Seriously!  It’s like she’s in on the joke!  Sure, Mark, I have no doubt Editor Bill Ellis, who is probably still neck deep in paperwork from your trip to the Great Dismal Swamp after the 50-footer he rented for your enjoyment ended up as kindling, would rent you another boat for your next great adventure…  This is funny, too, in that we never had a shred of push-back in the past… Mark would announce his plan, Cherry would cry and hug his wooden body, and Mark would explain that “this is his job, and that his job takes him away from home periodically…”

Looks like the snowshoe rabbit, still out of range, has yet to take on his summer coat (still?!?) and is toying with a Lynx, still no doubt famished after whiffing repeatedly in his attempts to eat Beaver…

Rule #1- Make the lie believable but do go into such great detail as to appear rambling and nervous about the whole thing…

• Old Friend “Mississippi Ken…”
• He and Kelly (Whom Cherry does not know) enjoying Life in the Gulf (sorry, but again, are they fish??)
• A Shark that Ken caught has some kind of problem…
• Mark declares, “I have to go down there to check it out…”

Rule #2- Make awkward hand gestures to accompany and enhance your story

Rule #3- Don’t ask permission, just say what you are going to do…

Now that’s the Mark Trail I grew up with… Welcome back, Mark!

Never mind the fact that this could all be taken care of by someone imminently more qualified than Mark Trail… But we do need to get him out of the house and adventuring again…so get out of here you big lug- hit the road!

First call, Woods and Wildlife Magazine…  from whence money for travel and special equipment springs…  Who else is Mark going to call in on this mystery, though?  While he has a knack for sniffing our poachers and other bad humans, he drew the line at bugs and called in the USDA, so now we are to believe that he can properly diagnose a dead and ulcerous shark?

Well, it looks like Barney and Betty got Busy!  Time can stand still or it can fly by in the Trail-verse…  Now we have a whole beaver village going on…

“Well, I suppose I could come down and take a look…  not like I have a thousand other things pulling at my apron strings here at Lost Forest…  You do realize, old friend, that if I do choose to engage on this, it will be for a while and trouble will surely follow my every step or my name’s not Mark Trail…”

Big eyes Ken is pouring it on thick…  he wants the Trail so badly I am sure you can hear it in his voice…

So… Mark is a Marine Biologist now?  Specializing in shark mortality?  Well, it seemed to work for George Costanza…  I don’t think Mrs. Moose is buying any of it…

Fishing, like a tonic, like a cold drink after a long, dusty walk, Mark can feel his pulse quickening, his hopes rising, his prospects burgeoning…

But oh, the buzzkill…  The tone in Ken’s voice can’t even be imagined.  There must bet something eco-awful going down, otherwise he wouldn’t be calling!  What, does it have two heads?  Three eyes?  Some awful mutation borne of man’s continued impact on Mother Earth??

Nice Smartphone by the way… and he even knows how to hold it now!   Welcome, Mark, to 2015!

… it’s the green geese that are unnatural here…  fresh in from northern climes, they land in the gulf with the same hue reserved for jeeps, boats, motors and other inanimate objects…

And it looks like Ken and Kelly are in a longer term relationship- one that would allow them to have “history” in Mark’s mind along with another incredibly unfortunate nickname…  Foxylocks?  that’s straight of of the 70’s (along with her hairdo and general style sense) it sounds like something one would hear over a CB radio… kcchhh… breaker one nine, breaker… Foxylocks, you out there?  What’s over your shoulder, sweetheart?  come on back now??”

And Ken, you’d be living on the Gulf, not in it, not unless you sprouted gills…

Wonder if they got the hanging sign from a traveling band of Gypsies specializing in making stuff out of random scraps of wood…  Have router, will sign…  cash only please, we don’t believe in banks…  all the money stays with the head of the family…

Next we see Andy recoiling in horror at the site of yet another mound  of slop dished up in a giant red bowl with his name boldly emblazoned upon it… Like it would be another dog’s bowl?  Like there could be another dog??  Sourced from the same Band of Gypsies?  Does Rusty have one just like it only it says “RUSTY” on it?

But for the main course, here’s Mark talking to his old friend, “Mississippi Ken…”  Who is about to tell Mark all about the dead shark he caught, which Mark will no doubt consider fascinating- much more fascinating than feeding the dog, and off he will go…  “Still growing your hair long?” Mark wants to know… but what he’s really asking in the presence of Cherry is “I know you are with some underage babe…  she got a friend?  I’ll be right there, even though it means a drive from northern Georgia all the way to the Gulf Coast!!”

Did someone really write Mark Trail’s Name all over the body of this shark?  Or is Ken speaking in euphemism?

Wow.  That Shark died quickly.  This is very disturbing- a species known for surviving the epochs with little change and this one gave up on life after one look at Ken…  appears to have its fins, so not a victim of those who would supply the Asian market with fins to make soup…

Well, we need not wonder any longer boys and girls.  Ken must know Mark or at least know of Mark and his need to get the heck out of Lost Forest…

We see in panel one that Kelly still hasn’t found her pants, and in panel two, James Allen is borrowing from the artistic style of Margaret Keane, famous for the “big eyes” school of portraiture…  made recently more famous by the movie of the same title…

Such sadness and concern from Ken…  the shark is fully submitting to his obvious and apparent dominance, and this isn’t what he had in mind at all!  No-sir-ee-bob!  Well at least we now have a mystery on our hands… but how on earth do we connect Mark Trail to this?  What good would a wildlife feature writer have to offer this situation??  Safety tips?  Fashion sense?  Let’s stay tuned…

Guess that’s why we call this a tiger shark…  I believe that the stripes fade with age, though… Ken is showing much bravado, here…  gasping for air and looking like he’s going to hurl… and declaring that the fish isn’t putting up much of a fight…

Good to see that by at least one account, the Tiger Shark is merely “Near Threatened” on the extinction scale…  Let’s hope Ol’ Ken here will release his quarry like he said he would…

I love the fish in the Trail-verse- they are all summoned to the hook as if on cue…  Of course this beats days of bad dialogue which no action…  600lb-test line getting stripped off the reel, muscles and sinew battling one of nature’s fiercest and oldest predators…  and unlike getting shot with a high-caliber round, the fish here actually has a fighting chance…

Ken Hale- are you related to Alan Hale of Gilligan’s Island fame?  Latter day Oliver Hardy to Gilligan’s Stan Laurel… seems to fit with the nautical theme and the whole “three hour cruise” motif…

Remember, Ken is the fisherman here and Uncle Doyle has taught him all he needs to know about fishing for and “ketching” sharks!  As mentioned previously, though, I do share Kelly’s concern… or perhaps concern is too strong a word… prediction perhaps…

And what’s with the Bill-fish in the foreground/forewater?  Having a laugh at Ken’s expense, no doubt…

Because, man, these people are white…

And the more I look at the Shur Ketch3, the more skeptical I become…  no chair to strap into, nothing that suggests that they are going after anything quite so large as a Tiger Shark.  All that 600 lb test line is going to do is ensure that Ken gets yanked overboard with the fish…  now, that would be entertaining…

Stingray, huh?  and where does one go to get Stingray?  What does that mean?  The entire metaphor of Ken = Shark is starting to break down…  Maybe he really is going to go fishing…  in case anyone is curious, here’s what that looks like…

Ken, it’s a good thing that you broke out your last box of Just for Men, to make sure that all the gray roots in your beard are taken care of…

What, you think he’s going to keep you once he’s caught you, honey?  Think again.  Ken is top predator!  And catch and release is his bag, baby…

What’s with Uncle Doyle, anyway??  Father figure?  Mentor?  Point of emulation? The look on Kelly’s face in panel three suggests that she’s not exactly “down” with this whole thing…  can we blame her??  Hands off, there, Ken, you are getting a little close…

Aboard the Shur Ketch3… We find Ken and Kelly- Ken, a washed-out, washed-up hippie turned substitute high school biology teacher with enough left in his trust fund to afford a modest ocean-going fishing craft, and Kelly, his latest, uber-impressionable target… “You like fishing boats?” he asked one day after class in the same creepy voice a guy might utter, “You like Sport Utility Vehicles?”  Or it could be that this is Uncle Doyle’s boat, and they take turns “ketching” their unsuspecting prey- Tiger Shark being a euphemism for, well, let’s keep this at least PG-13…

And with all the scientific precision one might expect to be applied in the stalking of a Tiger Shark, Ken is keeping one eye on the GPS and the other on his “prey…”  with the idea that Tiger sharks school (do they?) and stay in the same spot (probably not…)

Meanwhile Uncle Doyle is busy touring with the latest Debbie, doing his best to stay sober and to not listen to the voices inside his head…

I see Barbie, I mean Kelly, forgot to wear her pants today, and just how old is she anyway?  Do her parents know that she is cavorting with a pony-tailed, bearded, smooth talking shark angler with a knack for naming boats?  Not to mention creative, since this is the “Shur Ketch3” which means that there must have been a 1 and a 2, not necessarily sailing under the same flag…  not that one has to register the name of small craft like this, so we can probably assume that Ken has traded up, bringing the name forward each time…

“The middle of the Gulf of Mexico…” Is she speaking literally or figuratively?  One reason that this might be “the spot” is that it’s hell and gone from the Deep Water Horizon disaster of 2010 and the waters haven’t been fouled…  so are they truly a couple hundred miles off shore, or is she employing hyperbole??

All their base, physiological and safety needs are met here, apparently.  They are going for esteem and self actualization like it’s their right…  I guess we all measure things in our own terms, so who am I to judge what makes one whole??

I must also call out how resplendent they both look in their almost matching, t-shirts-of-single-palette look…  Pink for Kelly, Lavender for Ken.  You know, it’s really too bad her name isn’t Barbie…

Catching sharks is like hand-raising baby squirrels?  That’s an intriguing notion…  where does one buy squirrel formula?  How tiny are those nipples? If you are really interested, here is a step by step treatment of the process… But what about hand raising the orphan shark pups once Ol’ Ken here takes out the mother??  Or is the father who rears the hatchlings?  Or do either of them care?? Oh, so much to learn!!

Not the Kelly I was supposing, but that’s OK!  Ken is quite a specimen, though…  All the markers of a Mark Trail bad guy- pony tail, facial hair, cock-sured-ness…

All I can say is that if they are fishing for Tiger Sharks, they had better get a bigger boat…

Or yes!  Kelly Welly? Perhaps a bit premature in my thinking, but for those of you needing a reminder, recall that Kelly Welly is the reporter always tagging along with Mark and trying to scoop his stories, and while Mark never has to pick up the phone to ask for work, Kelly is a constant thorn in Editor Bill Ellis’ side begging for an assignment… A funnier moment has Kelly waiting in Mark’s hotel room with Mark in the shower!  Nope, nothing to see there, kids… unfortunately that’s the truth…

But I am sure I have gotten waaay ahead of myself here, and let’s hope the disappointment is not too great when Kelly turns out to be a guy!

I have to admit I saw yesterday’s strip and I gave a little bit of an eye-roll and moved on…  But today I set about my morning routine and googled “octopus…” and what pops up, but this:

Here’s video gone viral and if you wait ’til the end, you will hear the videographer sum things up nicely…

So with mystery solved, (at least the mystery of what inspired the last couple of days,) we shall see where this takes us.  Far away from Lost forest, that’s for sure…

Which is fine, since I think we need a little time away from the crushing reality that Mark faces up to on a daily basis- time to let him range free again- to be seduced and bedeviled by bad people!