If you go to breakfast at a McDonald’s or a Hardee’s or almost any fast food restaurant that sells sausage biscuits and coffee you’re likely to see a table of old timers sitting around, chewing the fat.
That’s the setting for a story Viking told me one day when we were hiking the Appalachian Trail, on the way to Maine.
He said his daddy, whose name is Richard, lives in Pennsylvania. He’s a farmer, a dark-to-dark kind of job for a good part of the year, but not in the winter. In the winter Richard drives to town most mornings, meets up and eats breakfast with other old farmers, friends of his, and they talk about this and that.
Viking said one morning they were sitting around having breakfast when his daddy told them, “I shot a porcupine yesterday.”
One of his friends said to him, “Richard, porcupines are protected.”
“This one wasn’t,” Richard said.
NOTE: Later on the Pennsylvania Gaming Commission changed the rules, allowing porcupines to be hunted part of the year.
Coming Monday: Kid Talk