Tag: Humor

Purple Martins

I was working in the lumber department of our local big box home improvement store when I was flagged down by an elderly man in a rambler scooter. He had clear blue eyes that peered out from underneath a mesh backed hat. He moved and spoke at such a pace that when I focused on him the hubbub of the lumber department seemed to become a blur, like a photograph shot with a wide aperture.

“I’m looking for some one by fours to build a bird house for purple martins.” He said. It’s often the case with a customer like this that a simple, “Aisle forty-nine, on the right” answer will not cut it. So when he begin to describe with his arthritic hands how he planned to build the bird house I abandoned my original errand and gave him my undivided attention.

I showed him where we kept the cedar boards since he had explained that “Purple Martins won’t stay in houses built out of treated lumber.” Of course the cedar boards were outrageously priced and I eventually ended up selling him a bundle of cedar shakes for much cheaper. “Now I’ll need some finishing nails.” He said as he kept describing how he would drill a hole an inch and three quarter since anything bigger would allow other birds to come in. He kept right on expounding the virtues of purple martins the whole five minutes, four aisle trip. By the time that we got to the finishing nails I had almost decided to build myself purple martin house since purple martins eat mosquitos “by the truckload.”

I finally found some satisfactory finishing nails for him and I was afraid I was going to have to shop with him for the rest of the day when a spry old man with a flannel shirt and tinted faded prescription lenses walked up and started talking to him. They both spoke loudly to each other, although by the responses that I could hear I’m sure it wasn’t loud enough. As I walked away I understood by their conversation that they were next door neighbors. I almost made it to the end of the aisle when the newcomer hailed me for assistance. “Where’s your pressure treated one by sixes? I need to replace the fascia on my house to keep them cotton picking purple martins from roostin’ in there.”

Easter Eggs

Last night we dyed Easter Eggs with several kids at Wesley’s birthday party. Just like I remember as a child, I was unsure whether the kids or adults were having more fun. Mom used to get the egg dyeing assembly line ready in the kitchen before she would allow the kids to come in and make a mess, which is what we specialized in. She prepared the Easter Egg baptistries with ceremony, which is always intriguing to a child. She was always doing things with ceremony and making us kids get out of the way. Perhaps she just wanted five minutes by herself, but in any case, children were not allowed to help set up the dye. (Or carve the pumpkins or make the gingerbread house). Although she sometimes let us watch from our barstools as she mixed the magical potion that changed the color of Easter Eggs.

I don’t remember Mom ever getting the plastic eggs filled with candy: Mom is a traditionalist. We had to find the plastic eggs at the Easter Egg hunt in Uncle Dave’s cow pasture. I did not care for hard boiled eggs as a child, so I was always hopeful that Mom would bring some candy and plastic eggs home from the grocery store. I once snuck a package of candy from the Easter Egg preparation pile on the kitchen table, hoping that she had gotten plastic eggs that year. I took the candy to my bed room where I struggled with the wrapper for a few minutes before I opened a pack of the nastiest Sweet Tarts that I had ever tasted. I spit out the one I had tried, I think it was orange, and dropped the rest of the package down a knothole in the floor of my sister’s room. Which was where you dropped things that you didn’t want anyone to know about.

A few minutes later as Mom was preparing the egg dying ritual, she noticed that the dye was missing. After searching around she asked, “Did somebody take some candy off the table?” She looked at each child in the face as she was asking this. She looked and me and I knew she could tell that I took, and also that I hadn’t brushed my teeth that morning. Mom’s have that way of looking at you.

“Yes.” I confessed. “But it was nasty.” Hoping that this would have been punishment enough.

Realizing my mistake, my desire to dye Easter Eggs overcame the fear of getting a whooping and I told Mom that the dye was under the house. To my surprise, there was no corporal punishment, only laughter. Zach was sent under the house to retrieve the dye and ten years worth of LEGO mini figures, army men, and other assorted items and toys that had been dropped to the abyss (probably with ceremony) through the knothole.

This is a happy story. Mom was able to finish dying the eggs, sans orange, and no one got whipped. Each Easter, we remember this story, which has lasted longer than any Easter Egg, hardboiled or plastic. I am still a bit wary of sweet tarts though.

Catfish

There was a restaurant in Childersburg, AL called Whiskers. They named their business after the grossest part of the catfish. To some, everything about the catfish is gross: catfish is a polarizing dish. People generally love it, or are grossed out by it. Although there is only one way to cook catfish, that is battered in cornmeal and fried in a skillet or fish fryer (I am thoroughly resolved on this matter), there is division on how it should be dressed before frying: whole or filleted. When you dress them whole, or bone in, you gut them, skin them, and cut their heads off, leaving the tail that crunches up like a potato chip after it comes out of the skillet. You have to be careful when you eat whole catfish because the bones are sharp. When you eat one properly you’ll be left with a perfect fish skeleton just like the kind in the comics. When you filet a catfish, you slice him right behind the pectoral fin all the way to the spine, then turn your knife and slice him all the way to the tail. Once you reach the tail you flip the slice away from the body and cut the skin away. Once you get real good at it, it looks like one fluid motion. “You waste a lot of meat when you fillet them.” You hear these kind of complaints from people who aren’t cleaning fish at all. I grew up eating fish, not just catfish, filleted. But I’m not so stuck up that I won’t eat a whole one tail and all.

I remember a conversation my dad had with John Smith. John was giving Dad directions to somewhere near Rockford, AL. “Bro. Perry, You know where that Catfish restaurant is on the right?”

“I know where that is. I’ve always wanted to stop and see if they have some good catfish in there.” My Dad asked.

“Brother Perry. Man do they have some catfish! You talking ’bout some good eating.” John began to get excited as he described the catfish in a little more detail.

“Are they good?” Dad asked, now more interested in the catfish than wherever John had been directing him in the first place.

John got a real sheepish grin on his face.

“I don’t know.” he said. “I had a cheeseburger.”

Home Remedies

img_3339“Have hemorrhoids? Try siting on a potato.” My cousin Anthony read aloud from Gram’s home remedy book. Now a person who had not experienced the power of home remedies would have only found humor in this statement. I still laugh when I think about how silly it sounded, but I as I recall, Gram only smiled a little and then looked pensive before she asked, “Do you need to cook the potato?” I guess she wanted to get the recipe right before trying it out, or more likely, before she recommended it to someone else.

Home remedies almost have a mystical element to them, like magic spells. My Great Grandmother could talk away burns. She would whisper some kind of incantation and the burning would stop. Her husband would buy warts. You had to wait till the next full moon for them to go away. He said they wouldn’t go away if you gave them to him, he had to pay for them.

“I cut myself one time with a knife while I was pealing potatoes. Granny washed the sliced finger real quick and rubbed ashes from the fireplace on it, then wrapped a bandage around it.” Dad recalled. I remember him reflecting, “I don’t know if the remedies actually worked, or if people just needed to believe in something. As often was the case, professional medical attention was simply unaffordable.”  This is probably true, but when you’re in pain I guess you’ll try anything. I once sprayed WD-40 on a severe case of psoriasis on my foot. This medical experiment failed, and I wouldn’t recommend it. But the home remedy of peeing on my feet in the shower had failed me and I was at the point of desperation.

Home remedies come in a wide spectrum, and can’t all be ruled out as kooky. The range of the spectrum is significant. On one end you have remedies like this: “Tie a match behind your left ear and drink a pint of buttermilk to help with indigestion.” On the other end you have common sense. Anytime we had a headache, stomach ache, or just about any ailment that was not inflicted by a rowdy sibling or cousin; Nonna would look over her glasses and ask us, “Did you bo-bo today?” Bo-bo should be a good euphemism-a lady like expression for a man sized fact- for defecate, but it isn’t. It puts you in the mind of being constipated in a public restroom with single ply toilet paper that didn’t fully get the job done and now you need to change underwear. But, usually this home remedy worked.

Another case of an effective home remedy was when Dad had the flu or a severe cough. Granny pulled out a jar of moonshine with some sort of root sitting in the bottom (perhaps sassafras). “It was like drinking fire.” Dad said. “I don’t know if it helped me with my sickness, or just put me to sleep.” Either way there was relief.

If you called Gram today and told her you had an ingrown toenail, or perhaps an ear infection, she would recommend a buttermilk poultice. Essentially, you mix up biscuit dough; flour, buttermilk, and a little lard, and put it in a plastic bag an stick your toe or whatever is ailing you in it and keep it over night. In the morning the poultice will have turned a dark green color. “It will pull the infection out.” She said. Or grow bacteria, I’m not really sure which. But I remember Dad, Zach, and Lindsay trying it out before Zach and Lindsay lost faith and went to the podiatrist.

From rubbing Clorox or tobacco juice on a bee sting, the virtues of coconut oil, and drinking apple cider vinegar for just about any ailment; the list of home remedies is a mile long. I’d like to hear your home remedy experiences. You can leave your comments at mostlyfrommemory.wordpress.com

Thank you everyone for reading and sharing my blog. I hope it makes you smile. 

Zane Wells

Parades

My family and I recently moved to Cullman, Alabama. It’s not necessarily important that you know that, but I thought I’d get it out of the way, and use it as an excuse for not blogging in over a month. Anyway, I thought the best thing that I could do as a new member of the community was to attend the Cullman Christmas Parade the weekend after we arrived. Sarah and I got the kids all bundled up and we traipsed downtown in the frigid 50 degree weather to get some hot chocolate and cookies, and to stand on the sidewalk to watch the parade. It was a disjointed affair because the parade route crosses a major highway that can’t be closed, so there were several ten minute gaps as the high school marching bands, politicians, and fire trucks waited at the red light. As if seeing Mickey and Minnie Mouse, a live church band playing on a trailer, Batman riding a motorcycle, a real live member of the state legislature, some real estate agents square-dancing, and cousin Eddie walking behind his Winnebago wasn’t enough, we got the added excitement of getting to walk as a mob on the road as we made our way en masse over to the park to see the Christmas Tree lighting. There is something exhilarating about walking down the middle of the road, It’s a lot wider than it seems when you’re in a vehicle.  When we got to the park, we all sang Silent Night as a community, which was really quite moving. Then we listened to the Christmas Story, the real Christmas story read straight out of the Bible by a City Councilman. Wesley missed the actual tree lighting part of the ceremony because he had to make an emergency bathroom break in the shrubbery.

The most dangerous and entertaining part of the after events at Christmas Parades is the speeches. When I was a kid, back before the internet, the whole town would come out for the Christmas Parade. They’d stand on the street and watch it coming and going. Then we’d walk to the parking lot in front of the City Hall/Police Department and listen to a choir sing on the portable stage that had been hastily brought out of it’s storage place behind the Water Board. The choir was amplified by a single microphone in hopes of combatting the steady flow of traffic that had been waiting for the parade to finish. After this, there were usually speeches by local dignitaries. It was on this stage that one of the most memorable speeches in the history of Vincent, Alabama was given by the drunken Honorable Judge Jimmy Sharrbutt. I’m sorry to play it up so much, because I only remember two lines, but they have become colloquialisms in the language of my family.

“When I saw the lights under the bridge, I cried.”

“Oh. And anotha’ thang. One of them Hassett boys broke my arm.”

When you’re a kid, a lot of times you don’t notice when someone is drunk. As an adult you can recall their behavior, speech, and countenance and clearly see that they were drunk.

After the speech we would light the giant Christmas Tree, the largest live Christmas tree in the State of Alabama, that stood by the Norfolk Southern railroad. This tree, along with the giant red and white plaster Christmas bells from the 70’s, for me are the epitome of municipal Christmas Decorations.

There is a timeless feeling that comes with a parade in a small town. It’s something that’s left over from centuries past, when people were not afraid to come out and see their neighbors. Parades are a lasting ritual from the time before television, the internet, and smartphones made the world a much smaller and less enchanted place. The wonder of technology has nearly stripped us of the wonder of the moment. Parades are one of the last remaining purely community gatherings. I’m glad my kids got to experience a genuine small town Christmas Parade, even if there were no drunk Judges.

Wrasslin’

When I was about three years old, I convinced Mom to get me a Deluxe Hulkmania Workout Set, complete with a set of dumbbells, jump rope, hand gripper, a headband, a Hulk Hogan poster, and a cassette tape of Hulk Hogan giving a forty minute inspirational speech and walking you through a workout regimen, not to mention some pretty sweet 80’s hair metal music. I thought Hulk Hogan was the strongest man in the world.

Dad taught us how to wrestle when we were just barely old enough to walk. He’d lay in the floor and we’d climb over him. It was great fun. For the most part, Zach dominated me in the wrestling ring. He was overgrown for his age, I think he might have been born with a full set of teeth. The only time that I got the best of Zach in a wrestling match was when I wiped a booger the size of cornflake on him.

It took a few years for me and my brother to realize that professional wrestling was entertainment and the wrestlers were acting. If you suplex somebody for real, it hurts. Every week my family would have supper at least once at my grandparents, that’s where Zach and I would watch wrestling on their television. To a little boy there are not many things cooler than a man with painted face and baseball bat dropping out of the ceiling by a cable to fight a man who had 24 inch biceps who had just ripped his shirt off.

During the commercial breaks, Zach would try out any new moves that he had learned. On me. We’d usually wrestle until we knocked a whole in the sheetrock, or I got a bloody nose. It’s a wonder that we didn’t tear the house down.

From time to time, Mom would go to the grocery store leaving us at home with strict instructions to behave. We’d give her about five minutes to get down the road before we moved the coffee table out of the way and set up a wrestling ring. The living room had everything you needed for a wrestling match, a couple of comfortable chairs, an ottoman, a couch, and forty-‘leven pillows to help soften the landing as your brother pile drived you. There were always a bunch of decorations that we’d have to move too, like the ducks. Mom had about half a dozen wooden ducks that contributed no practical purpose to the functionality of the room. Over the years, we broke the head off of every single one of those ducks while we were wrestling. We’d spend about five minutes wrestling, and twenty five minutes in veterinary surgery supergluing duck heads back on. She didn’t notice either. We finally told her after we’d gotten married.

My great grandparents went to Boaz, Alabama to a live wrestling event at the National Guard Armory, because that’s what classy people did for entertainment in late 50’s. I think that armory was about the only thing in Boaz, but I might be wrong. Even today, it’s hard to imagine driving to town like Boaz for anything. The main wrestling event involved Tojo Yamamoto, a Hawaiian born American wrestler whose real name was Harold Watanabe. The wrestling company capitalized on the strong anti-Japanese sentiment that was still very much alive in the decades following the war, especially in the South, and Tojo played the bad guy.

Tojo Yamamoto was booed and heckled as he entered the ring. In the microphone, he indicated that he wanted to “Make aporogy.”

“My country, they bomb Pearl Harbor. I so sorry.” The arena went deadly quiet as he continued. “It wrong thing to do. I so sorry.” Now the crowd began to cheer

“I wish instead they bomb BOAZ!”

I grew up hearing this story every so often and it always produced uncontrollable laughter in a few of my kinfolks. Mainly my dad, who often has a hard time finishing a funny story once he gets “Tickled.”

The fact that this story has survived and still produces a strong reaction gives me hope that my ancestors understood that there was a strong element of show business in professional wrestling, and I’d like to believe that they went to the wrestling match for the humor.

Vanity

Mr. Lowe was the sole music teacher at my elementary school. I think he may have been involved with the music at his local church, but as I did not attend his local church this claim cannot be substantiated. I can tell you with certainty that he was bald. He kept what straight brown hair that remained on the sides and back of his hair neatly combed. I often thought that his hair had a distinct rounded puff like quality to it. I’m told he rode a motorcycle, but again, I never saw him on a motorcycle, or any other car for that matter, but I can imagine very easily that he did ride a motorcycle. He had a very resonant baritone voice and always taught setting down, which in later years I learned is not the best way to sing.

Mr. Lowe’s music class was held in a single wide trailer on the western side of the school. You had to walk outside, in a single file line with your mouth closed while you held your thumb behind your back, in order to reach the classroom. By the time all of us had filed into the trailer, the cool air had rushed out of the room, and we sat for the next hour or so listening to the window unit air conditioner work overtime as Mr. Lowe rambled about cows eating grass and good boys finding.

Music was taught in an odd fashion in elementary school. All of us, more or less, showed up on our first day at Kindergarten with at least good conversational English. For the next five years we were taught vocabulary, grammar, and composition. But with music, we were thrust almost immediately into music theory before we had any experience on a musical instrument. If we excelled in theory, we might then be encouraged to take up an instrument.

I enjoyed music time. Mr. Lowe introduced us to all of the least practical instruments for playing the type of music that I was exposed to at home and at church. He showed us maracas, sand blocks, guiros, and my personal favorite, the bells. I vaguely remember a piano, but no guitars. He would sometimes let us “play” these instruments. I don’t think any of us were very proficient at these odd instruments.

Mr. Lowe taught us the Peanut Butter Song.

First you take the peanuts and you dig ’em

You dig’em dig’em dig’em

Pea-nuuut, pea-nut butter, and jelly…

Mr. Lowe introduced us to Jerry Lewis in the movie Cinderfella. Before we started the movie, Mr. Lowe to pains to make it very clear that Jerry Lewis was not a sissy. Being a sissy was about the worst thing that anyone could call you. Mr. Lowe’s preliminary speech didn’t convince me.

Mr. Lowe tried his best to teach us about sharps and flats, rhythm, melody and harmony, but like many of my teachers, he spent far too much of his time trying to get the attention of children who’s only desire was to do anything but learn.

In about the fourth or fifth grade, Mrs. McManus sat our class down for a speech before we were to go to music class. We all prepared for another, “Y’all better learn how to act or we’re putting you on silent lunch” orations. What followed caught us off guard.

“Students.” Mrs. McManus began in a grave manner.

“Today when you go to music class, Mr. Lowe is going to look different. He’ll have hair.”

She paused for a moment to see what our reaction would be. We were so taken off guard that not a word was spoken. She took advantage of the silence and proceeded.

“Mr. Lowe has decided to wear a toupee.” Here she went into detail about what a toupee was, our french not being what it should be. After she was convinced that we had been thoroughly educated on what a toupee was, how it staid on, why you would want to wear one, and what it was made of, she made it very clear that we were not to “Stare, ask questions, or even acknowledge that anything was different about Mr. Lowe.” Now this is a lot to ask a group of rowdy fourth and fifth graders, but aside from one or two well meaning compliments, we acquiesced to this strange demand from our pedagogue.

This absurd experience made a bigger impact on me than all of the musical knowledge that Mr. Lowe tried to impart. We had seen Mr. Lowe every week for five years and now he was going to be radically different and we weren’t allowed to talk about it. That’s the way with vanity: we spend a lot of effort trying be something that we’re not and hope that it comes off as normal.

Icees

Getting an Icee at Watson’s Grocery in Vandiver, AL was one of the only treats that we ever got to experience while working for Pop in the hay business. Partly because Watson’s was the only store in Vandiver, which was where the hay business headquarters were located. There were three flavors of Icee: Red, Blue, and Coke. The proper names were actually, Tropical Punch, Blue Raspberry, and Pepsi, but since I had my first Icee before I had my first reading lesson, I never let these small details bother me.

You have to be careful drinking an Icee while you’re working outside in the blistering Alabama summer, there is a tendency to drink the sugary slush too fast, which results in a painful medical condition called “Brain Freeze.” My little cousins, Kyle & Chase, had a strong affection for Icees. Kyle would put his lips to the straw and would only turn loose when he got brain freeze, at which point he would grimace and grab his head until the episode passed and then he would repeat the process until the cup was gone.

Kyle and Chase were working with us before they were old enough to go to kindergarten when we’d stop and get an Icee after unloading a trailer full of hay in the barn. I remember one particular exchange my Dad had with these little fellows after we were driving back to the field after stopping to get an Icee.

“What flavor did you get Kyle?” Dad asked.

“Trocipal punch Uncle Perry.” Kyle replied, struggling over the polysyllabic adjective.

“Yeah, Red! My fravorite!” Piped up Chase.

Red was the best. As a child, it was extremely disappointing to have your hopes up for an Icee, only to find out that the only flavor available was Coke. Of course, you’d get it anyway, and suck it down until you got brain freeze. As you get older you realize that Coke is actually the better flavor.

I passed by the Icee bear this week and he brought back a flood of memories as he waved his cup full of frozen delight in my face. I almost got one, but they were out of Red.

BB Guns

“I sent Wesley a package for his birthday. I figured it would be easier to tell you after I sent it. It’s a BB Gun. I only got him 1,500 BBs, so you’ll need to get him some more pretty soon.” This is what Dad told me. 

I can remember my first BB gun. Zach and I each got one on Christmas morning when I was about four years old. Mine was a Daisy Red Ryder model. “Don’t shoot any song birds.” Dad admonished us. Zach had his gun rights recalled about half an hour later when he shot a blue bird off of the play house. 

Between the two of us, we kept the squirrels at bay. Our reasoning was they ate too many of our pecans. But we didn’t like picking up pecans anyway. We did eat what we shot though. I’ve never had much if a stomach for skinning squirrels. Or rabbits, deer, and fish for that matter. Shoot, my wife baited my hook the last time we went fishing. I know my limitations. 

The coolest BB guns that we ever had looked just like a Colt Peacemaker and Winchester lever action rifle. We would run out of BBs shooting at the Comanches and resort to shooting rocks and sticks through them. Eventually the hammer broke off the pistol and it’s hard to play cowboys and Indians when your new BB gun looks like a Colt 1911, so we shot BBs, rocks and sticks at the Germans and Japanese. 

I think that we wore out more BB guns than the average boys. It’s probably a good thing too, because I shot the girl next door with a BB gun. I don’t remember why I did it. it doesn’t matter anyway, nothing worth shooting someone over. The real reason was meanness. “Watch your legs!” I yelled as she ran across her yard. I aimed through chain link fence and got a lead on her before squeezing the trigger. I hit her right in the knee. I can’t imagine what kind of damage that could have been done if I’d have had a proper working firearm, but I’m glad I didn’t. I’m also glad her dad was a church going Christian, because he might have killed me if he wasn’t. After my mom nearly beat me half to death, I had to apologize to Tiffany, and her dad. “I don’t accept your apology!” She screamed. She was as ill as a hornet. I can’t blame her. On top of that, I had my BB gun priviledges revoked for a few years. 

Tiffany, if you’re reading this, I hope that you’ve forgiven me. Because I can’t tell you how sorry I am. 

After opening Wesley’s birthday present, I learned that Daisy has dialed back the stopping power on these newer models considerably. For that I am grateful. Well, a little bit anyway. 

Gun Safety

Zach and I used to beg Dad to let us help “Clean the Guns”, a ritual where we all would crowd around Dad’s closet and he would carefully lubricate and clean each firearm with a tin can 3-In-One oil. “Don’t touch the metal. You’ll get fingerprints all over it.” That’s rule number one of gun safety. I still make a conscious effort to not touch the metal on a gun any time I’m handed one to inspect.

Before he started wiping the firearm down, he would set the stock on his knee with the barrel pointed towards the ceiling, and we would all look at it in wonder. Each gun had a story. “I traded a bird dog in 1970 for this 12 gauge Remington 1100. I’ve killed a few deer and ain’t no telling how many birds with this thing.”

He was also prone to shooting dogs. We lived in an old house that was built on blocks. Before Dad installed underpinning, or had me and Zach install, stray dogs used to get under the house and break the water lines. One time Dad got caught up in the moment and shot under the house. Another time he chased a dog out of the yard for waking him up by barking. Dad had been working late nights and when he came to himself, he was standing out in the front yard in his underwear and work boots, holding shotgun yelling at a dog, at ten o’clock on a Sunday morning. But he didn’t usually tell those stories while we were cleaning the guns.

He would then pass the 1100 to Zach, who would put to his shoulder and aim across the room as if he was getting a lead on a dove. POW, he would say under his breath, letting it reverberate a little bit as if he had shot a bird on a cool still morning in the Alabama wilderness.

“Watch where you’re aiming that thing!” Dad would say as he reached to take the shotgun away from an eight year old boy who had just nearly hit him in the head with a shotgun. “You have act like every gun is loaded.” That was rule number two of gun safety.

Dad would then hand the shotgun to me, who had been waiting impatiently to hold a shotgun that was taller than my brother. When you’re that small, you are doing good just to be able to hold the gun without dropping it, let alone stressing about proper form and aiming. My Uncle Johnny remedied this by sawing about four inches of stock off of a single shot Harrington & Richardson .410. I still remember him bringing it over to our house.

The most mystically firearm in our modest arsenal was Dad’s lever action Marlin .30-30. A genuine cowboy rifle, replete with a gold trigger. Zach & I would work the action from hip, pretending we were Tell Sackett. Dad had shot a deer with this rifle that didn’t quite die. As he was walking toward it, the deer jumped up and began to run by him, Dad leaped off a stump like Tarzan and cut the deer’s throat with a pocket knife. This story added to the mystique of the cowboy rifle.

It didn’t take long to clean oil all the guns, but the ritual of “Cleaning the Guns” also involved looking at all of the pocket knives. Dad bought us a bunch of cheap, made in Pakistan knives because he knew that we would end up losing them anyway. And he was right. I lost a Frost Cutlery Royal Flush at Mrs. Yvonne Clinkscale’s house as I was climbing a tree while my brother endured his piano lesson. I probably climbed thirty feet up into that tree.

I had a Barlow pocket knife that I threw at a tree across the road after church one day. I remember thinking that no one would see me if I went around to the side of the church. Somehow Dad saw me, maybe through one of the six windows. Anyway, he must have witnessed the knife fall about fifteen yards short of the desired target and land in the middle of the road, square on the tip, bending it at a ninety degree angle. Dad sent for me to come see him on the back pew of the church, and he pocketed my Barlow.

The only two knives that I have left from my childhood are the only two that matter to me anyway. Dad bought me a yellow handled Case Slimline Trapper when I was two years old. 

I carried that knife for about fifteen years, before I decided to get a new one.

Uncle Jimmy gave me a red stag handled Case Trapper the year after my grandfather died. He would have been 55 years old. This knife is 55 of 110. Perhaps my first introduction to gun safety was when Dad took me out by the chicken pen and sat up a milk jug full of water as a target. He raised his shotgun, drew a bead on the milk jug and BOOM! The milk jug exploded. I was just barely out of diapers looking with amazement, first at Dad and then to where the milk jug had been. Ever the teacher, Dad said, “This is not a toy.” Wide eyed and unblinking I nodded back at him. This is the principle rule of gun safety.

My cousin Kent could have benefited from a demonstration like that.  When Kent was about seven, his grandfather took him hunting. Kent sat down beside him and they waited for a deer to walk by. Which is the part of hunting that seems the least exciting to me. Perhaps Kent felt the same way because his eyes began to wonder from the field over to his grandpa who was watching and waiting diligently. Then Kent’s eyes wondered to his grandpa’s shotgun, which he held directly in front of him, the barrel directly under the bill of his cap. Then Kent’s eyes wondered to the trigger, which was closer to him as he sat the on the ground. Eventually curiosity got the better of him and he slowly and quietly, sneakily probably is a better word, reached over and pulled the trigger. Booom! I can only imagine his grandpa’s surprise as the shotgun fired, blowing his hat off.

This brings us to the final rule of gun safety, in general, one gun is as dangerous as the next, but some people are far more dangerous than others.