THE ONE LEGGER
BY
SHANE HORTON

By now nearly everyone in the world must know what a “one legger” is, and how painful and humiliating they are. This is an example of not just a basic fall, but a truly classic maneuver as performed by my Uncle Jim.

To set the scene, as it were, Uncle Jim, with his sons Jimmy and Travis, were hunting brown bear near the town of Haines, in Southeast Alaska a couple of years ago. They had crossed the river and looked at a few bears when late in the evening they decided to walk up the riverbank to the boat.

“I wish we could have got a better look at that dark colored bear” Jimmy said, “he was pretty fair sized”.

“Naw, he warn’t but jist a pup” uncle Jim replied. “There’s a big ole blond bear over here that’s a whole lot nicer.

You need to keep in mind that walking along a river full of salmon, in the dark, with bears all around you keeps your nerves fairly well “keyed” up.

Uncle Jim had him a new toy that he was playin with on this trip, it was a fire starter made from a stick of magnesium with a strip of spark making stuff on one side. Now uncle Jim was hobbling along behind the boys, not paying much attention to anything, striking great huge blue sparks from this fire starter. They had been walking for a bit and came to a sink hole in the bank. Jimmy went by and said “watch out for this hole dad”.

“FLASH” went Uncle Jim.

Travis stepped over the hole and said “hey dad, watch out for this hole”.

“FLASH” went Uncle Jim.

Seconds later another brilliant flash lit up the sky followed by a “Yipe”, “it’s got me, It’s got me”!! “Chugga, chugga, chugga, chugga, chug”.


The boys spun around and there was Uncle Jim, his right leg was gone, and his left leg, having run around the hole about three times was kind of quivering and jerking once in a while. Uncle Jim was staring wildly around looking for the bear he was sure had bit off his leg.

“Why the Hell didn’t you tell be there was a blankety-blanking hole here” Uncle Jim bellered at Travis and Jimmy. “Now help me up out of here and quit yer tee-heein”.

It was only after they reached the boat and gave Uncle Jim a mild restorative that he was able to quit growling and making threats. By the time they made their way back across the river in the moonlight he was in the front of the boat lighting up the night sky with his “fire sticK”

The moral here, if there is one, is, naw nevermind, there ain’t no moral, no lesson to be learned, that’s just how Uncle Jim does things, always has, always will.