From The Backcountry

The SCORE show in California was| really great. I got to meet a buncha Old Grizzled Ones who've read this column since Gutenberg, and I chewed the fat until my voice went hoarse. Attending also were Four Wheeler's Ken Von Helmolt, Dave Epperson, John Stewart, Bruce Smith, Dave Cohen, and Jimmy Nylund-not to mention Larry and Linda Lee, who run the promo side of things.

- Granville King

These dingbats is heavyweights! What they don't know about the science of four-wheel-drive rigs is not really worth knowing. The greatest staff of all time (including Tom Morr and a few other folks who hadda stay home and watch the store). I spent four days signing autygraphs, proud as a peacock to be associated with Real People on both sides of the counter. My first such affair in 10 years; may just go next year also, if the mag plays its cards right.

So I then picked up Dawg from the ranch where I hadda leave 'im (Anaheim is not quite ready for 'im), and headed back for Baja and the wide open spaces. We idled the soft-sand cutoff to town for water, mail, gasoline, and such when we noted the VW Thing of John Grimes (who wins all the San Felipe offroad races) stuck good and frantic. Maria, holdin' her tummy hard, waggles her raised fingers at me with that unbreakable smile as John scritches that she's about to have 'er baby, which is not due yet for three weeks, and how about a ride in my 4WD, else he'll massacree me.

So, hey, we loaded Maria in-very hard getting ladies past the fold-down front seat when they carry a 20-pound watermelon-and off we shot with Maria about to spong! on the rusty floorboards. Frantically, John ripped a tool from 's pocket and slapped it in my palm. I bellered over the Lo-Range, lowgear-grind sounds, "Whatinell do I want with a pair of dikes?"

"To cut the cord, ya beeg dummy, to cut the cord!" Godstonethecrows!

This ain't really happening! Which end of the cord do you cut, will it hurt the baby or mommy, are these dikes antiseptic, will there be a lotta hollerin' and yowlpin'? This is not my kind of work, so I nailed it good and shot up over the last impossible sand dune when a gush of water was heard in the back seat.