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September 20, 2006 29 weeks gestation
Soooiee pig pig pig,
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It’s how farmers used to call their hogs to the trough for feeding.
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Farmers? They are the caretakers of the farm.
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Whatsa farm? Have you not as yet perused my first collection of letters to your cousin Spence?
@#@!%@#**!!!
Of course, I’m just funnin’ ya. Ahm only too keen on your deficiencies at interpretin’ “incongruous schizoid calligraphy” as per your grandfather’s hand, never you mind that ya ain’t had a licka schoolin’ yit. ----------------whine No sweat, my small fry city slicker. Ahl spin ya a farm tale of gripping, thought-provoking stuff of epic proportions and smart intelligent, ingenious, intriguing intrigue things made for a movie an’… an’ it’ll be as true as ah cun make it…up….yup, cuz it maybe really happened. Heh heh, come ta think of it, I don’t rightly remember. Once again, I deviate.
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Huh? Oh for crying out loud, of course no animals were harmed during the spinning of this yarn, although there was this wacky chi… I’m gettin’ ahead of myself. As Spencer knows, when I was a little boy (I am still a “little” boy), my altruistic parents would “auspiciously” spring for a two week vacation every summer.
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Theirs, and if they’d only known, mine, which began when they left.
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Yes, well don’t wad your cord in a ball. Your parents won’t forget you. They will always return. Mine did. Never knew exactly how they felt about that. I ain’t gonna ask now. Always most wise to let sleeping dogs lie. My parent’s vacation was launched
by
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Huh? Oh. Well, I just made it clear to my grandparents that my parents had been working very, very hard and that I was temporarily overcome with sheer ecstasy when at long last it dawned on me that their dream vacation had finally come to fruition. How insensitive of me to have not tipped to it before now!
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Sure they bought it—they were grandparents, weren’t they? So anyway, it’s summer and one of my favorite places to visit was the old farmstead that my grandfather had sold my aunt and uncle near the small burg of Adams in southeast Nebraska. It was the “coolest” to a scrawny seven year old city kid who imagined himself Daniel Boone, Roy Rogers, Kurt Gowdy, and Screaming Bald Eagle all rolled into one. As I have told ol’ Spence, the setting was that of a prototypical farm. A large white farmhouse with a windbreak to the west and extending north about four hundred meters before swinging east, partially encircled grain bins, a chicken house, machine sheds, shop, large faded red barn and circular stone silo sitting in the hog pen that surrounded said barn. There was also a hodgepodge of junk piles, wood piles, dirt piles, chicken piles, and weed patches arranged in some obviously clever grid apparent only to the farmer on location and the poop-packed chickens. It didn’t have to make sense to me. It was flawless. The geography surrounding this lovely neighborhood was that of gently rolling hills and muddy-water crick bottoms, which were home to many varieties of hardwood trees and the birds and animals that lived among them. Building a fort in the woods bordering the crick was one of my all-time most favoritist things ta do. One day, as my scarcely conscious mind was torpidly scrutinizing the crude charts and maps of Indian Territory that I had committed to kid memory, it occurred to me I had not laid claim to a most valuable neck of woods that bordered railroad property, a minor oversight that I set out to rectify. My crick and its accompanying rail-line meandered forth and back on the other side of Indian Territory, which was pertinear a fortnight’s hike from the farmhouse (roughly two hundred yards down the hill from the barn). That kinda crossing necessitates meticulous preparation, weapons, and tons a grub and other provisions. Deciding that the task would not be accomplished by my aunt, who was persistently making excuses for not doing so (stupid stuff like chores and meals and sleeping and such), I set about personally outfitting the expedition. The weapons were first and foremost as Indian Territory was diligently patrolled and ferociously defended by a sadistic warrior squaw who traveled under the name of Ol’ Tank.
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Tank was a 700 pound rancorous old sow, who I had ostracized earlier that summer by inadvertently shooting her in the hind tit with my BB gun. ---------------hee hee hee No! You’ve got it all wrong. It was all an innocent mistake. “She of short fuse,” however, had responded by pole-axing my uncle into the next county. He had fortuitously wandered between the rampaging beast and her skinny absconding bulls-eye—me. Then, after splattering my uncle, she literally splintered a ten foot section of corral fence as she and her little “tanklets” sprinted out and onto the rock lane that partially circled the house.
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Yeeeaaaaah…not toooo bad, but that wasn’t quite the end of it. For some unknown reason, hogs don’t always make decisions founded on sound logic. Instead of the hefty “ham on hoofs” just keeping to the lane and getting in some badly needed road work (as the rare opportunity had presented itself), Ol’ Tank and her squealing offspring hung a hard left and rammed smack into the chicken wire fence surrounding my aunts flourishing vegetable garden. The end result was that the old sow’s snotty snout got stuck in a rent in the mesh, and she roared through the heart of the plot, plowing a catawampus six inch furrow with her muzzle through the unarmed rows of defenseless vegetables. The fence mimicked the report of an AK-47 machine gun as the rusty staples rhythmically popped out of their posts, freeing the wire enclosure to flutter in behind her like a 20 foot bridal veil pinned to a red hot mama!!
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Still not tooooo bad, till she mowed a quarter mile x twenty foot swath through the neighbor’s ripe sweet corn patch, her tanklets stopping to eat the spoils.
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Nope. Some days ‘re worse. Back to outfitting the expedition. My weapon of choice was a trusty, rusty, knock-off Red Rider BB gun cobbled together by ole Mont. Wards, and Co. A lever action, spring loaded, bent barreled marvel it was. It was so blame’ powerful that I could spit a BB further than it could shoot one. It was the only gun I ever owned that had to cogitate about what is was supposed to do after I pulled the trigger, and it never came up with the same answer twice. I think it was putting forth an honest effort but simply lacked the mechanical “pedigree” that would have allowed it to succeed. But it was all I had to pack around and, if nothing else, I might be able to brandish the Winchester 76 wannabe and bluff my way outova jam. My “backups” were a “frozen” Cub Scout camping knife that clipped to my play jeans, a Roy Rogers holster and pistol, and a sharpened five foot broom handle spear that doubled as a walking stick. I was as formidable as Custer’s cavalry (who incidentally didn’t fare particularly well one lovely afternoon on a hill in Montana). Next were the field rations that would be required on the campaign. Rations were requisitioned from my aunt’s kitchen while she was out repairing the garden fence. Only the staples that would serve to sculpt me into a man of steel were purloined: 1) leftover fried chicken legs and a gizzard 2) box of Frosted Flakes 3) two bottles of Nehi Grape Soda 4) pop bottle opener (my Cub Scout camping knife was frozen) 5) jar of olives (black) 6) half of a watermelon 7) bottle of ketchup 8) pack of Blackjack gum 9) fork 10) piece of mulberry pie 11) half a loaf of rye bread 12) hard boiled egg (unpeeled) 13) box of Black Crows 14) carrot……yucky but good for ma shootin’ eye 15) fry pan 16) Oreo cookies 17) box of American cheese 18) bag of sugar 19) two cans of Spam 20) and an old iron coffee pot and tin cup; something hot to serve other hombres iffen they rode into camp on a rainy night
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No problemo. I was initially a little nonplused as to how to transport these supplies until I uncovered some dusty (filthy and rotting) gunny-sacks in one of the dilapidated outbuildings. Everything fit easily inside one of these handy “knap-sacks.” It was the “haulage” equation that required a little work.
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With my lunch resting in its wheel-less “grub wagon” on the floor of the kitchen, I was barely able to drag, or for that matter, push it, much less lift it. And though loading all the grub into the sack while it rested on the kitchen table solved the “hoisting” portion of the puzzle, it put forward the question of how my toothpick legs would fare in supporting the vertical stress imparted by my indispensable snack once it was draped over my scrawny shoulders.
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The question was answered when I slid the sack off the table and the full weight of what I had anticipated ingesting was brought to bear on my now shuddering struts.
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Yes, I recall taking several inelegant strides. Unfortunately, they were not in the general direction of my final destination.
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Well, you see, the massive meal instituted a rather high center of gravity, while at the same time causing all of the glycogen molecules in my skinny quad muscles to burn-up simultaneously, triggering a phenomenon commonly known as spontaneous combustion. The upshot was me wearing my “sack-lunch” on the back of my neck, which drove my pointy mandible squarely into my chest as I staggered about the kitchen and into appliances like a burned-out wino bouncing off light-poles, trashcans, and slow-footed beat cops.
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I finally succumbed to the searing pain in my legs and buckled like a K.O.’d boxer, the contents of my “lunch-pale” spewing across the floor, painting it in sooooo many wonderful colors.
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Nope. Stuck a Hershey bar in my back pocket and called it good. So now I’m ready. I grabbed one of my uncle’s old straw hats and a red and white checked kerchief, which I tied around my neck like Roy, and headed for the shop. I had one more crucial item to acquire: an ax.
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I would have preferred a hatchet, but my only choice was ol’ “Hacker,” a fifteen pound chunk of “not so sharp” (play on words) steel affixed to a five foot oak handle of nearly equal weight. It was lazy ‘n slovenly and it went along reluctantly as I literally had to drag it the whole way. It would prove to be untrustworthy and “possessed” as well.
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Keep your…heh heh. I was about to tell you to keep your pants on. Oh well. Keep your shirt on, and I’ll tell you.
^@$%@^&!!
What? No shirt either? Whoda thunk it? Anyway… The trek across Indian Territory proved tedious as Ol’ Tank and her litter were locked in the barn and could provide no proper privation on this foray. Arriving without incident at the railroad property I wished to settle, I noted that my uncle’s dippy chickens were busy scratching about in the dry weeds for corn that had spilled from some grain cars that had passed by the week before. They were the bug-eyed, brainless, scruffy white strain, many of which had bare chicken-skin butts as the feathers on their tails had been pecked off by the bossiest of the brood. They spent more of their time chasing each other off prime feeding grounds than actually eating, which no doubt explained their skinny chicken legs. I paid them little heed as I set about setting up base camp to “bivouac myself.” The first order of business was to gather firewood. It was nigh-on 107 degrees that day, but a roaring hot fire was always in vogue ifen yer a militree man. Noting that all the trees had been cleared from the railroad right-of-way, and that the nearest fuel was growing a quarter mile (25 yards) away, I began to search for an alternative flammable product. And then it hit me…there was miles of it…railroad ties!! Draggin’ ol’ Hacker (kickin’ and screamin’) over to the rails, I mustered every ounce of oomph in my weeny arms and clean-jerked the monstrous maul over my head. For a tiny bit, the unwieldy club hung precariously straight above my bald squash. So far…so good. Unfortunately, when I attempted to guide it down to its wooden target, its hefty head, apparently magically magnetized, drove straight into the top of the rail!! PIIIIIIIIIIIIIINNNGGGgg-g-g-e-e-eeeEEEEOOOOOW!!!
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Oh yeah!! The vibrations ripping up and down my arms I likened to a billion volts of electricity, and for a moment I thought I saw sparks shooting from the tips of my frying fingers!!
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Twas a spark. Twasn’t from my fingers.
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The wallop from the steel hammer on the rail was like a flint being struck, and the resulting glowing ember arched ever so gracefully into the parched grasses. As my arms began to regain their feeling, I noted that a small wisp of smoke was curling up from amongst the feeding chickens and that they were becoming a bit fidgety, and the wisp and a tiny flame was beginning to follow one of the obtuse birds as she paced chaotically across the ground.
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You recall the glowing ember?
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It started a really little fire in the dry grass.
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Right! Right. And as luck would have it, one of the inattentive fowl had only the day before gotten one foot entangled in a foot-long piece of frayed bailing twine, which she carelessly drug through this tiny little flame, which subsequently lit the tip of the frayed twi…….
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Now you’ve got the picture. The other birds had by now begun a low inquisitive clucking, and they all appeared to have acquired disquieting head tics as their noggins snapped in a variety of planes along the xyz axis. It almost appeared as though they were nonchalantly, albeit nervously, whistling with their wings clasped behind their backs as they backed away from the “arsonist” and under the bordering fence. Once under the fence, as if impeccably choreographed, all thirty-some birds spun and began what could be described as a forced march along the fence-line that led towards home. The “mobile match,” who was trying to rejoin her cronies, had just ducked under the border fence when she towed her burning wick under a huge pile of dried out tumble weeds that had blown into the wires the previous fall. It was like putting a match to gasoline. WHOOOOOOOOF!!! A colossal flame and puff of black smoke rolled up behind the terrified birds and in mass, Colonel Sanders Flight Group IV put the HAMMER DOOOOOWN!!!
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The flock was now in a frenzied full blown helter-skelter stampede along the fence-line they had followed from the farm. Their stolid pace had not gone unnoticed by a few fidgety pheasants that had been loafing in the fence’s plum thickets. They, assuming something large and hairy was responsible for the panic, threw in with their dense cousins and bounded into the feathery mayhem. Then, after a moment or two, panic waned and a few of the braver chickens (is that a paradox?) had actually slowed a bit to look over their chicken shoulders when another revolting development occurred.
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The sudden whooooof had ignited the weeds in the fence-line they were following, and like a sputtering fuse, it was pursuing them from behind as it popped and hissed down the rickety enclosure. Now the harried hens were really whistling towards the home place. My uncle has impeccable timing. At the exact moment all this was occurring, he decided to refuel his old Farmall tractor.
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Why is that significant? Because the fuel barrel was located at the very end of the sputtering fence-line fuse. As my credulous uncle slowly raised his eyes from his tractor to see what all the squawking and clucking was about, he saw the oncoming horrified bird herd and burning fuse and swiftly put 2 + 2 together. Tossing the still flowing fuel nozzle onto the oily ground, he hit the starter. Wrawrawrawra-----wrawrawrawrawraaaa-a-a-. “Com’on!! Start you piece of junk!! Staaaaaaart!!” he pleaded. Wrawrawrawra-a-a-a-put-a-put-a-put-a-put-aaaa. WrawrawraVAROOOOM. When Big Red fired off he forgot to clutch, but still managed to jam its chattering gears into “hasty giddy-up” and high-tailed it out of there on the rear two wheels. It was about then that he realized he hadn’t shut off the flow of fuel. Too late. The stream of highly flammable fluid had run down the hill, and it rolled into the end of the fence at exactly the same time as the fire. Following the flames up the hill, I was on hand for the grand finale.
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By my rather crude kid calculations, I gauged the jet of flame shooting from the end of the four hundred gallon barrel at close to thirty feet long when it lifted off its angle iron scaffolding, and a tad shy of forty when the unguided missile and its droopy trailing fuel hose skimmed over the house and rocketed in the general direction of Adams tracing an oily black wiggly line through the lovely blue sky in its wake. About “thirty seconds over Tokyo” and two miles down range, a blinding flash was seen just above the coffee-pot shaped water tower in grandpa’s hometown, and an earsplitting KAWAAAAM followed within a few seconds.
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Has to do with the speed of light being faster than the speed of sound.
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Trouble? TROUBLE?!?! You have to ask?!?! Yes. There was trouble.
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Well for one, all the chickens within a ten square mile grid were put off the roost for pertinear a week by the deafening detonation. That was after a neighborhood chicken roundup. Some of them were scootin’ down O Street in Lincoln thirty miles to the north before we caught up to ‘em.
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Yup. And half the windows in Adams had to be replaced along with several hearing aids.
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Yup. And I worked the rest of the summer to replace the fuel barrel.
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Uh huh. And the very worst—I had to haul water to the guys repairing the ten foot doozy of a hole in the water tower, and I hate heights!!
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And paint out the last three letters of the town name that were still visible on the side of the tower after the blast scorched off the other two.
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DAM. ----------------oh my! Yeah. The letters sorta fit. And ya know, I really...really wanted to catch up to that imbecile chicken and remove her head from her shoulders.
@%*@$@#!@**!!!
Oh relax. Of course not! It’s not like I could ever drag ol’ Hacker fast enough to catch her. Who loves ya, baby? Grandpa Mike
Suggested music: One Little Slip…….Barenaked Ladies/Chicken Little Soundtrack |