Livin' Small

I was just listening to Robert D. Raeford on the John Boy & Billy Big Show.  He was telling a story a guy sent in.  It was about buzzard hunting.  He and his buddy would lay on the ground near buzzard sitings and pretend to be dead hoping they would land on them at which time they would spring to life and grab them.  Sorry they didn’t smell dead, so they never caught one. 

This reminded me of a story about my brother Danny and me.  We didn’t have guns at the time.  We were too young to handle such lethal weapons, but a butcher knife, now that was a different story.  We were sitting around wondering what we could do that would be exciting on such a morning.  You know how idle minds work. . . 

We had been pulling cockleburs in the bean fields around this time and while doing so we’d seen many rabbits eating the soy bean leaves.  Ah, we saw a plan coming together.  Butcher knives and rabbits.  So we took off to the soy bean field with butcher knives in hand. 

All we really had to do was walk across the end of the rows and watch for rabbits sitting in the row alleys and then we’d spring into action.  There were probably three or four hundred rows of beans, but it didn’t take but maybe a couple of dozen rows before we spotted one.  It was sitting on the side of the row nibblin’ away at the leaves.  Danny and I looked at each other and then back at the rabbit.  Apparently he had seen us.  Probably thinking he was safe even with us, he still took a hop up into the top of the row inside the bean stalks out of site. 

So, Danny and I got in the alleys on either side of the row and started walked stealthily towards our prey with knives at the ready.  We were feeling the moment.  Closer, closer and closer we got.  No motion for our prey.  As we got within less than four or five feet, we raised our knives ready to strike.  But we underestimated something.  Rabbits fight back apparently.  That rabbit jumped straight up out of the bean row and landed square against Danny’s chest, knocking him on his back in the alley and took off.  I jumped the row, but the rabbit had escaped our cunning abilities. 

I looked down and there lay Danny trying to catch his breath.  The rabbit’s attack has knocked the breath out of him.  He just lay there on his back trying to suck in air with knife still in hand.  Whew!  Thank goodness the rabbit didn’t turn his weapon on Danny.  He’d a been a goner for sure.  What an embarassment, but all I could do was laugh.   

Well after Danny recovered and got up we were too disappointed at our attempt so we went back home to find something else to do.  There wasn’t much refining that attempt at excitement.  So we didn’t do that anymore.  The rabbit was right.  What good were we at knife hunting rabbits anyway?

The not-so great pretender: Man falls off bridge

Drunken stunt ends with joker tumbling 30 feet into marsh, police say

BLOOMINGTON, Minn. – A 23-year-old man is in stable condition after he plummeted off a bridge over the Minnesota River while pretending to fall off the structure.

Police got a call just before 5 a.m. Sunday from a 21-year-old man who said his friend fell off the Highway 77 bridge and into a marshy area about 30 feet below.

The caller said he was driving north when his friend, who he said had been drinking, told him to pull into the bridge’s emergency lane so he could urinate.

The 23-year-old eventually climbed to the ledge of the bridge, then looked at his friend and pretended to fall. “He then in fact fell,” according to a press release from the Bloomington Police Department.

Police from Bloomington and Eagan responded, and the Eagan Fire Department used a chair lift to retrieve the man. He was transported to Hennepin County Medical Center, where he was treated.

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This story evoked a story about my youth.  It seems lately to be the thing with me when I see certain stories.  This story is about when I was an early teen.  My brother Danny and friend Dwight were “feeling it” one day.  We had to hatch a plan.  There was this set of bridges around the corner from the house.  One we called the big bridge and the other the little bridge.  Come on, we had big imaginations.  After all our tiny community was called Small. 

The big bridge had scrapple under the bridge to prevent the dirt from washing away from under the road where the bridge met the ground.  Okay, maybe I need to describe scrapple to the ladies.  Scrapple is large rocks from granite quarries.  They will range in size, but to give an average they probably weigh in at about seven to ten pounds and are about the size of a bowling ball. 

This scrapple was to be placed on the bridge rail over the water in the creek.  One of us would stand on the bridge rail along side of this rock and the other two of us would stand on the bridge roadway and wait for an oncoming car. 

When a car was spotted the two of us would pretend to fight near the one standing on the rail and as the car would near we would “bump” the one standing on the rail and at the same time push the rock into the water.  The water would splash while the one of us standing on the rail would land on the bank below.  This wasn’t a big drop.  It was probably only seven or eight feet at the most.  We just had to watch for moccasins.  We had our share of snakes.  Fortunately we never encountered one in all our tries at this adventure. 

We did this a few times till one particular time.  It was the scariest one.  We had ourselves poised at the ready and as the car approached we went through the routine and all went well.  The water splashed well up over the bridge rail.  The car was traveling quite fast and when the guy saw the water splash, he came to a screeching, tire dragging halt right on the bridge and jumped out and hung over the rail looking for a drowning victim, only to find Dwight standing on the bank brushing his pants off.  Boy, was this guy upset.  I thought he was going to beat all three of us, take us to our parents and have them beat us too, which was the custom in Small when kids were found doing stuff they ought not to. 

We were fortunate though.  He just gave us a good tongue lashing and we never did that again.  That’s something ain’t it?  You find something fun to do and the adults ruin it for all of us.

I’m not particularly inspired today, but I thought I’d test the waters to see if anything is there.  I’ve been feeling kinda lonely lately.  It must be a cycle.  Come to think of it, just how many cycles can there be?

lifecycle

bicycle

unicycle

recycle

menstrual cycle

moon cycle

bio-cycles

cycles of depression

water cycle (water, vapor, cloud, rain or solid, liquid, gas)

aliquot cycles

seasonal cycles

deeper debt cycles  (I’ve been riding this one for quite some time.)

harmonic cycles

climatic cycles

biogeochemical cycles

generational cycles

short cycles

long cycles

moderate cycles

wash cycles

You came in the back door

Your smile

Made my heart soar

Your arms

Are what I yearned for

Your lips

Kisses, I want more

Your hug

My heart melted to the floor

Your strength

From you I drew more

A fresh charge of life

From this day

No more strife

All I can say

You give me life.

Sometimes I feel young

Sometimes I feel old.

Back where I came from

Us Rowe men of my clan

Died, no longer in the fold.

By the age of sixty I’m told

This would be my time to go

I was told by my old man

On this I’m not sold.

Sixty, plus I am

With many years to go,

A lady to love.

She loves me, you know.