15th annual game dinner draws crowd of 200 men

About 200 men packed Harbor Lights Assembly of God Church Sunday, in part to hear a story involving a cat's posterior.

The story (which doesn't bear repeating in a family newspaper) was one of dozens of earthy stories told at the 15th Annual Harbor Light Men's Game Dinner. Large amounts of free meat, door prizes, a story-telling competition and a lack of female company characterize the annual event. Local businesses donate the door prizes, local grillers donate meat and expertise. Organizers taped an improvised men's room over the sign on the women's restroom door to drive home the evening's male-oriented theme.

"There's definitely 12 to 25 people who make this whole thing possible," said Brian Merritt, one of the small army of volunteers who make the meal possible. Merritt's attended every year since he was in the eighth grade.

The notion of a game dinner has been loosely interpreted since the event started in 1999, though that wasn't always the case, Merritt said.

"It did start as solely a game dinner," he said. "We brought king salmon, duck, goose, venison, moose, you name it. Then as time went on, somebody said 'Hey, let's get a barbecue and barbecue some chicken.'"

"We noticed we had a better turnout with better food," Merritt added. People "are still welcome to bring a game dish."

Despite occasional dalliances with campfire humor and a ban on skirts, the event is aimed at family and hunting and fishing stories, said Matt Gerald, a pastor with the church who MC'd the event.

"The community supports us so well between businesses and individuals," he said. "We just want to provide an environment where they (men) can have a good family-type environment."

"We host it here at Harbor Light, but it's certainly way more than Harbor Light," Gerald added.

The stories weren't all about unmentionable things done to cats. A more palatable example involved Gil Gunderson's story about a close encounter of the bear kind near Anita Bay. Gunderson was hunting near the bay and had killed a buck. He was driving back with his kill on an all-terrain vehicle along a bluff when a sow bear and two yearling cubs stumbled across the road.

"I saw six pairs of eyes, and I thought 'Oh my God! There's wolves,'" he said. "It's a real hair-raiser when you see a mother and two yearlings, and actually we collided."

Eventually, he managed to drive around the bears in the road and make it down the mountain.

"To this day, I can still hear that bear," he said.

Gunderson said another hunter asked him what happened.

"I said, 'I'll tell you right after I change my shorts,'" he said, to laughter from the audience.