Hilarious and heartwarming stories of outdoor mishaps and misadventures from the beloved five-time New York Times bestselling humorist, Patrick F. McManus, "a writer who makes people laugh out loud, hard." ( The New York Times ) In these twenty-seven outrageous tales of camping, hunting, birding, berry-picking, and surviving county fairs, the hysterical Patrick F. McManus offers insights on the qualities that define leadership (beginning with the need to be tall) and much more ― lessons gleaned from his own tortuous path as an outdoorsman. Including such classic stories as "My Hike with, ahem , the President" and "Excuse Me While I Get Out of the Way." Praise for Patrick F. McManus “Everybody should read Patrick McManus.” ― The New York Times Books Review “Patrick McManus is a treasure.” ― The Atlantic “Hilarious.” ― Los Angeles Times “A style that brings to mind Mark Twain, Art Buchwald, and Garrison Keillor.” ― People “Funniest guy in a flannel shirt” ― Kirkus Reviews “Gentle, ironic, self-deprecatory wit from the popular western humorist. There’s some of Bill Nye here and more still of Mark Twain.” ―Booklist “Laugh-out-loud funny.” ―School Library Journal “Today’s most gifted outdoor humorist.” ―Detroit Free Press “The funniest writer around today―indoors or outdoors.” ―The Atlanta Journal-Constitution Patrick F. McManus (1933-2018) is the author of novels, plays, and more than a dozen collections of his humor columns from Outdoor Life and other magazines. He has sold roughly six million copies of such bestselling books as They Shoot Canoes, Don't They? ; The Night the Bear Ate Goombaw ; and A Fine and Pleasant Misery . How I Got This Way By Patrick F. McManus, Andy Myer Henry Holt and Company Copyright © 1994 Patrick F. McManus All rights reserved. ISBN: 978-0-8050-3482-0 Contents Title Page, How I Got This Way, Part I, Ethics, and What to Do About Them, Bambo, Get Ready, Toe, The Bandage, The Big Woods, Elk Magic, There She Blows, Brimstone, The Blue Dress, Warped Camshaft, The 400-Pound Pumpkin, Tenner-Shoe Blight, Letter from a Kingfisher, The Ultimate Bull, My Greatest Triumph, Another Boring Day, The Complete Curmudgeon, The Liars Club, A Couple Pickles Shy of a Full Barrel, Excuse Me, While I Get Out of the Way, The Two Masked Raiders, Mosquito Bay, My Hike with, ahem, the President, Ed in Camp, How I Got This Way, Part II, BOOKS BY PATRICK F. MCMANUS, Copyright Page, CHAPTER 1 How I Got This Way, Part I A FEW YEARS ago, my friend Dave Lisaius and I were in my pickup camper, waiting out a storm high up in the Idaho Rockies. Dave sprawled on the cab-over bed while I prepared lunch. The conversation turned to hospitals, possibly because I was preparing lunch, and I remarked that I hadn't been hospitalized since I was five years old. "How come you were in the hospital then?" Dave asked, careful to conceal behind a yawn his fascination with this intriguing bit of McManus lore. "Oh, I fell out of a moving bus and landed on my head," I explained. Dave laughed so hard he almost fell off the bed and landed on his head. Eventually, his paroxysm of mirth subsided to a few spasmodic shrieks and howls. "I didn't think breaking my head was that funny," I said, still puzzled by Dave's unseemly outburst. "Oh, it isn't!" he choked out, mopping up tears with his shirtsleeve. "But it explains so much!" Dave at the time was a bank president but otherwise fairly decent, often enjoying extended periods of lucidity. Had I evoked this mirthful reaction only from Dave, I would have thought nothing of it. He is not exactly the epitome of normality himself. The problem was, I had provoked similar responses from other individuals on countless occasions. Melba Peachbottom, the prettiest girl in our high school, had almost burst a gut when I casually asked her out on a date. "You're so funny!" she cried. When I turned out for baseball, the coach laughed himself sick. "Stop! Please! No more jokes, McManus!" Sometimes in a restaurant I will glance up and notice a pretty woman across the room smiling at me in obvious bemusement. All I'm doing is drinking a glass of water. Suavely. I smile back and dribble water down my tie. The woman laughs and returns to her salad. I've never been much good at flirtation. Just this morning I rushed onto a plane at the Minneapolis airport. My boarding pass indicated my seat was 17F. The rows of seats stopped at 16. It's fortunate that they did. Otherwise, I would have ended up in Baltimore instead of Spokane, my intended destination. No doubt a flight attendant would have announced that the plane was headed for Baltimore, but I never listen to those announcements. They get on my nerves. It's possible that the flight attendants would have noticed they had one more passenger for Baltimore than they were supposed to have, but that assumes some guy bound for Baltimore didn't absentmindedly get