only was the wretched child quite obviously uhm, developmentally challenged, her tale and others like it has contributed to one of mankind’s more reprehensibly actions. Despite there never being one single authenticated account of a healthy wolf attacking a human, fear and ignorance have led to these beautiful, social and highly intelligent creatures being systematically exterminated almost to the point of extinction throughout the globe.

This thought was weighing heavily on my mind as we drove through the gates of Colorado’s Wolf and Wildlife Center, founded in 1993 by a lady named Darlene Kobobel after she rescued a two-year old wolf named Chinook. Upon receiving 15-20 phone calls a day from people wishing to surrender ‘their’ wolves she realized the necessity of providing not just a sanctuary, but an educational facility as well. Today the center conducts tours and programs that focus on dispelling myths about wolves and other wild canids and helping people appreciate the role wolves play in their ecosystems.

Our tour began with the foxes which Darlene explained had been rescued from the fur trade. Education being the key, we learned in graphic detail exactly what the lives, and deaths, of these beautiful creatures would have been like if they had fulfilled their destinies. With a twist which would have been comical if it weren’t so tragic, Darlene explained that the reason two of the foxes were white in color, was because they had been bred that way so they could be passed off as arctic foxes and thereby command a higher price.

On then, to the wolves of which there are twelve in residence, two to each one-acre pen. We met Mika and Shunka first. As the weather is cool right now, the wolves are more active than in the summer, but there was none of the frantic pacing that you’d see with caged animals. Instead, these creatures simply wandered around, occasionally coming up to the wire to say hello. We’d all been warned to keep fingers, camera lenses and children well away from the fencing to avoid any playful theft and this was emphasized at the next pen where we were introduced to Troubles and Bandit. Troubles has a habit of snagging visitors’ gloves and shredding them the way our dogs take out squeaky toys. To date he’s snagged 54 pairs but he never managed to score any from our group.

Darlene did tell us though of the time he pinched her watch off her wrist and swallowed it whole. She was mostly concerned about what would happen when the alarm went off in a couple of hours but listen as she might, she couldn’t hear a thing. Until a couple of days later when she noticed a pile of wolf shit mysteriously beeping. After a good wash, the watch was found to be still working and while she declined to wear it any more, it can now be seen in a display case by reception.

Nikita and Princess were next. Nikita was an enormous bear of an Arctic wolf, looking something like a great Newfoundland. He spent the first three years of his life living in a 5’ x 8’ crate and when rescued; his toenails were over two inches long. His back legs had so little muscle he was unable to walk without assistance. However, he fell in love with CWWC’s first rescue wolf, Chinook and the pair were inseparable until the latter’s death in 2004.

Sabin was rescued from a college dorm where he spent his days locked in a bathroom and lived on a diet of cheetos and beer. Darlene didn’t tell us what happened to the future captains of industry who felt this was an appropriate way to treat a wild animal but hopefully it was something unpleasant. Sabin shares a pen with Raven, named because of the birds who visit her daily. There’s a shamanistic belief that wolves and ravens are closely linked so perhaps Raven is privy to secrets we’ll never understand.

Yukon spent the first 5 months of his life at a photography farm. I was aware that most photographs one sees of ‘wild’ animals are in fact, taken in captivity, (the cost and unreliability of the animals appearing on cue makes commercial photography in the wild impractical) but I had assumed this meant animals in zoos, refuges and sanctuaries like this one. I never knew that most of the images we see on calendars, mousepads, mugs and so on are of animals raised solely for that purpose, then abandoned once they’re no longer photogenic. Yukon was on his way to a roadside zoo before CWWC adopted him.

At the last pen, we met Wakanda an incorrigible ham, and his partner, the painfully shy Akela. Wakanda is the center’s Casanova and loves to kiss the visitors’ hands through the wire. So for a few minutes, I scrunched under his chin and stared deep into those dark, beautiful eyes. I’ve never had the privilege of being this close to a wolf, my spirit animal before, but I’ll carry that moment for ever.

The park also has a couple of coyotes, rescued from a facility which bred animals for use on 'guaranteed hunts'. Once a vehement anti-hunter, my views have mellowed somewhat, largely due to meeting people who kill for food rather than simply the sport of killing. However, I still can’t imagine what kind of deviant would enjoy a canned hunt.

The climax of the tour was when Darlene led us in a group howl. By us, I mean the visitors and the wolves. She threw back her head and performed an eerie imitation of a wolf howl, which we did our best to imitate. Dakari the coyote picked up the song and in a few moments we were joined by the wolves themselves.

Nobody can hear that primal sound without feeling their hair stand on end. Just like our ancestors did millennia ago. Thank goodness there are people like Darlene Kobobel to keep the wolf in our world.

(Interested in seeing some of the wolves? There are some photos here.)
A Collection of Images