This is part 3, the last of my blog that describes my outdoor career. In the first two parts, I get into my early life, then my years in two colleges, three jobs in Utah, New York, and then back in Utah. Part 2 ends where I receive a phone call while working as a wildlife biologist for the US Bureau of Land Management in Vernal, Utah. The year was 1978.
... Continue ReadingPart 2. Continuation of my writing career.
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When I was a kid, I couldn’t get enough of the outdoors. I was raised in a city in upstate New York and entertained myself for hours by lying on the sidewalk and feeding bread crumbs to ants, watching them grab the morsels and drag them into their ant house. And then there were the spiders that lived in the hedge. I fed them insects and watched them grow. A highlight of my bug mania was a pet praying mantis that I kept in a big cage and fed grasshoppers. And then, of course, there were the snakes. The men of my family were outdoorsmen. I followed them around as we chased rabbits with Grandpa Corbo’s beagle hounds, fished local waters, searched for wild mushrooms, and, when I was old enough, became a Boy Scout when my Dad was Scoutmaster.
... Continue ReadingMy cameraman and I had flown into Edmonton, Alberta, Canada, to film a black bear hunt with Linda Powell. She was Press Relations Manager for a firearms company and was hosting a hunt with a group of outdoor writers. My cameraman, who I'll call Larry, and I were going through customs. He was carrying a huge camera that was probably two feet long. I breezed through customs, but a female agent who spotted the camera confronted Larry and asked him a number of questions. We were vaguely aware of a Canadian work permit, but didn't have one. We'd been to Canada many times before with no problems but we'd heard the agents were cracking down. Larry invented fib after fib as the agent kept up the interrogation. He said he was just tagging along as a friend and filming the hunt for personal use. Finally, the agent stuck her finger in Larry's chest and said, "I'm tired of your bullshitting. You guys are up here on business. I'm deporting you right now." And she led Larry away where he went to a departure gate for a flight back home. Work permits protect Canadians who could do the work, rather than an American. In other words, I could have hired a Canadian cameraman. I was ok to go because there's only one me. No one else could obviously fulfill my role on my TV show.
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