CHAPTER THREE -- (maybe the last one, ain't you glad???)
We lived several miles ‘out in the sticks’ so no cars came by much and those that did were well known to us kids. Either they were enemies or friends, not much in between .... when a car made the mistake of turning west at ‘the corner’, he was either in for one hell of a ride up the ‘big sandy’ hill or he was going to get stuck. This ol’ hill had only one track all the way to the top and ‘big time sand’ is a vast understatement.
Well, one afternoon, ol’ Tommy Dean turned west in his old rickety ‘39 Ford and we kids ran to the top of the rise to see if he could make it over ‘the big sandy’. Tommy wasn’t all that hot of a driver and sure as heck he buried it about half way up. OH JOY !!!! What wonderful fun ... Tommy was stuck big time. He couldn’t back up or go forward either. Directly, here came ol’ Tommy walking toward our house .. we kids tried to look like we just ‘happened’ to be playing in the road .. and tried to act surprised when Tommy walked up. Just couldn’t wait to hear him say “I’m stuck in the sand”... Gosh darn, but it was wonderful. Anyway, bottom line .. Our Grampa “Pappy” said, “Tommy, lemme go over and see what I can do”. Off went the whole procession of kids, dogs, Pappy, Tommy and all -- with us kids skipping and jumping the whole 1/2 mile ... Got there and Pap just fired up the ol’ Ford, backed her up a couple of feet and ‘floored’ the ol’ wreck ... sand flew up to beat hell and even with us kids pulling backwards on the bumper to stick him again, over the top he went... dang it!!! Oh, well, it was great fun anyway... Tommy thanked Pappy and went on home.
Then, my brother, and I had the miserable job of gathering the milk cows every evening and bringing them into the barnyard. It was hot and a long walk to find them then head ‘em home. Nifty thing, though, Dad had an old horse that grazed with the cows and if the Gods of Luck were really with you, you could catch the ol’ horse and ‘bareback’ him home behind the cows ... thus saving many, many hot steps. Well, Sir, one evening ol’ Bro and I rounded ‘em up and had ‘em headed home when my brother (the lucky little devil) eased up to ol’ Blaze, hopped on an was ambling along behind the cows ... I couldn’t catch up and he wouldn’t stop .. so only thing to do was lob a clod of dirt at him ... I did and My Friend, the clod hit ol’ Blaze square on the rump .. Blaze was walking along mostly asleep and when the clod landed, he jumped straight ahead 6 feet or so .. Bro landed off the back end on his own back end ... and was no happy feller .. Little Bro could throw a rock about 4 miles at a velocity approaching the speed of sound .. and fairly accurate, too. To cut to the chase, I had to RUN home ducking rocks all the way .. then the little devil told the folks on me to really top the day off.
Folks raised a few turkeys, too. Had one old Tom turkey
that was a real bungus amongus.... he wouldn’t fight fair at all.
If you chased him, the dirty dog would simply outrun you ... then he would
simply wait til you weren’t looking, then jump on your back and flog
hell out of you. Well, let me tell you, Neighbor .. his day finally
came. I was headed for the house late one evening after doing my
chores .. the son of a gun jumped on me and beat the daylights out of me.
At age 9, I could sling a rock at Mach I and hit a pie plate at 40 yds.
The infamous evening of his last day on earth, after he flogged my hind
end good, I found a old brick that had been broken in half. It wasn’t
really all that good of a missile, but when you have tears in your eyes
and are mad as hell you don’t take a lot of time looking for just the right
rock. I wound up and pitched the ol’ brick as though the final strike
out of the World Series was at stake --and -- are you sittin’down ??? --
the half brick hit the gobbler square on the side of his stupid red head.
Sounded like a 2 x 4 hittin’ a pile of mud and the stinkin’ turkey hit
the ground. He flopped and flopped and flopped around for a long,
long while. Then by Gosh, he quit doing anything. You
guessed it .. he was dead a gigged mackerel. Oh Shucks .. Now What,
Homer???? Should I go and tell Dad and Mom that I had killed the
damn gobbler or what?? Answer wasn’t long in coming. Dad came
by and said “ What happened to that ol’ gobbler?” I said (with truth
dripping off it) “Beats Me, I guess he just up and died”. Dad looked
a little longer at me than I really thought necessary, but finally said
“Well, throw him in the pickup and haul him off”. Oh Man ... I was
going to get away with it. So I put the darn ol’ turkey in the truck
.... and here came Mom down the hill. I shoulda knew Dad would tell Mom
on me. She said “ Son, if the ol’ turkey died, it’s no problem ...
but poor as we are, if you hit him with a stick, we should keep him and
eat him”. Hell, I never could tell my Mom a lie .. I started
crying and said “ I hit him with that brick laying there”. Mom gave
me a hug and said "Quit crying .. We all are happy to be rid of the thing”.
I still love my Mom more than I can tell you to this day. And I ain’t
one bit sad about killing that rotten gobbler, either. He deserved
it.
Now then, Coyotes had a bounty on
them... The State of Oklahoma or the County or some tremendous Government
entity paid $2.00 for each set of connected ears at the courthouse every
Saturday morning. We Okies being not among the gifted wealthy class,
trapped coyotes, shot coyotes, ran over coyotes, dug coyotes out of dens
and otherwise acquired coyotes any possible way. As luck would have
it, Dad was a far better than average coyote trapper. He had a gunny
sack full of good No. 4 Victor double springers and could make a hell of
a fine trap set. It happened that one bitterly cold morn, we went
to check a set and BELIEVE IT OR NOT, RIPPLEY, he had two coyotes in one
set. (For you Gomers, that's about like winnin' the lottery for 20 zillion
bucks) It was a long walk from the nearest road to the set and me
being the oldest son, went along to oversee Dad’s trappin’.
No problem .. Dad just took his favorite Louisville Slugger and whacked
each song dog smartly over the head. Then made the re-set on the
bait and each of us picked up a coyote and headed for the road. I
being about 10 years old had a lovely ol’ male song dog over my back with
two front legs in my right hand and two back legs in my left hand with
the coyote drooped over my back along my rear end. We had hoofed
it about 300 yds when I noticed my coyotes head, instead of flopping around
as a dead coyote should, got stiff and quit swinging. I didn’t pay
much attention at first, then noticed the ol’ coyote was pulling with his
paws. I looked down and Mr. Coyote was lookin’ up with his ol’ yellow
eyes. He even grinned a bit, I think. Holy Crap, Man
... there wasn’t nothing else to do but run out from under the critter....
which I did - posthaste. The bugger wasn’t dead at all .. just stunned
and worse yet - fixin’ to bite the holy hell out of me. I damn near
ran up the back of Dad’s legs and he jumped as if snake bit .. said “What
the hell is going on?” I said ‘Hey, This coyote is fixin’ to bite
me” ... Ol’ coyote couldn’t quite navigate yet .. and when Pop’s Louisville
Slugger got done .. he couldn’t navigate at all. Got 4 bucks for
‘em, too, next Saturday.
Now then, my cousin and I thought ourselves
to be fairly ‘cool’ dudes. We were about 7 or 8 years old and had found
a dandy place to make a mud slide. The steep bank was about 20 feet
long and only needed some water to create a really nifty slide. No
Problem .. the cow tank wasn’t all that far away and a pail or two of water
was all that was required. Only little
difficulty was that there were some tree sprouts growing up along
the slide.. we just simply broke them off at ground level and in
no time at all had a ‘way cool’ slide going. About every three or
four slides, we just poured down a bucket of water to keep ‘er slick and
was having a grand ol’ time. One little deal though, as the mud wore
down with each slide, the sprout roots stuck up a little higher.
Oh, I forgot to mention, -- rather than get a thrashing for dirtyin’ up
our overalls, we just took ‘em off and slid down the hill in our underwear
(never wore shirts or shoes in the summer time anyway). All
was going just ducky and all one had to remember was to kinda raise up
one’s hind end on the right side a bit as one roared over the sticks poking
up out of the mud. No problem .. but ol’ cousin went rippin’ down
the hill and forgot to raise up his rump at the correct moment and ripped
hell out of his butt. He screamed like a gut shot hog and I hadn’t
a clue what to do. His rump was bleedin’ and his shorts was torn
and we were in a hell of a mess -- muddy and all. - There was
sure as heck no way to apply a tourniquet. We finally decided to
hang his hind end in the cow tank til the pain went down a bit and finally
it did... Thank God. We both washed off the mud, put on our overalls
and went home .. never said a mumblin’ word to his Mom.
Then one fine Spring day, we found a red squirrel with his head stuck in a popcorn can .. you know the old kind that had a ring around the top. We were simply exploring an old pile of cans and junk and heard the squirrel banging around stuck in the can. Hot Damn -- we would capture him and make a truly fine pet out of him .... we caught the can and squirrel and couldn’t get his darn head out of the can ... Kept trying though and finally his head popped out of the can .. The Son of a Biscuit bit the living crap out of my cousin’s hand .. he threw the squirrel to me and damned if the ungrateful varmint didn’t try to eat my hand, too..... I tried to get rid of him but he hung on and scratched and bit like a proper son of a gun. Finally unloaded the damn thing and we got plumb out of the pet squirrel business for good.
Chapter Three .. "The day the Bumblebees Attacked"
Oh, Heck, I ain’t got the time right now.....
If you like this little story -- drop us an email and let us know .. if you don't then, don't look in the mirror .. unless you want to see a sour puss. ..... huntsall -- Good Hunting and Good Luck - God Bless ! ! ! !