Excerpt from a letter I wrote home to Maine form South America, while in the PC. A letter from my 23 y.o. self to his 63 y.o. homologue, in a new Millennium, complete with a bit of graveyard humor:
"Today there was even more fun, I got to shoot a dog. Honest Injun. Found one about a block from the post [health post, where I worked] with rabies, not yet mad but getting there--drooling all over the place and looking very sick. All the locals knew what it was, as such sights are common down here, but no one looked ready to do anything so the job fell on Albertino [my Brazilian partner] and I. He went to see the town officials; I headed for the police station. Neither got terribly excited over the situation, and both advised digging up a gun and shooting the mutt. So we did. Albertino located an ancient 28 ga. (which looked like something out of a Currier & Ives print) and some shells while I did the honors from a comfortable 20 or 25 feet away. Trouble is that that rabies cases , like trouble, come all at once and we may have more of the same...tune in next week for the next episode in this thrilling series. Getting bit entitles me to a free trip to Rio for the 28-shot serum series. You might even say I killed my chances for a vacation this am."
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