Before we get to the “meat” of this week’s column I have to at least touch on Valentine’s Day and how Ol’ Dutch out did himself once again for Miss Trixie. You see most men take their beloved out for a steak dinner and Miss Trixie loves a good rare steak like no one else.

On Friday, Valentine’s Day, a friend’s nice angus cow broke a hip and what’s a guy to do but help butcher it up? Instead of having one steak dinner in celebration of love, Miss Trixie spent the weekend with me, her true love, elbow deep in cow guts. Now that’s some kind of cupid play there. And what sane woman wouldn’t rather have six months of rib eye steaks instead of a box of chocolates anyway?

The cow wasn’t the only sad news of the week. While walking along Venice Boulevard out in Los Angeles, 91 years old Orson Bean was fatally hit by a car. If you can’t really place him trust me, you saw him somewhere on television in his decades long career.

 I think I recall him most as a panelist on the show “I’ve Got a Secret.” This show had a long run and brought people onto the stage so the panelists could ask a few questions before guessing the famous story.

If you’ve never seen that old show, you still have a chance as it’s out in syndication and still on the TV. I watched an old episode last month with a nonagenarian contestant who was the last surviving person who had been at Ford’s Theatre the night President Lincoln was shot.

Of course this show was WAY before Miss Trixie’s time and of course she is always kind enough to always point out the large span between our ages.

So I got to thinking -- a thing Miss Trixie calls dangerous at best -- about all the things that seem to be a secret.

One place that seems to be keen on keeping secrets is the post office. About every other day I get a notice from them that there is some piece of mail there for me but somehow “this one” can’t be scanned for a photo like all the rest. For you see, it’s my mail but it’s a secret.
Gone are the days when I would just open my mail as it came but now, they bait me with the knowing something is coming just to be cruel.

Other things are secret of course like the true story about UFO’s, who shot JFK, Area 51, who built the Great Pyramid, where did the Anasazi go and last -- but certainly not least -- the secret recipe for Kentucky Fried Chicken.

But I do believe that one of the most frustrating secrets out there runs in the televangelist circles and concerns the end of the World. Now Ol’ Dutch is pretty sure that the Big Guy Himself said that no one knows that time but the money changers seem to milk a pretty good living off promising to reveal that in some future show. Ol’ Dutch is still waiting and withholding payment until I actually get a time and date at the least.

Another secret seems to be the price of items offered for sale. A new car is probably the hardest item to get a final price on unless you sign some pre-offer paperwork and offer your first born child for human sacrifice. For you see the price is a secret.

Don’t get me wrong, Ol’ Dutch has been known to keep a few secrets of his own like fishing hotspots, hunting hidey holes and sales on Gulf Shrimp. But of course, those kinds of things are supposed to be kept a secret.

And for a fact, no panel of Hollywood famous would ever get the location of an elk wallow from a decent nimrod, especially not from this one.

Kevin Kirkpatrick and his Yorkie, Cooper, fish, hunt, ATV or hike daily. His email is [email protected]. Additional news can be found at www.troutrepublic.com or on Twitter at TroutRepublic.