Dear Otus,
I'm no deer hunter, but I welcome Arkansas' modern gun season, which began last weekend with 300,000 sportsmen taking to the woods. Before it's over with, there should be about 215,000 fewer deer dashing across the road in front of me.
Disclaimer: Fayetteville-born Otus the Head Cat's award-winning column of 👉 humorous fabrication 👈 appears every Saturday.
I'm wondering if you could update us on that poor fellow from a number of years ago who was cornered by vicious deer in his backyard. I still have the heebie-jeebies over that.
-- Nick Chevotarevich,
Clairton
Dear Nick,
It was wholly a pleasure to hear from you over in Cross County, but a sad duty to report that Clyde Moellers of Hot Springs Village died of natural causes last year. He was 81.
Many thought it would be the deer that finally did him in.
It was Moellers' 2003 ordeal that made national news and propelled him to his 15 minutes of fame. The highlight was a special July 10 appearance on Live! with Regis and Kelly. Kelly Ripa says it was the episode about which they got the most mail in the show's 11-year history. Regis agrees.
As reported in this column at the time, for the first week Moellers thought he was the victim of a TV prank. He thought he was getting "punked" because the Punk'd hidden camera practical joke series had recently been on MTV.
"I kept looking for Ashton Kutcher," Moellers told Regis, "but he never showed up."
In 2003, Moellers was a 69-year-old retiree from northern Wisconsin who had been released from his required Bella Vista quarantine in 1999 (Bella Vista is Arkansas' official Yankee quarantine community and holding pen) and moved to Hot Springs Village. He liked the surrounding countryside, which reminded him of his birthplace of Clam Lake (only without the brutal winters and cheese worship).
For his rustic retirement homestead, the widowed Moellers purchased an undeveloped 7.85 acres at the end of a gravel driveway three quarters of a mile from a seldom-used dirt road north of Lake DeSoto and southeast of Jessieville.
He had a modest Southland Log Home built from a kit and opted for a quaint outhouse rather than pay to hook up to the distant sewer line.
The outhouse, in the shape of a small barn, sits 50 yards from the house amid a thick stand of cedar trees -- trees that would harbor an unforeseen terror that was slow to reveal itself.
The trees are the leading edge of a thick woods that tumbles over the ridge lines east of Arkansas 7 to lose themselves in the vastness of the Ouachita National Forest.
And the forest is full of deer. Vicious, cruel whitetail deer.
The aggressive Hot Springs Village herd had long ago lost their fear of humans and soon became the bane of Moellers' existence.
On March 21, 2003, Moellers was trapped at the front door of his outhouse by several dozen feral deer. He lived off a four-month supply of canned goods and bottled water he kept stored in the rafters of the small building, but says he ran out of toilet paper a week before he was rescued July 8 by a FedEx driver who had taken a wrong turn.
"Every time I'd step off the little stoop, the flea-infested spawn of Satan would swarm me," Moellers told Regis and Kelly. "The little ones bite sumpthin' awful."
"Evidently, the tree huggers and eco-wackos don't think there ought to be a hunting season," Moellers told Regis. "Well, let them come out to my place and ask to use my outhouse. They'll be singing a different tune."
Officials later established that two distinct herds were surrounding Moellers' isolated property. They estimated the total number to be between 500 and 650 animals.
"The next time I can get to the store," Moellers told Kelly, "I'm buying a deer rifle for the outhouse. Hunting season or not, I'll leave rotting carcasses all the way between the house and the two-holer."
The audience broke out in raucous cheers.
Moellers' neighbors were not without concern for him. Several offered to form a convoy of golf carts to ferry the retiree on errands and such, but Moellers declined.
In a calculated outpouring of solicitude, a local window and siding company offered to enclose a rudimentary passageway from the house to the privy "at cost," and throw in a free deer-proof storm window for the outhouse front door.
Moellers declined, saying he was going to build a wall and have the deer pay for it.
Until next time, Kalaka reminds you that deer are really only rats with antlers.
Disclaimer
Fayetteville-born Otus the Head Cat's award-winning column of
Z humorous fabrication X
appears every Saturday. E-mail:
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HomeStyle on 11/19/2016