Clint's Story
a bit about Clint
created 6 April 2003
                          Trail of a Wolfman

                                                                         By Clint W. List


Trails are like good habits that become established only after prolonged, repeated use.  And like all good habits you can trust them to keep us from going astray.  From birth we all start making and leaving our trails in life.  Just like a wise old whitetail buck or the migrating herds of caribou, we often use the same trails over and over, because we feel safe traveling them and know their destinations. Trails can tell us many things.  They tell us that around those tangled thickets, or along that raging river, or up that jagged mountain lies……WHAT!  Well certainly something, or there wouldn’t be a beaten path though the wilderness in the first place, would there?  Some trails, that aren’t always so evident, tell us where we are going with our lives, and many times we have to make decisions on which trail to travel in order to get where we want to be in life.  But all too often fate dictates where our trails lead us and we aren’t always happy where they go.  I know, this Hunters trail lead to a “Life with Lupus!”
 
Well, according to all those that knew me as a child, it was said that I started down the trail to becoming a hunter at a very early age.  I don’t have any real clear cut recollections of my earliest hunting adventures, but I do know I was trapping for anything I could catch, at the age of six, with traps bought at a garage sale, from a neighbor for five cents a piece.  By age seven, I got my first BB gun and a short while after that, I got a handmade bow and arrows, that only took me a short while to master.  I seemed like a natural!

I put many a meal on the supper table as a child with that ol’bow (preferring small game such as pheasant, rabbit and squirrel). And I remember being crushed the day it broke in half as I took a shot at a Canada Goose on the wing when it few over my head, attempting to land in a near-by corn field.  It didn’t take me long to pick up a real store bought bow and I was soon back on track to becoming an accomplished wilderness hunter.  At the time it seemed hunting was all I ever thought about.

My fledging hunting career continued with small game
hunts over the years, with some being successful, and
others not.  But with every hunt I gained a wealth of
knowledge and experience that helped me become what
I am today.  I will never forget my first deer hunt with
my Dad when I was nine years old.  He took a nice
six-point buck and ever since I’ve been infected by the
deer hunting bug a sickness that never went away.
I became addicted to walking among the trees and
being one with nature and wildlife.  I developed good
woodsman ethics and respect for the quarry I tracked
to put on our supper table.  I never remember going
hungry, even in our tightest years when money was
scarce.  By the time I was seventeen, after seeing the
movie Jeremiah Johnson, I was determined to go into
the mountains of Alaska where I would either learn to
be a mountain men or die trying, which ever came first!
Well I must have done “fare to middling” because I’m
still around today to tell the stories of my many hunting
escapades.  My friends in Alaska told me it was a
tradition, that you couldn’t become a true mountain man unless you had a mountain man name.  So shortly after that I took a huge black bear with enormous feet and claws, (my buddy Karl and I actually thought it was a black grizzly it was so big) I was given the name, “Bearclaw Clint” by all those that knew me.  That name has stuck with me now for over 25 years.

As I continued down the trail of life, my hunting career flourished as I hunted big game species all over the country from Alaska to Florida.  Also during this time I married my beautiful wife, Kathy of 23 years now, and together we are raising two wonderful boys, Joshua and Cody.  Finally having a true loving family of my own I could always count on, made me realize there was more to life than hunting.  Although I still, with my family obligations fulfilled and the support of my wife and sons, hunted every chance I could, often accompanied by one or both of my boys.  Hunting became a true family tradition in the List household.

Over the years the trails I’ve traveled have been pretty much straight and true, although I’ve had my share of slight turns and detours.  Some trails even came to dead ends and I found myself doubling back before I got headed in the right direction again.  Up until several months ago life in general had treated me well, but like the wind, my life quickly changed.  Now for the first time in my 46 years on this earth, I feel like I’ve lost total control of the direction my life was heading.  I’ve never felt so totally LOST in such a cruel world!

I’ve often said you never know when fate might sneak up behind you and tap you on the shoulder to tell you your hunt is over.  I received my wake up call March 4th, 1999, when I was told by doctors that a tumor I had removed only ten days earlier was a rare form of cancer that only 5 in one million people get.  It was the worst day of my life! To make matters worse, I was also diagnosed with Lupus, a chronic inflammatory autoimmune disease that can affect various parts of the body, especially the skin, joints, blood and kidneys, as well as other major organs.  If Lupus is left untreated, it can be permanently crippling and in many cases fatal.

Now I find myself moving down trails darkened
by this disease that lead me to where doctors,
hospitals and medicines now dictate the direction
of my travels.  Now even the simplest of daily
routines have become terribly painful, exhausting
and sometimes almost impossible tasks.

If you’ve ever traveled the majestic swamps of the
Florida Everglades or the wind swept tundra
hummocks of Alaska, you may have noticed it
defies the geometry rule we all learned in our days
of junior high school: “The shortest distance between
two points is a straight line.”  Well I’ve found that
in general everyday life this statement is basically
true also, but because I now have this Lupus, this
cruel disease is making me zig zag down the trail
of life in ways I never thought could be possible.

I’ve been a tracker most of my life and have learned to read the signs that lay before me.  Over the years I have learned trails mean continuity.  They link us with our past and our futures.  They call up ancient echoes of our ancestors’ blood as it pumps through our viens and gives us hope for life.  They remind us that we were not the first or only, nor will we be the last to tread the trail of life on this earth.  And some how for me at least, this is reassuring during this hard time when everything in my life seems so grim.

So from this day on I refuse to let this disease consume me or lose sight of my trail in life.  I have changed my mountain man name to, "Wolfman" (derived for the Latin word lupus, meaning wolf and me being a man, it only makes sense!)   I will marvel at all Gods seemingly simple gifts in life we so often overlook.  I will share my excitement for life with others that travel the same trail as I.  I will continue to remind myself to worry is a waste of my time and because of my faith in God I’m assured everything in my life will be just fine.  I will ignore my daily pains and complications of this illness knowing there are others not far from being “LOST FOREVER.”  And I will also reassure myself that I’m not alone through all of this, because God continually walks with me, he reminds me through family and friends that this disease may have changed my plans in life, but not his and I need to accept this.  And last but not least!  I have promised myself, knowing I have a long hard trail ahead of me; I will never give up the hunt till the TRAIL ENDS FOREVER leaving nothing else for me to follow.

Because of these beliefs I now have and as long as there are trails, there is hope for all of us and we may just find that we were never really LOST!
PHOTO BY TIM CONOVER
PHOTO BY TIM CONOVER