LOSER

 In the movie Hardtimes Burgess Merideth's character said about his life " some of us were born losers and some of us had it thrust upon us "....And losing is something I know about, like most people I really haven't won a heck of a lot except for when I was a first ballot inductee in the Kenai River Hall of Fame. What I know about losing is you get used to it, in fact you can come to expect it and walla, there is the key to losing.  Don't worry about nothin because nothin turns out right anyway.

It's how you react to losing that's the key. Do you really want to be the guy who's so surprised he bites off part of Evander Holyfield's ear ? Wouldn't you rather be like Tex Cobb when after taking a horribly bloody beating from Larry Holmes and having lost all 15 rounds on the judges card he said he'd have won if they just had one more round. One interviewer told Tex it must have been frustrating to fight a guy with arms a foot longer than his. Tex said " it seemed that way to you too ?"  And the famous Joe Louis when his corner man tried to fire him up during a losing effort by saying " Joe he ain't touching you " replied " keep an eye on the ref then because somebody is ". 

I remember years ago at Mile 14 I was sitting on the couch with NFL legend Roger Craig watching the special post Olympic foot race between Michael Johnson and Donovan Bailey to decide the fastest human in the world. The gun went off and as Bailey pulled ahead at about the 3/4 race point Michael Johnson pulled up with ham string injury and limped off....Roger howled ' he quit, he quit ' and yup he just couldn't do it or so it appeared, another way to lose.

As a kid we lived close to Canada and being an average swimmer who's lost a lot I was interested in the swimming preliminaries which were on TV from Lethbridge Alberta. When the Canadian swimmer failed to qualify for the finals but was just one position out the announcer said " he had the fastest losing time today ". 

Just a couple years ago I had a brush up with losing. Me and Stewart were fishing the Surf Tournament with hundreds of Mexican fishermen. I caught a nice 3 pound Toro just minutes into the event and waved over the 4 wheeler who we were told to send the fish to the weigh in station with. Well the driver tried to ignore me and drive off and I was frustrated thinking this could be the first fish, or biggest fish or maybe even the only fish of the tournament...Finally I got my translator on the phone  fired up and he spoke into for me to read " sir, do not embarrass yourself by weighing in that fish ". mmmmm....

So now you're probably wondering where the hell is retired guide #003 going with this exercise...Well it's simple, I think I'm a losing expert and there are some real complexities to it . So if you know anybody who needs some counsel on losing just have them give me a call at BR549 and I'll walk them through the process...and I'll do it slowly and in an understandable way so as not to confuse them...anymore that is...

Me and MPeasy on our continuing quest to find the best Hot Water in Mooontana found a new favorite, kinda funny how my favorite changes but Lost Trail is a contender for sure....and it's right next door to our new Middle America Mile 14 bureau. Like all the others we've been to this one is off the beaten path and kind of funky, the old buildings and camp setting is cool.

I made a friend named Dale who helps run the place and used to be an educator in Alaska, we'll be coming to this place often. We were at an uncovered Hot Springs a few weeks back which had cold water so we were happy with 98 degree healing waters with just a simple covering...so nice, thanks Dale.

The big news at Mile 14 is that me and the staff will be going to Arizona soon to hopefully use it as a jump off spot to drive on to Mazatlan if all things converge into a big ol ' let's go '.  We've rented a casita in and active adult community so I should have some fun stuff to write about. With this covid spiking everywhere we feel like we need to be outside more and of course we have no schedule and very little direction in life so a new adventure is coming to us soon. So please come back to Mile 14. I'll be on a 2 or 3 issues a month schedule and if I get that phone call for losing advice I'll let you all know how it goes....we'll be leaving the hats.