POLAR BEAR HUNTING IN NORTHERN MICHIGAN

By Ted Colin
So far this year I have had no luck at all bagging a polar bear during the month long polar bear season we have here in the Lower Peninsula of Michigan. It’s not that I have not seen plenty of polar bears in Michigan but the polar bears that I have seen were at outdoor events where there were thousands of people from down state Michigan. My high powered rifle that might take down a polar bear if I hit him directly in the brain or the heart, would most likely take out forty or fifty man-sized tourists from downstate. In Michigan there is a fine of up to $100.00 for each tourist you accidentally shoot. I don’t want to spend the rest of my life trying to scrape up the money to pay off a $4,500 fine just because I wanted a polar bear rug for my office.

Now the reason you find polar bears around tourist from downstate is that many people downstate fish in Lake Erie for a creature called a sauger. Many fishermen downstate believe that saugers are a fish related to a walleye. In fact, saugers are not a fish at all but instead, they are just a species of freshwater seal. Of course seals are one of the main animals that polar bears eat. The problem for people who eat sauger is that the smell of the animal comes out in the pours of the person that eats it. Saugers are like onions. If you consume them their smell creeps out under your armpits and when you raise your arms everyone around you knows what you’ve been eating.

So, from the perspective of polar bears, when tourists from downstate lift up their arms it is just like ringing a dinner bell. Of course people who eat tuna and then go swimming in Lake Michigan have the same problem with sharks.

Now polar bears are not native to Michigan. Instead they come from Canada. The reason there are so many creatures like polar bears, big foots and lizard men in Northern Michigan is because Canadian children are so spoiled by their parents and grandparents. Every Canadian child wants a baby polar bear, big foot or lizard monster for a pet and so, their parents and grandparents give the kids an adorable and very little monster as a pet. Unfortunately, once these creatures start to grow it becomes harder and harder to afford to feed them. Soon, things start to go missing like the mail man and the paper boy. Inevitably, the parents finally decide that the creature has outgrown their home and so they take them for a ride down to the Lower Peninsula of Michigan.

The parents take these monsters down to the Lower Peninsula of Michigan because the parents figure that the creatures would never be able to find their way back home from there. The parents figure that none of these animals could afford to pay the toll at the Mackinaw Bridge let alone pay the toll going into Canada. The problem is that then these creatures become a menace for Northern Michigan tourists. The area I live in is beautiful so lots of people who eat sauger want to come and visit here. So please, people of Canada; if you have a big foot, polar bear or lizard monster as a pet won’t you please just have it spade or neutered. This has been a public service announcement.

BEWARE OF EATING TOO MANY FROGS

By Ted Colin
Last night I ate way too many frogs at my cousin Vern’s wedding reception.  I than had to do the pioneer shuffle all night long until the last froggy entrails were no longer engaged in percolating in my belly.  No one else seemed to have the same problem but, I suppose it is because while I was drinking foreign beer all night everyone else was drinking fresh whisky out of my grandpa’s still.  White pine liqueur tends to kill all the bacteria in your stomach before it causes partial liver and kidney failure.

I think that maybe the problem with the frogs is that my Aunt Cora can’t see too good anymore and she might have not cleaned the frogs too well.  Of course it could be that my uncle Fred who has a real problem understanding the passage of time, might just have undercooked the frogs.  In any case the frogs were certainly tainted.

Of course it could be that my cousin Jimmy some toads along with the frogs.  You see my cousin Jimmy is really lazy and he might just have taken a short cut on catching frogs to eat at the  wedding reception  by picking up a few toads.  Now toads give people warts on the outside but on the inside they give people a really great craving to partake of the little building with the crescent moon carved in the door for light.

AT any rate I’m just glad that the newspaper didn’t run out in the outhouse last night.  The next thing to use when the newspaper ran out was the leaves from the surrounding trees.  Unfortunately all the trees in the nearby woods are white pine trees and white pine needles are a long way from the softness of Charmin.    

HOW TO HUNT THE MIGHTY SNOWMAN

By Tim Colin

Hunting snowmen in Michigan is a highly regulated sport.  For one thing you can only hunt them after Christmas because desecrating a snowman is a felony during the holidays.  I guess it upsets little kids a lot just like cleaning a fish upsets a lot of people.  Well, to those non-fishermen and snowman hugging little monsters I say “Bah Humbug!”  Snowman hunting season should be extended year around in Michigan.
After all, many Northern Michiganders depend on snowman meat to sustain them through those cold winter months when bugs and worms are hard to dig up.

Anyways, snowman hunting starts on January 1st and ends on March 16th.    No one hunts on March 17th because we are all at the local pub crawl for St Patrick’s Day of course.

In the state of Michigan it is only legal to hunt snowmen with old fashioned lawn jarts.  Of course disabled persons can hunt snowmen with a crossbow if they   get the proper permit from the DNR (Department of Nationalized Resources).  Of course we all have to pay $700 for a permit to hunt snowmen.  At least we all have to pay that amount unless you have access to a Kodak copying machine.  They make the best copies you know.

With my license plastered on my back and three blue lawn jarts in my hands I started out into the nearest subdivision looking for a nice big snowman to bag this season.  It was not long before I came upon two of them.  They were just sitting there all still and such.   At first I thought that they saw me because they both froze and did not move an inch.   But after several minutes of observing them  just standing there stiff as a board  I figured they were in some sort of snowman trance like they were trying to communicate with some higher plain of existence or something.  I of course figured while they were busy contemplating their existence on a higher plain or something I would end their need to waste time existing on my plain by shoving a lawn jart through their heart.   I of course proceeded to do just that and the snow creatures became my future barbeques.

 Now some people say that snowmen are kind of a fatty meat to eat.  I myself find that after frying them up in olive oil and barbeque sauce that snowmen are kind of watery.   In fact unless I add some mushrooms the snowmen have to be drank like water and have no real flavor at all except for of course the barbeque sauce and the olive oil.

Most people wonder why in the world would you want to eat such a bland meat?  Of course according to the Michigan Surgeon General’s office Snowmen are very heart healthy with zero fats, zero cholesterol, zero carbs, zero sodium and of course zero calories.

According to the Michigan Surgeon General “Eating snowman meat is like drinking water.  The worst it can do to you is to cause you  to urinate more often than normal.