Storytellers...

  Are you a storyteller?

  Do you have the storyteller gene?

  Are you nurturing your storytelling skill?

  What is a storyteller?  I think the first requirement is you need to remember stuff.  You remember things most folks have forgotten.  Of course, when you venture into things other folks have forgotten they may think your stories are apocryphal, a twenty-five-dollar-word that simply means they think you’re full of shit, your stories can’t be verified, they’re pulled from the mists of time, pulled from a time that few remember.  That’s the risk a storyteller runs. 
  I couldn't tell you why I like to tell tales.  Maybe there's a part of me that wants to tell someone a tale so they'll beware of certain pitfalls in life, that "thar be dragons" out there on the primrose-lined path of life.  Maybe I just want to entertain.  Maybe it's telling a tale of an interesting tid-bit of family history.

  My brother has questioned a number of my tales of family life through the years.  My brother is not a storyteller.  Many times after I told a tale of life when I lived with our grandparents and such he’d say, “Oh I don’t believe that.”

  “Are you calling me a liar, bro?” I asked him one time.

  He paused.

  “No,” he said, “I’ve just never heard this stuff before.

  Veracity is the realm of the researcher, reporter, historian and teacher.  The telling of the tale, ah, that’s the realm of storytellers.

  I think I got the “storytelling gene” from my grandmother, my father’s mother…I lived with her and my grandfather my last years in high school.  My grandmother would sit in her easy chair, a filterless Raleigh cigarette in her right hand, as she told story after story of life in the mountains of western Virginia.

  My oldest daughter has the storyteller gene too.

  I have no research to back this up but I believe the best storytellers mostly come from out here in "The Golden West" or the American South. 

  That’s where Coach Bob* was from.

  Bob’s gone now, but he’s one of those folks I’ll remember all my life.  When I saw the movie “Big Fish” I thought of Bob, the teller of tall tales, tales you couldn’t really verify, they were believable but you weren’t quite sure if they were possible.

  Like his tale of running the bar at the non-com club on Okinawa during the Korean War.

  “Yeah, I had this monkey at the bar,” Bob said, “and if I needed to cut someone off, I’d have the monkey go over and piss in the guy’s drink.” 

  There was the story of how Bob ended up in Roswell.

  “Yeah, me and the family were headed west and we broke down out there on the Caprock east of Roswell.  I hitched a ride into town, asked if they needed a coach.  They did.  I had a job in a couple of hours, then me and the players went back to the family, hooked up the car and came back to town.”

  I found out sometime later Bob had the job lined up, the family just broke down just before they got to Roswell.  For years I believed Bob had landed the coach’s job just like he said.

  In his life Coach Bob had fought in the Korean War, sold houses, had his own country music show and more.  He told lots of stories, lots of jokes. 

  And he remembered.

  Coach Bob had a mind like a steel trap, as they say.

  One day in 1996, sitting in his home in Roswell he told me a poem he called “The Water Cure.”  It was so good I wrote it down.

  “Sometime when you’re feeling important, sometime when your ego’s in bloom; sometime when you take it for granted you’re the best qualified in the room; sometime when you feel that your going would leave an unfillable hole;  just follow these simple instructions and see how they humble your soul.

  “Take a bucket and fill it with water, put your hand in it up to the wrist; pull it out, and the hole that’s remaining, is a measure of how you’ll be missed.

  “You can splash all you wish when you enter, you may stir up the water galore;
but stop and you’ll find that in no time it looks quite the same as before.

  “The moral of this quaint example, is do just the best that you can.  Be proud of yourself but remember, there’s no indispensable man.”

  “I memorized that for my players,” Bob said.  “When you have a team of young’uns, you have a few that come through who think they’re the end-all to beat-all.  I’d make them listen to me recite those words.”

  For years I thought it was something Coach Bob made up.  Then when The Great and Powerful Internet was in full flower I did a little poking around and found out the poem was first published in 1959, written by Saxon White Kessinger and titled “The Indispensable Man.”  What struck me as I saw the familiar words on a website was I had it written in my journal just as Coach Bob had recited it, he knew that poem word for word after so many years.

Coach Bob was a storyteller, and a good one at that.  He may have embellished the truth a bit, but so what?

So if you’re a storyteller, tell those tales.

They help us all remember, make us smile.

And make us think.

-30-

*Name changed

Tales Of Rifles, Shotguns and Pistols...

  The great Texas singer Steve Fromholz died back in 2014.  I only found out recently how he died…he was putting a loaded rifle in a pickup truck, going out on his central Texas ranch to hunt feral hogs that were killing his baby goats.

The rifle slipped and a bullet went flying.  The bullet hit Fromholz and he died on the way to the hospital.

  Fromholz wrote and sang good stuff, back in 2007 he was named Texas’ “Poet Laureate.”

  Helluva way to go…in a rifle accident. 

  It got me to thinking about rifles, shotguns, pistols and such.           

  There aren’t any firearms at my house.

  It’s not a big deal.  I don’t preach about my position.  It’s kinda like politics and religion…once upon a time it wasn’t polite to talk about either amongst friends lest arguing ensue.  Once upon a time that was a rule of etiquette.

  But having said that, I never understood folks who have to have a bunch of weapons in their home.  I understand some folks having a rifle, shotgun or two.  But an arsenal?

  I come from a time when if The National Rifle Association crossed my mind I thought, “Oh yeah, the guys who come to our Boy Scout meetings to teach us gun safety.”

  There were no firearms in my mom and dad’s home.

  If I ever wanted to do some shootin’ I knew folks who had a rifle or a shotgun and they’d let me shoot.

  I don’t know why Dad didn’t have a pistol, rifle or shotgun…it never came up in conversation.  There was never any big statement, no political stance, nothing.  There just wasn’t a rifle, pistol or shotgun in “the old home place.”  I mean the closest thing that WAS there was an old .22 rifle from around 1900 or so.  It didn’t work.

  Now my dad did have a BB pistol under his socks in his top drawer but that’s about it.  Then it turned up in the glove compartment of the family car. 

  One time, when I was about 12, my mom and sister left me in the car while they went shopping.  I played with the radio for a bit, then I opened the glove box and there it was...the BB pistol I was forbidden to touch. 

  I got it out of the glove box, turned it around in my hands, admired it, then I pulled the hammer back.  I wondered what would I do with it now. 

  If I fired it in the car it might ricochet around and hit me.  So I put my thumb back on the hammer and eased it back into a safe position.  But the hammer slipped, then a BB flew and smacked against the windshield leaving a small nick.  My dad had quite the temper so I never said a word, but he couldn’t figure out why the car’s windshield was nicked from the inside.

  It seems I’ve had some close calls with firearms.

  Shotguns were always around when I went camping in the Boy Scouts.  I belonged to what some have termed a “rogue” troop, meaning it wasn’t like any Boy Scout troop I’ve ever heard about.  I assure you, 99 percent of America’s Boy Scout troops are unlike this one…it’s seed-bed of many tales that I may make into a book someday. 

  One of the guys in the troop, Woody*, seemed to always have a shotgun or rifle of one type or another when we went camping.  One camp-out he might have a .410, another time a .20 gauge and then there was that time he brought his 30.06 rifle, won a big box of candy with a busty “nekkid” lady on the cover and got into some mischief with a stick of dynamite.  

  One camp out night inside the troop’s big three sided shelter back in the mountains, after the younger scouts had hit the hay, some of us older scouts and the adult leaders were kicking back. Woody produced his .20 gauge inside the shelter.  While I sat nearby, Scoutmaster Pete and Woody proceeded to get into a terse discussion about the weapon’s safety being on.

  “Sure it’s on,” Woody said.

  Suddenly there was this loud “BLAM” and little pinging noises all over the place.  The shotgun had gone off.  And the cabin had a new little skylight about 4 inches across.  We were still finding shotgun pellets inside the place for the next few months.

  In high school I had a friend, Monty, who was always going dove hunting.  I was invited on one “big hunt.”  I even went out and bought some shotgun shells at the local Sears store.   

  I arrived at Monty’s house unaware that he and my buddy Catfish raided the fridge at Monty’s and enjoyed a few of his daddy’s “brewskis” therein.

  Out into the fields we went on our merry hunt.  Suddenly a covey of quail took to the sky.  Catfish was behind me, over my right shoulder.  There was an explosion in my right ear.  Catfish had fired on the quail, the muzzle of his shotgun just inches from my right ear.  I didn’t hear well out of that ear for a few days.

  In my late 20’s I decided it was time to have a pistol.  I couldn’t think of a good reason why I shouldn’t have one but then I really didn’t have a good reason why I should have one.  I went to a gun shop and bought a classic .22 revolver.

  And it sat in my home.

  I took it camping in the West Virginia mountains one time.  I would take it out and look at it and wonder where I was going to shoot it.  I remembered stories of people being hit by stray bullets in the forest.  I put on my holster and walked boldly through the campground.  I had become “The Great Outdoorsman,” exercising his “right to bear arms,” going off to find an embankment to shoot into.  I found such a place deep in the woods away from the campground.  I fired a few rounds, knocked off a few pine cones.  Then I sat there, wondering why I had this thing.  The pistol was holstered and The Great Outdoorsman marched back to his campsite. 

  Later that evening while I was grilling up some sausages, peppers and onions a guy moseyed into my campsite.  He was younger than me, slender, beard.  Hell, if we had been suddenly transported 30 years into the future I would have called him a “Millenial.”

  “Hi there,” I said.  “Somethin’ I can do for you?”

  “Yeah, ummm,” he paused.  “Me and my friends were wondering if you might not walk through the campground with your pistol strapped on.  It’s pretty intimidating.”

  I locked eyes with the guy and smiled.

  “Hell, buddy,” I said, “It’s just a .22 peashooter.”

  “Well, okay,” he said, “But we’re just visiting here and it’s pretty intimidating.”

  “Where y’all visiting from?” I asked.

  “Northern Virginia,” he said.

  “Ah, D.C.,” I said. 

  “Well, that IS where we all work,” said the visitor.

  “Well welcome to ‘Wild, Wonderful West Virginia,” I said, laughing.

  He smiled.

  “Okay, buck-o, you got it,” I said.  “Ain’t nothin’ that says I’ve GOT to wear my pistol around the campground.

  “Thank you, sir,” he said.  The visitor turned and walked away.

  Like I said, I didn’t know why I had the thing.

  I had a girlfriend back then who used to get “spells” where she’d fly into rages.  It was with her in mind that I stored the pistol in one place and its cylinder, you know…the spinny-thingy that holds the bullets…in another.

  One afternoon, an afternoon that featured one of those “spells” I mentioned, I woke up from a nap to find her standing over me, the pistol pointed at my head…the pistol minus the cylinder.

  And she was pulling the trigger over and over again.

  CLICK * CLICK * CLICK *

  I kept the girlfriend for a bit longer figuring all she needed in life was a heavy dose of good times.

  Months later I found out I was wrong, another story…one I may or may not tell someday.

  But I got rid of the revolver right away.

  I took the pistol back to the gun shop where the owner bought it back.

  I lived in a remote place one time so I bought an air pistol.

  “What good will that do you against a burglar,” a friend asked.

  “I figure if I shoot the guy with a pellet gun it will hurt and he’ll run away.”

  “That’ll just make the guy mad.”

  I did like the way a friend handled an intruder in the Hondo Valley west of Roswell some years ago.  He was awakened by the sound of someone in his ranch house.  My friend grabbed his shotgun and went out in the hall where he found the burglar down the corridor a ways.

  He did the pump action thing on the weapon, racking a shell into the chamber.

  He kept staring at the intruder down the hall.

  “You see what I got here,” said my pal, shouldering the shotgun, aiming it at the burglar.  “Now if you turn around and get the hell out of here we can both forget this happened.”

  The intruder turned and ran.  After that my friend started locking doors…he hadn’t before.

  Truth be told I DO have a rifle in the house…an air rifle.

  It’s a nice, solid thing…wood stock, steel barrel and workings.

  I haven’t fired it since the day I bought it, a dozen or so years ago.

  I bought it because I had one just like it years ago.

  The guy at the store where I bought it said it was a Chinese import that recruits in the Chinese Army practiced with for starters.  I have no way to check on the truth of that.

  But it’s got a wee bit of kick to it.

  Truth be told if someone broke into my home I probably would break out my air rifle…except…I’d be more inclined to use the butt end as a weapon ‘cos I’d be pissed someone was messing around in my home.

  I suppose there are all kinds of reasons to have a pistol, rifle or shotgun.  But you know, aside from the safety questions, you really have to take care of them with cleaning and oiling and such and I’m kinda lazy.

  Then too, I remember the lyrics from a Waylon Jennings song “The Devil’s Right Hand.”  The guy in the song gets his first pistol, “but I soon found out, it’ll get you into trouble but it can’t get you out.”

                                                            -30-

*Names changed as a CYA maneuver on my part.  I reckon the proper acronym should be “CMA maneuver.”

What To Do With the Body

  News story…. 

  It seems a family had donated a loved one’s body “to science” upon the loved one’s death.  I didn’t get all the details but there was a big dust-up because the family found out that the medical facility that received the body sold off some of the dead person’s body parts.

  It’s a perfectly legal thing to do here in New Mexico.  For instance as part of the report a TV station covering the story ordered a real human foot for just over $300. 

  Lots of folks get weird when you talk about death and “final arrangements” and stuff.

  It’s hard for some people to grasp that it’s part of the deal of coming here to Planet Earth…you’re born, you die.

  Death opens up a huge discussion amongst folks.  The bottom line is, though, the spiritual deal is an individual thing…you know, where you go, who you see, what happens next.  The fact is, once a person is called off the Great Stage of Life the survivors must decide what to do with the leftover biomechanical suit.

  Funerals…people coming and going to view the body, services and such…are one thing, what to actually factually do with the remains are another.

  But now there are more options than there used to be.

  For instance, imagine my amazement when a few years ago I found out that a person can be made into a diamond after they die.

  This opens up a whole world of new possibilities and weirdness.

   I found this out after reading people are requesting when they die and are cremated, their ashes be mixed in with concrete to be made part of artificial reefs off the Pacific coast.  In the course of the article it mentioned the diamond thing.

  It turns out that once you’re cremated your ashes may be sent off to this company that will put those ashes through a process that will result in a diamond.  We are, after all, a carbon-based being so our ashes (I’m guessing here) are carbon ash.  Diamonds are nothing more than highly compressed carbon. 

  It was only after watching an old episode of “CSI Miami” I learned the process for making diamonds exists.

  Once the cremated remains are put through the process the result is a rough diamond.  The jewelers at the “we-make-a-diamond-out-of-your-ashes” company then send your loved ones a very nice cut diamond.  The price is roughly $13,000 per carat.  The smallest job they’ll do costs around $2,000.

  I’m finding out more and more folks are opting for cremation.  Ashes can be made into glass ornaments, jewelry, stuff like that.

  Of course there’s always the same old thing of simply disposing of the ashes.

 My mom always talked about cremation for herself.  When I was a kid she wanted her ashes left on a high point along the Appalachian Trail.  Then she wanted them taken out into the Atlantic Ocean.  She didn’t want a funeral, she wanted to simply be remembered. 

  The original plan was that sometime after she passed he, my sister and I would ride out in his boat into the Atlantic.  Each of us will say a few words then put my mom’s ashes out to sea.

  In the end half of her ashes were put by my dad’s grave in Virginia, the other half went to Waikiki Beach in Hawai’I, a place she dearly loved and where we lived once upon a time.

  Me?  The Lady of the House says she’d like to make a funeral pyre for me in the back yard, shovel up the ashes and mix it in with the dirt in her tomato patch.

  What we do with people is one thing, pets are another.  Many years ago I discovered people freeze dried their dead pets.  I suppose having beloved cats and dogs stuffed has been going on for years.  Those who have it done say freeze drying gives the late animal a more “life-like” appearance.

  I had read where people are taking the ashes of cremated pets and mixing the stuff with resin.  The resulting paste (I guess that’s what it’s called) is then formed into shapes and squiggles around a photo of the pet in a frame.

  I once proposed the same thing be done with people, except using the resin pressed into a form to make an actual picture frame that would hold a photo of the deceased.

  My idea was greeted with derision by my pals.

  “What if you could see the actual bone fragments?”

  “Well if that bothers someone I suppose before you made the resin you could grind it up into a finer powder,” I replied.

  People still did not think this was a good idea.

  It’s kinda sorta like my idea of making a used hearse into a camper.

  “Dead people have been back there.”

  “But they’re not there now,” I would say.  “Look, those things are nice and roomy.  Besides, the great musician Neil Young used to drive one around Hollywood in the 1960’s.”

  Folks would then remind me I was on The High Plains and it was no longer the 1960’s.

  I think turning me into a diamond after I die sounds like a neat idea.

  “I could wear you around my neck,” said The Lady of the House.  “You could be watching over me while I date new guys.”

  Maybe I should think about it some more.

-30-

The Rogue Boy Scout Troop: Fun with Dynamite

  There was a story in the news from Connecticut about a woman losing a few fingers due to an encounter with a stick of dynamite.

  The woman and her husband had moved into a house a few months back.  A storm hit the northeast and knocked out power in the couple’s area.

  Then the woman remembered when they were moving into their new digs she saw a couple of candles on a shelf in the basement so she went downstairs to get one.

  What she lit wasn’t a wick, it was a fuse…it wasn’t a candle, it was a stick of dynamite.

  The story was never told as to why the previous homeowner had dynamite in the basement nor did we ever find out how someone mistakes a stick of dynamite for a candle.

  And I never did find out why Scoutmaster Pete* left a box of dynamite under the lodge at Boy Scout Camp instead of at his li’l ol’ farm.

  I should explain.

  The Connecticut incident brought back a memory of time spent in what I now call my “Rogue Boy Scout Troop.”  Of course back in the day I didn’t know it was a rogue Boy Scout troop then but as the years have passed it became clear I was in a troop where the leaders’ drinking whiskey and beer and getting away from their wives for the weekend was the priority as opposed to by-the-book Boy Scoutin’.

  About once a month our troop would go off on camping or backpacking trips in the mountains of western Virginia.  Lots of times we’d go on backpacking trips along the Appalachian Trail.  Sometimes we’d go to the place we called “Boy Scout Camp.”  This was a few acres of woodland in the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains.

  The camp had a three-sided lodge made out of old railroad ties, big enough to hold maybe 20 scouts and leaders in sleeping bags.  There was a running stream, there was a mountain spring and there was a freshly built pond stocked with Rainbow Trout.  Boy Scout Camp was owned by the church that our troop called home.

  Most of the work on the camp had been done by Scoutmaster Pete*.  Scoutmaster Pete had hauled in the old railroad ties to build the shelter.  Scoutmaster Pete had brought in the bulldozer to dig out the fish pond. 

  And it was Scoutmaster Pete who brought the dynamite to Boy Scout Camp.

  I really didn’t know much about Scoutmaster Pete except he worked with Scoutmaster Dick at the Big Pharma plant in town.  I knew that Scoutmaster Pete had a wife and kid and as a kid myself I didn’t give much thought to him often leaving them at home when he went on Boy Scout adventures.  As an adult I did wonder why a man would leave his wife and daughter alone while he did his scoutmastering.  I found out years later that Pete had gone to the same university as me but many years earlier, that he and his wife divorced in the late ‘70’s and he retired to Costa Rica where he died, just 65 years old.

  If Scoutmaster Pete wasn’t taking the whole troop on a weekend expedition he would often go on more rugged adventures with Scoutmaster Dick and some of the older scouts like canoeing flooded creeks or backcountry backpacking trips.

  Pete and Dick liked to mess with the locals on these trips, like the time their merry, rough-looking, fresh-from-camping band descended on the nice restaurant at Peaks of Otter Lodge on the Blue Ridge Parkway.

  The waiter came to take their order.

  Everybody at the table ordered and then it was Scoutmaster Dick’s turn.

  Dick grew up in Maine.  His family was French-Canadian.  French was his second language.

  Dick ordered in French. 

  The waiter turned to Pete.

  “What did he say?”

  “Hell, I don’t know,” said Pete, “He’s a hitchhiker we picked up along the way.  We’re treating him to breakfast.”

  Scoutmaster Dick spoke some more French.

  “I don’t know what to do,” said the waiter.

  “Hell, son, go find someone who can speak whatever language he’s speaking,” said Pete.

  The waiter went on that mission while Dick stifled a laugh in his napkin.

  The waiter came back with a guy.

  “Habla Español, señor?” asked the man.

  Dick spoke more French.

  The Spanish speaker turned to the waiter.

  “This fellow is speaking French,” said the man.

  It took a few minutes but the waiter returned with a French speaker and Dick ordered his breakfast.  And on the way home they laughed and laughed.

  Anyway…

  Scoutmaster Pete brought in the railroad ties for the camping shelter, the bulldozer to scoop out the pond…

…and that dynamite.

  So one winter Monday at one of our weekly troop meetings some of the older scouts, like the ones who had driver’s licenses, asked if any of us younger scouts wanted to go on a weekend trip to Boy Scout Camp.  It was one of those months where the scoutmasters couldn’t take us on a weekend campout.

  Six of us met up at the church Friday evening.  We were going to ride to Boy Scout Camp with Eagle Scout Woody and Junior Assistant Scoutmaster Larry.  Junior Assistant Scoutmaster Larry was a nondescript kind of guy…I think he grew up to be an accountant and have a wife and 2.0 kids.  Eagle Scout Woody was what one might call a “character.”  He always seemed to be getting into trouble of one kind or another.  There was the time he had to be rescued from a country bar where he went to use his fake ID to buy beer.  Or the time he drank all of Scoutmaster Pete’s cooking wine…Scoutmaster Pete liked to pan fry his camping steaks in an iron skillet with some Mogen David wine….high class livin’, tell you what…

  Anyway, Boy Scout Camp was just an hour out of town.  Soon we were packed up and headed for the mountains.

  The older scouts drove down the forest trail in the dark and soon we were at the shelter.  Soon we had a roaring fire going, had the Coleman lanterns lit up and there we were.

  “I saw they’s havin’ a shootin’ match at the head of the holler,” said Eagle Scout Woody, “I’m goin’ up there, anyone wanna come with me?”

  “I’ll go,” I piped up.

  No one else wanted to go.

  Eagle Scout Woody grabbed his 30.06 rifle, put it in the front trunk of his beat up Corvair and soon he and I were headed on down the forest trail to the shootin’ match.

  Eagle Scout Woody pulled into the farmyard with the other cars and pickup trucks, grabbed his 30.06 out of the front trunk and moseyed inside the little farm’s barn.

  There were locals of all shapes and sizes inside the big ol’ barn.  Big fat ol’ red-cheeked farmers chewin’ tobacco, young muscular farm guys, pinch-faced old men.  Lots of Coleman lanterns lit the place up.

  “That’ll be 2 dollars, boys,” said a big ol’ man wearing bib overalls, a hand pointed at Eagle Scout Woody another hand pointed at me.

  “You didn’t tell me it was gonna cost anything,” I said to Eagle Scout Woody.

  “You ain’t got two dollars?” he asked, reaching for his wallet.

  “Well, yeah,” I said.

  “Well quit yer bitchin’ and pay the man,” said Eagle Scout Woody.

  At a shootin’ match you put your initials on the back of a target, the target is sent by pulley out to the back of the barn up against a bunch of hay bales.  You take your turn shooting at the target and if a bullet, any bullet, goes through or gets closest to your initials you win that match.  50 cents each match.

  Eagle Scout Woody strode up to take his shot.

  “You ain’t from ‘round here, are you boy,” said Bib Overalls.  “You ain’t usin’ that 30-ought-6 in my barn, you’ll blow a damn hole in the back wall.”

  Eagle Scout Woody and Bib Overalls eyeballed each other.

  Bib Overalls handed Eagle Scout Woody a .22 rifle.

  “Just use these li’l ol’ peashooters here, boy.”

  Eagle Scout Woody took his shot for five matches. 

  Fifth match he won.

  Just like all the other winners Eagle Scout Woody got a round of applause.

  Eagle Scout Woody gave a smile to all around then he turned to Bib Overalls…

  “What’d I win, boss?”

  Bib Overalls turned around, reached behind a counter and presented Eagle Scout Woody with a big ol’ five pound box of candy with a naked lady on the lid.  She was blonde, smiling, standing by a pool in the sunshine with a big bouquet of flowers held strategically below her bellybutton.

  The “Nekkid Lady Box of Candy” as it became known in troop lore occupied a place of honor next to Eagle Scout Woody’s bunk for the weekend.

  Saturday dawned crisp and cold, sun filtering through the pines highlighting spots of snow from the storm a week or so earlier.

  A fire was built, we all whipped up our own breakfasts.  Some of us had freeze-dried bacon and eggs (just add boiling water and stir!).  I made some Quaker Oats instant oatmeal…apples and cinnamon…I ate a lot of that when I was a kid.  As an older dude I learned it was not much more than high carbohydrate sugared slop.  Did I mention to you I have The Diabetes?

  “Ho, HO!” came a voice from back of the shelter, “Look what I found.”

  It was the voice of Eagle Scout Woody.

  He came around the corner from the back of the shelter with a small box marked “FRAGILE” and “DANGER” all over it.  He moseyed over to the fire pit.

  “I found Scoutmaster Pete’s dynamite stash,” said Eagle Scout Woody.

  He opened the box and we all peered inside.

  It was the first time I’d ever seen a real, live stick of dynamite…eight of ‘em.

  “Damn,” said Larry.  “You need to put that shit back where you found it.”

  “You’re such a pussy,” said Eagle Scout Woody.  “This shit can’t hurt us…no fuses…no blasting caps.”

  Us younger scouts stood around and looked at the box with wide eyes.

  “What the hell is Pete doing leaving that here?”

  “Probably to keep it away from his house,” said Eagle Scout Woody.  He took a stick out of the box.  “C’mon, let’s go have some fun.”

  “NO,” said Larry, “I outrank you and I say NO.”

  “Oh jeez, I’m so scared, Big Larry the Junior Assistant Scoutmaster is pulling rank.”

  Eagle Scout Woody went for his 30-ought-6, grabbed it out of his car trunk and headed down the road toward the fish pond.

  “WOODY!” yelled Larry, “IT’S DANGEROUS!”

  “I KNOW WHAT THE HELL I’M DOING,” yelled Eagle Scout Woody, not looking back…one hand holding his rifle slung over his shoulder like a marching soldier, the other holding the stick of dynamite.

  “Damn,” said Larry.  He looked around, picked up the box of dynamite and put it under the shelter.  “Come on guys, let’s go see what he’s up to.”

  We followed Larry down the road to the fish pond…

…where we found Eagle Scout Woody standing, the butt of his 30.06 resting on his hip, holding it with the barrel pointed in the air.

  “I knew y’all couldn’t resist.”

  “Where’s the dynamite?” asked Larry.

  Eagle Scout Woody pointed out to the middle of the frozen pond.

  There in the sunshine on the white pond ice was the lone stick of dynamite.

  Eagle Scout Woody shouldered his 30.06 and squeezed off a shot.

  BLAM!

  A hole appeared in the ice about a foot from the dynamite.

  “You mean it’ll blow up without a fuse?” asked Ronnie, one of the other younger scouts.

  “One bullet meets a stick of dynamite….KABOOM!” said Eagle Scout Woody as he slid another bullet into the rifle and handed the rifle to Larry.

  “Hell no,” said Larry crossing his arms.

  “You’re gonna kill all the fish in the pond,” I said matter-of-factly.

  “You’re fulla shit, McGee,” said Eagle Scout Woody.  “I may kill a few but not all of them.”

  We younger scouts stood and watched.

  Well, except Ronnie.

  “Lemme take a shot, Woody,” said Ronnie.

  Eagle Scout Woody looked at Ronnie sideways.

  “You think you can hit that, boy?”

  “Damn straight,” said Ronnie, puffing up his chest.

  Eagle Scout Woody handed the rifle to Ronnie.

  Ronnie squeezed off a shot.

  BLAM!

  Another hole appeared in the ice about 5 feet away from the dynamite.

  “Damn, boy,” said Eagle Scout Woody as he took back his rifle, “You suck.”

  He eased another bullet in the lever-action 30.06.

  He offered the rifle to Larry.

  “You SURE you don’t want to take a shot, Larry?”

  The two older boys stared at each other.

  “Alright, you sonuva bitch,” said Larry and with that took the rifle and squeezed off a sh…

KABOOOOM !!!!!

  A big-assed plume of water shot skyward.

  Ronnie fell backwards on his butt.

  “Sheeeee-it,” said Eagle Scout Woody, starting to laugh.

  Larry stared out to the center of the pond and watched as the mist from the blast cleared.

  There in the middle of the pond was a big hole in the ice, maybe 20 feet across.

  And one by one motionless fish started to appear in the hole.

  “Oh hell,” said Junior Assistant Scoutmaster Larry, still holding the rifle, staring at the hole.

  Eagle Scout Woody sat down on a tree stump.  He laughed and laughed and laughed.

  And more dead fish filled up the big hole in the ice.

E P I L O G U E

  That was the last time our troop went camping without the scoutmasters. 

  I was a kid and I didn’t know all the stuff that went on with the older scouts and the adults.

  So I never heard how Pete figured out what happened.  Could have been something as simple as he drove out to Boy Scout Camp one weekend, saw all the dead fish and discovered that one of his sticks of dynamite was missing.

  Years later when I was an older scout and Pete and Eagle Scout Woody weren’t Boy Scoutin’ anymore Scoutmaster Dick told me that Pete got Larry and Woody to pay him back for all the dead fish because Pete believed the blast did kill all the fish in the pond.  Scoutmaster Dick didn’t know how much money that was.

  And I never found out why the hell Scoutmaster Pete stored his box of dynamite under the lodge at Boy Scout Camp.

-30-

*All names fictionalized…