Since K Snow might still be recovering from Superbowl Sunday I have allowed myself the privilege of a MMM submission:

Today is Joe Meek's 216th birthday. Born in Washington County, Virginia in 1810 on February 9th (some sources say the 7th, but the 9th aligns nicely for MMM).
Colonel Joe (as he liked to be called in later years) was one of the most colorful characters of the mountain man era.

I would be hard pressed to recount my favorite Joe Meek story (as collected by his biographer Frances Fuller Victor) but here is one:

Now Joe Meek was celebrating his recent attainment to the glorious privilege of being independent. No longer a hireling, Joe was as independent as a hog on ice. At rendezvous that summer, by his own account, he indulged himself more than usual. Joe was on a spree. Wagh!
Now it happened that a mad wolf prowled around the camp. One night it came into camp and bit a sleeping man severely. Poor Holmes sat up bleeding, with one ear nearly torn off. Several other men were bitten, as well as one of the bulls. The wolf hung around for several nights, so that no creature's life was safe. But Joe Meek, happy-go-lucky, could not postpone the celebration of his rise in the world. He had earned it by long hard years in the mountains. Now he was on his own hook. He knew where to lay hand on beaver galore, and his heart was big. The bellowing of the bull bitten by the wolf, the screams and shouting, the crack of rifles that night, all failed to waken Joe.

The next day Sir William (Drummond) admonished him. "You were so drunk," he said, "that wolf might easily have bitten you." Meek laughed. Back in Virginia they had l'arned him that alcohol was a cure for hydrophobia. "Shucks," said Joe, "if that wolf had bitten me, it would have killed him sure---if it hadn't cured him!"

Nice one 'peeler. I'm on vacation without all my books.

Thanks for taking up the slack.

He got Oregon made a US Territory.






Keith

Great piece Carl

thanks, good read