(attributed to Dave Barry)

...In 1803, President Thomas Jefferson made the Louisiana Purchase, in which he paid France $15 million for a humongous batch of land without having any idea what was in it. So Jefferson sent Lewis and Clark on an expedition to check it out.

Reading about their brutally difficult, extremely dangerous trek across the continent, I was reminded of the summers when I was a counselor at Camp Sharparoon, and I used to set off, leading a party of boys ages 10 and 11, into the vast uncharted wilderness around Dover Furnace, N.Y., fully aware that we would have to survive for an entire night with nothing to sustain us except roughly 200 pounds of marshmallows, graham crackers and Hershey bars.

We used these to make the famous campfire treat called s'mores. Sometimes we'd hook up with a group of girl campers and make s'mores together; this is when I observed a fundamental difference between boys and girls:

HOW GIRLS MAKE S'MORES -- (1) Place Hershey bars on graham crackers. (2) Toast marshmallows. (3) Place toasted marshmallows on Hershey bars to melt chocolate.

HOW BOYS MAKE S'MORES -- (1) Eat Hershey bars. (2) Eat marshmallows. (3) Throw graham crackers at other boys.

Anyway, Lewis and Clark -- whether because of religious reasons, or sheer ignorance, we shall never know -- did not take any s'mores ingredients on their expedition, so they had to survive by shooting, and eating, things like elk. I am deeply impressed by this. I have always procured my meat by taking a number at the supermarket; you could leave me out in the woods for a year with a machine gun and an electronic elk detector, and I'd still never be able to shoot an elk.

And if I DID somehow manage to shoot one, I wouldn't have a clue how to eat it. I mean, what part do you eat? You can definitely rule out the eyeballs, but THEN what? You just pick up a haunch and start chewing? I don't even know what a "haunch" IS. Guess what else Lewis and Clark ate? Dog, that's what. In fact, Lewis is quoted on Page 322 of "Undaunted Courage" as saying that -- bear in mind, this is after two solid years of camping out -- he liked dog even better than elk.

My feeling is, you have to be pretty desperate to eat a dog. I mean, with elk, at least you know they don't like you. But a dog is going to be hanging loyally around your campsite, thrilled to be there, ready to fetch you a stick. How can you just pick up a frying pan and say, "Here, boy!"?

The point is that things were pretty rough for Lewis and Clark, and since this year marks the 190th anniversary of their return, I think it would be nice if Americans commemorated their courageous effort to open up our continent. Perhaps some of us will even want to pack our sleeping bags and retrace their steps through some of the still relatively unspoiled wilderness they explored. Others of us will want to wait until there is plumbing.

Dog ain't that bad. Ask any Korean.
Paul B.

RE: LewisandClark, the expedition w/ a one word name.

Hit the bookstores ot the library for...

quote:

---

"I Would be Extremely Happy in Your Company"

---

, a first person narrative of the 1804 expedition.

Not as good as Ambrose's historical treatise, but much fun.

BTW, next year is the Bicentennial of the "trip."

Pound Puppy sounds more like a dessert, how bout a Pu-Pu-Puppy platter?