For Bou

I was reading over at blog-sis Boudicca's, and ended up laughing so hard that I had tears forming in my eyes. It's not just because of her boys' testing the safety features of underwear, or her reaction to it. The mental picture of her youngest suiting up for the testing had me in stitches...

About a week ago, she posted about her boys throwing rocks at each other. I thought to ease her fears, and tell her some of the stories of us growing up. Then I realized that I would only be adding to her terror. However, they are only doing typical guy things... so I'll mention a couple of things. Not to increase her worries, but so that she knows they are only "normal."

That rock thing? Yeah, we did that. Dirt clods, especially when attached to a corn stalk, mud, sticks, and rocks were all thrown without intention of killing. Sometimes a sharpened implement might be thrown in anger... I remember an incident where I pissed off The Perfect One, and he launched a hatchet at me. I'd like to say that it was my cat-like reflexes that kept me safe, but I was running in the other direction when it sailed past my head.

The rock thing did get a little out of hand when we started playing baseball with a large plastic baseball bat and larger pieces of gravel. Yes, we were warned about rocks and pain, but it's only a suggestion until an incident occurs. Well, I caught a rock with the top of my head... I had bent over to pick up another rock after I pitched, and the line drive took me dead center in the skull. After what seemed like a couple of gallons of blood lost, and about an hour of getting yelled at, we moved our baseball game to the back of the barnyard, and out of sight of Ma. Heheheh... we weren't stupid, I'll tell you that. :)

The Perfect One and I used to play catch all of the time. He's not the most athletic guy, so occasionally he'd get hit with the ball. After a couple of times of that, it was damn funny, I'd start throwing at him, instead of to him. Next thing you know, he was returning the favor, and we'd be whipping the ball at each other as hard as we could, getting closer and closer, trying to catch or block the ball with our gloves. It was a blast.

We fancied ourselves fit for the circus, so we also played catch with knives. Relax... we were smart about it. We didn't use pocketknives or anything small. You just can't pick up their spin when you're trying to catch them. The Perfect One had a nice 8" Buck knife that we used for catch. Much easier, and if it was lined up wrong, we'd simply step to the side. We did this for quite a while, until one day The Perfect One didn't quite catch it, and got stuck in the foot. Of course, we didn't tell Ma, but we did stop. Thank Gott he was wearing leather boots, and the blade caught the thick leather alongside the tongue. We probably would have had a hard time sitting down in addition to his limp.

I've got a couple more stories for Bou, regarding her latest incident, but I'll tell them at another time. Hope this helps out... somehow.

Posted by That 1 Guy at January 16, 2006 10:42 AM