commentary by Patrick H. Moore
Go north, young man. Jobs a-plenty on the Alaska pipeline. Major money. You work all day and drink till dawn and then you do it again. So California boys Tall Tom and Angry Larry swallowed the bait and wound up unemployed somewhere in the great Northwest sitting on the dock of the bay drinking beer and watching the sun move across the horizon.
They were both mad because they couldn’t find work and became even more churlish when the sun sank and they ran out of beer. Angry Larry got angrier and angrier and he pissed off the side of the dock and that didn’t help and he finally figured the only solution was to pitch into Tall Tom so he did and then they were rolling around on the dock and Tall Tom who was 6’4” and rawboned got the jump on Angry Larry which pissed him off even more.
Eventually, Tall Tom pinned Larry to the dock and sat on his chest. “Ha, fucker,” he said. “I always knew it. You’re a pussy.”
Then he released Larry, clambered to his feet and peered around hopefully as if may be some beer had been delivered while they were scuffling. Drawing on his Temecula zombie roots, Angry Larry launched himself at Tom and in a moment of divine inspiration, bit off his nose. Ouch!
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Tall Tom told me this story as we sat forlornly in an Inland Empire bar nursing our draft Anchor Steam beers. He insisted I run my fingers across his stitches which were neat, evenly spaced and rather prominent.
“I’m lucky I have a nose,” said Tall Tom.
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Fast forward 35 years and go south, young woman, all the way south to Alvin, TX, which is small city of slightly over 24,000 not far from Galveston and San Juan Island where the college kids get down at Spring Break. I’m not there and Tall Tom is not there and, thank god, Angry Larry is not there.
Young mother, Chelsi Camp, is there, however. If her photos are any indication, Chelsi was certainly the sort of woman who would have made heads turn on San Juan Island.
But this is not about Chelsi’s beauty; this is about another female quality, or rather two female qualities, that Chelsea appears to have in great abundance – motherly love and sheer raw courage.
In late March, Chelsi was dog-sitting a friend’s pit bull at the South Shore Apartments on E. League City Parkway. The pit had always seemed friendly until he met Chelsi’s two-year-old daughter Mackenzi.
“The dog came up and he was just curious,” recalled Camp. “When he smelled her, that’s when you saw it flip because I think he smelled my dog on her.”
When the pit attacked little Mackenzi and began mauling her, Chelsi reached down deep combining mother’s love, courage and keen strategic principles in an overwhelming combination that apparently had the pit back on its heels in relatively short order. She shoved her fist into the dog’s mouth and bit off its ear all while telling her daughter to turn over so she wouldn’t choke on her own blood. Not only that, during the struggle, Chelsi managed to call 911. When the officer arrived, he shot the dog but didn’t kill it.
In an interview, Chelsi explained: “I only know to fight so how else do you get somebody to stop. I mean I would do the same thing with a human being.”
Ironically, Chelsi comes from a family of dog lovers. She is back at work now and has full use of her arms again.
“I can actually hold her again,” said Chelsi. “I couldn’t hold her for the first week that was the hardest part.”
Mackenzi will get her sutures out this week. She has to stay out of direct sunlight for a year.
“She’s a strong little girl and a fighter,” said Chelsi. “She’s meant to be here.”
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Much as I love dogs, America, pro football and our manly ways, there are two things that bother me. I think we would be all the more manly if we would beat our guns into ploughshares, and I am not a big fan of the pit. I realize that their owners swear by them and wax enthusiastically about what wonderful, loving creatures they are, but they are in the news for incidents like this far too often for my taste.
Snap, crackle and major canine brain fart! Then your child is bleeding and if you’re like Chelsi Camp you throw caution to the wind and risk your own life to save her.
Although Mackenzi will be out of the hospital soon, her facial scars will be with her for a long time. As for the pit, it was euthanized.