_THE ADVENTURES OF 'TWO-STORY TOM'

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• Look up 'character' in the dictionary and you'll find a picture of my old game warden buddy, Tom Whalen, aka 'Two-Story Tom'! There would be fewer people making a living by writing except for Tom and other folks like him. He just has 'material' written all over him. His nickname derives not from his stature 'cause in reality he falls into the vertically challenged category. But what he lacks in height, he makes up for in wind. So now you're wondering how he earned the moniker 'Two-Story Tom.' It happened around a campfire in deer camp. The second year Tom came to deer camp, Tom rode up to camp, a distance of over 200 miles, with another friend named Mike. As bedtime neared, Tom was just finishing a story that he had started upon arriving three hours earlier. Tom puffed up with indignation when everyone began to rib him about being verbose. The matter was settled, though, when I asked Mike how many stories Tom had told him during the drive up. Mike scratched his head as he thought for a minute. "Just two," he answered. Tom didn't get a deer that year.Tom didn't get a deer the first year he came to camp either. However, had he not told us himself, the rest of us would have never known about the tent pole he bagged that first year! My 14' x 16' wall tent has a single internal pole made out of a fence rail. The pole is situated about five feet inside the door (16' - 5' = 11'). The tent is big enough to comfortably sleep four guys and leave room for the kitchen and woodstove. On the night in question, three of the four occupants were dead to the world after slogging through snow all day. Only Tom heard the pickup drive past camp around midnight. Tom quit fantasizing about big bucks, and his game warden training took over as he pondered what good someone would be up to in the middle of the night on Hungry Ridge! Sounds from the vehicle faded and Tom again pictured big bucks behind every tree in his mind.Only a game warden knows the adrenaline rush provided by the report of a high power rifle in the middle of the night. The first rush precipitated the second. That is Tom struggling out of his sleeping bag and attempting to run outside. The tent did not collapse when Tom T-Boned the previously mentioned tent pole only because of his size and having a mere 11" to accelerate prior to impact. But even Tom's self-directed maniacal laughter didn't awaken Dan, Mike or me. Tom told us what happened the next morning before any of us noticed the wood grain impression on his forehead!Over the years we've come to treasure the nights that Tom lays awake because the rest of us are able to sleep without self-administering sub-lethal doses of medicinal spirits. For a little guy, he can really snore! To suddenly wake in the middle of the night when Tom tunes up defines 'sudden fear'! The fleeting thought of an asthmatic grizzly bear having gained entrance to the tent does produce an adrenaline rush measurable on the Richter Scale!After pondering the possible reasons for several years, there is now no question that Tom's sleep patterns contribute to his lack of success deer hunting. Dan, his partner no longer asks if Tom went to sleep on his stand, but instead asks how long it took him to get to sleep, and how long he slept. The deer have plenty of notice to stay out of range when Tom is out in the woods.I would like to report that the Twentieth Century ended without Tom bagging a deer. But alas, Tom did pass up a chance at one of the nicest two points any of us in camp had ever seen. Since a picture is worth a thousand words, he left a photo of it on the campground signboard.Spiced with More Tall Tales - Breakfast