by: SirWilho

 

“If I could hear your bones creak like that every day I would wake up and hunt with you the entire year,” said my loving son after I stood up in our double tree stand.

“Sounded kinda like branches snapping,” he then adds with a wonderful long laugh.

A 45 year old man is going to have some creaking after sitting in the cold without moving and then standing up, it’s natural, I tell myself.  I then tell my daughter about this creaking business and she gets a concerned look on her face and asks if I’m OK.

Huh?  One kid laughs, one shows concern….  Odd, me thinks, but then I think about the fundamental differences between boys and girls.

I probably would have laughed (to myself) when I was my sons age at MY dad if he stood up with all that creaking.

This got me to tinkin’ (as my Pappy sez)  Boys laugh at things most girls wouldn’t consider funny.  Ever see the Funniest  Home Videos on T.V.?  Jeez, it never gets boring to see a guy get hit in the nads by a 3 year old swinging a bat.

My brain started to whirl and I thought about a humorous time when I almost killed my older brother, Bishop.  There we were, in a mini war, using frozen potatoes as missiles to destroy each other.

To give a little background on where we got the potatoes I will dive into how my Mom was able to feed a pack, (Yeah, like Wolf Pack) of boys/men every day.  We didn’t have much money so we planted 2 thousand acres of potatoes.  OK, not that many, but probably 5 acres.  Every supper, every single one, had a form of potato in it.  When we picked them in the fall, the small or green ones left over were fed to the deer at our deer stands.  These were left outside and froze up like rocks.

Bishop took several handfuls and nailed me at least five times.

‘No aiming for the head’ rules were unheard of but luckily for me I had this 8 layered big orange hat that could deflect them pretty well.  Just had to keep reminding myself to keep the face down.

Anyway, Bishop runs out of ammo and takes off on a dead sprint across the back yard.  He thinks his getaway is perfect since he uses the frozen clothes on our clothes line as cover.  Ha.. think again brudder.

My aim was 5 feet ahead of his running boots that I could see scampering under the stiff bedsheets, and I had to go high and drop it right over the sheets. Luckily for me, a perfect baseball size green frozen potato was my weapon and I gave it a mighty launch.

THUD…  THUD… then all was silent.  I crept silently over to where I thought he may be and sure enough….. He’s down… And out cold.. Hmmm, should I take his scalp as a badge of courage?  Nahhh, we still had crewcuts that didn’t grow out yet from the summer.

There Bishop was, face down in the snow, not moving.  I killed him and it wasn’t funny yet.  The brain is working overtime on where I could stash the body and claim he just ran away from home because I knew a certain arse whoopin was a’comin’ for this one.  Killing da brudder was on the top of the list of nono’s.

Five minutes of deep thought panicking goes by and bishop twitches a little then pulls his head out of the snow and he’s wondering what happened.  I tell him he ran into the clothes pole.  The lie works until he starts swelling up where the bullseye of his temple is.

Dang, did I ever pat myself on the back for that quick kill as I sprinted into the house and the safety of my Mom.

Us boys still laugh at this story, of course I laugh more than Bishop, but as long as one of us is really happy, right?  See, I don’t think a sister and/or female would think this story as funny.  I will add a another one to further the point.

Again, this is about Bishop, potatoes and pain, and laughter.

There we were, all of us boys and a couple friends, picking the acre’s of potatoes.  Bishop doesn’t have to since he is going to a homecoming dance.  This does not set well with us and we all are a little cranky and don’t think it’s fair.

And what does Bishop do since he knows we are already ticked off?  He drives his car over to the potato field and starts to heckle us.  Really????!!!  Rubbing salt in the wounds he is, and  that can’t be tolerated.

Butchy Chreest is one of our good friends helping us pick spuds that day.  He grabs a big, dirty potato and gives it a mighty throw.

Ahhhh, one of life’s perfect slow motion moments is unfolding.  We are all watching as the potato makes this huge rainbow arch and is going right at Bishop.  He sees it coming but thinks it’s easily avoidable.

Evidently judging a thrown potato coming at you is not one of Bishops strong points and instead of moving one way or the other, he decides to jump up.  Not over one way or the other, but up like a cheerleader trying to do one of the split thingies in the air.  Too bad he can’t jump high and gets nailed squarely.  Down he goes and is squirming, and sounding like a cat in heat while flopping around on the grass.

Ooops, too bad Bishop wanted to look like Andy Gibb that day, he even had the white pants going on.

Yayyyy, Bishop saved the day since we are all laughing uproariously at him laying half dead on the grass.  His antics greatly improved our work crew morale.

Then, he stood up, and it got better.  Exactly where his right nad WAS, was a very dirty round spot from the perfectly thrown potato.  So not only does he have THAT stain, but all the grass stains from him squirming around on the grass.  Poetic justice it was and we laughed and laughed and laughed.. Even my Dad laughed at him although with a feigned sort of empathetic look.

I’m sure Bishops girlfriend would not have thought that funny and most of the other gender too, but guys love this kind of story, just love it.

Does this story have a point?  Nope, I reread it and all I can think about is Bishop dropping like a ‘hot potato’ and chuckle to myself.

Who knows, maybe I’m wrong and the opposite sex does like this type of humor.  So please, any ladies who have good stories about getting hit in the ovary with a dirty potato please tell me about it.  See?? right there…. I cannot think of ovary, potato, dirty in any way, shape or form and find humor in it.  Hmmm, maybe it’s a guy thing.