by Christopher Stone

Created on: December 25, 2008

My nephew and myself were always busy up into the evening during summer vacation, sometimes we would be snake hunting or off building a cabin in the woods or maybe even building some elaborate trap to catch the unseen wild beasts that must live in the holler. We would always get up early, throw on our raggedy pants and shirt which was the only items we wore and head to the spring to retrieve the water needed for the day, eat breakfast and ask if anything else was needed before we took off down crawdad holler stopping off at the barn which was just out of sight of the house. In the barn we had our secret supply of "jaw backer" or otherwise known as chewing tobacco. When would then remove our shirts so all that was left between us and god was our patched and ragged pants, and down the holler we would go, only to return just before dark. This was our daily ritual performed just like clock work on everyday except Thursday because that was the day when Grizzly Adams would come on TV at 7:00 pm and we had to be home and cleaned up before we could watch it, which was easier said than done because most times we would have evidence of the days activity all over us and since we had no running water we had to bring in water to bathe with.

On one particular Thursday we were watching Grizzly Adams with my father and Grizzly Adams was walking the mountain over destroying a rogue trapper's snare traps, I looked over at my nephew and said, "boy oh boy I wish we knew how to make them traps we could catch anything", he replied with a "yeah, that would be somthin". My father was listening to our conversation at which time he told us that he could teach us how to make a snare trap. Of course at every commercial break from that point on we would beg him to teach us how until he finally agreed.

I opened my eyes Friday morning and gouged my nephew with my elbow and a few moments later we were half way through with the morning chores after breakfast we looked at my dad who was already smiling and as he stood up he said "well boys lets go make a snare trap". The three of us went out the front door and straight into the woods, which was only fifty foot from the front of our house as we walked he explained to us the importance of choosing the right trees and vines to use ,he began the task of teaching us. My father would stop the instructions from time to time when we would tell him some of the wild animals we were going to catch and each time he stopped, he was fighting hard to keep from

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