Watermelon Man

The Old Man loves watermelon. I grew up on watermelon. In my little town most everyone had a garden of some sort. This was a holdover from the Victory Garden program during World War II. As well, late in August, there were watermelon feasts all over town. The Lions had one, the Masons had one, the JCs had one and anyone else who felt called had one. Throw in all of the folks who lived outside of town on "real" farms who came into town and peddled their melons door to door, and we were pretty much covered up in watermelons. We relied on local produce very heavily. During the late '40s and early '50s, we didn't get Kumquats from Chile or Kiwi fruit from Pango Pango.

My buddy Kenny and I were avid "spend the night sleeping out doors" kind of kids. At 8-9 years old, nighttime is adventure time. We'd alternate between his house and mine which were about a city block apart. Back then we didn't know about "blocks". Kenny lived down the street within hollering distance so Mom could still call me home for supper.

We had kept an eye on a neighbor's small watermelon patch. When I say "small" I mean he probably had 10 hills of watermelon. But to Kenny and me, it might just as well have been 10 acres. We spent most of June and July spying on the target. Finally about the first of August, we determined the planets had all lined up and the time for D-Day was at hand.

Since the neighbor lived closer to Kenny, his backyard became our bivouac for the attack. We gathered our weapons, salt shaker and kitchen knife, and settled down until H-Hour. When it was full dark the two commandos crept toward the watermelon patch. In our planning, these two village idiots had overlooked the two houses that were between Kenny's and the beachhead. All was well until we were on our way back, crawling and rolling two watermelons each out ahead of us. At that point, both houses opened their doors and a couple of major dogs came out to tend to their business. In a cacophony of chaos; kids running, dropping watermelons, and dogs braying and howling, lights coming on all over the area, we felt that any minute search lights would find us and we would be gunned down like Bonnie and Clyde. Somehow, we managed to get back to our fort, all settled down and we claimed our prize. We did manage to hang on to one small melon. It was totally unripe and warm from a day in the August sun, but we ate it anyway.

Two days later when the diarrhea had abated, we swore to give up our life of crime and simply wait until we heard the magic phrase, "Watermelon feast".

That's been 58 years ago, Kenny's gone now and I miss him greatly, but everytime I bite into a sweet, ripe watermelon, I think of that night.....and him.

Pop Goes the Polecat

The Old Man is not very fond of Pine Sol. When I was about 9, my mother woke me on a Saturday morning in early fall by sitting on my bed and saying, "Now I don't want you to be scared". Well, that is a sure-fire attention getter. She went on to tell me how a skunk had gotten in the basement.

We had an old cat named Sam. Sam pretty much did his own thing, hunting and howling, and would return home during the early morning hours, usually with a trophy of one type or another. In the bottom of our basement door, Dad had fashioned a cat door. Now it wasn't one of those whiz-bang-super-hermetically-self-sealing wonders of this day and time. It was a simple notch cut out of the lower corner of the door with a little flap of rubber. It gave Sam free reign.

During the night, a skunk had found the door and in Sam's absence, decided to investigate. When Dad went down into the basement to begin his Saturday gardening chores, what he thought was old Sam turned out to be Pepe La Pue. Pepe had taken a position behind an old wash tub that was leaning up against the wall near the back door. After a careful evaluation of the situation, Dad figured out his plan of attack. The skunk kept peeping his head out from the tub in order to reconnoiter the battlefield. Dad's plan was to take careful aim with the 20 gauge shotgun and when the Pepe peeped, he would shoot him in the head trusting that skunky would die before returning fire. So far, so good. Dad took his aim, skunk peeped, the shotgun roared and just as it did, Pepe backed out the other side of the tub and his behind took the full charge.

Within 3 minutes, my room on the second floor of the house was, like the rest of the building, uninhabitable. We hauled all of our stuff out into the yard where it stayed for 2-3 days to attempt airing out. In that day, there was no Fabreze, no Oust, no Floral Bouquet anything. There was only Air Wick......and Pine Sol. Mom scrubbed the entire basement with Pine Sol. If you want a real treat, imagine essence of skunk mixed with Pine Sol.

There were, however, some side benefits. The bullys pretty much left me alone for several weeks, teachers were reluctant to keep me after school, and we got to take a lot of rides down the highway with all the windows open.

The clothes, finally through many washings, regained respectability and everything aromatic eventually faded......except for the Pine Sol.

Tarzan the Ape Boy

The Old Man learned at an early age that the story of Tarzan is a myth. Edgar Rice Burroughs creation, personified in many Saturday matinees at the Liberty Theater in my hometown by Johnny Weismeuller (truly the "real" Tarzan), became one of my heroes. Summer days would find me climbing from branch to branch in one of our mimosa trees, or swinging on a rope while yelling. "Ai-EEE-Ya" in my 8 year old interpretation of the famous Tarzan yell. Some people to this day are probably convinced that I have not yet completed evolving.

In our town, there was a family who made their living traveling around the country with a monkey show. They had several chimps, a small gorilla, and miscellaneous other simian creatures. When the summer circus season ended, they would return and give a final performance for the people of the town. After cajoling and pleading, my mom agreed to take me to the show. The big night arrived.

It was magical. The apes did their tricks and the monkeys performed. This was heady stuff in a small town in 1949. To conclude the act, the master of ceremonies asked if anyone would like to come up on stage and be let into the cage to wrestle the gorilla. One of the town "tough guys" stepped on the stage and was ushered into the cage. The gorilla basically ignored him even though he tried to bait Mr. Gorilla into action. I remember distinctly thinking, "How hard can this be?". After that ho-hum episode, the master of ceremonies asked if any of the young folks would like to wrestle a chimp. I'll never forget my mother's gasp when she looked up on the stage and there I stood. You can probably figure out the rest. Once inside the cage, that chimp chased me up the wall, down the wall, around and around the cage. Finally I hung from the bars at the top of the cage. Smart move, right? Chimps can climb! We ended our adventure with the chimp holding on to one of my legs until I let go to keep him from pulling my pants off in front of half the town. Cheeta was mostly seen holding Tarzan's hand, or doing back flips. That's when I figured out the myth.

I still remember the smell of the cage, the look in that chimp's eyes, and most of all how happy I was when the bell rang. I don't climb from branch to branch anymore, or swing from ropes, but I still am fascinated by chimps and I really would like a rematch.

Haircuts and Yellow Jackets

The Old Man got a haircut today. Some time back, I finally woke up to the reality that the '70's were pretty much dead history and moved away from the "blow-dry" look. I had help. Mother Nature gave me a gradual pruning through the years so I now pose very little challenge to barbers. So its back to Vitalis and a hearty fairwell to Consort. The aroma of Vitalis creates a flood of memories. My father (even more follically challenged than me) used a hair tonic called Kreml. I recall it being in a bottle with a long neck and you had to shake it up to get the oil and water to mix enough to squirt some on your head. Its funny how a smell can re-kindle all sorts of memories you'd long since forgotten. The combination of Old Spice, Kreml, and pipe smoke is as real to me today as it was in 1955. A fine man, he. God rest his soul.

As to yellow jackets; there's a nest of them I discovered in my front yard. I'll attack with gasoline at sundown. There, too, lie special memories. When I was about 5 a hired man was working, clearing some brush at our house. I was his chief pester-er and was fully convinced he could do nothing without my assistance. The yellow jackets thought otherwise. As his pick struck the hard Virginia clay, they swarmed out of the ground in a fury. He grabbed me up and ran for the house, swatting bees with his sweaty and beat up old felt hat. I don't recall being stung but the hired man was stung repeatedly. I for the life of me can't remember his name, and that's a shame.

My beautiful daughters talk of Mamma Mia and the fun they had then, and the fun they have now in remembering. Hold on to those memories. One day they'll be even more precious. A smell, a sound, a laugh at some point will be eerily familiar and then you will realize; I remember........

My Initial Entry

Give the old man a round of applause. He's gotten this far in the brave new world of blogging. Interesting.....one who has always been easily verbose now finds that "writer's block" is a very real phenomenon. Perhaps a short summary of my morning golf game will suffice for this initial entry.

I'm fully convinced that the heat and humidity were factors in my drives failing to reach Tiger Wood distance. It simply could not be ineptness on my part. I did, however, have several peculiar shots:

A "Teddy Kennedy" (shot that goes in the water and then pops out)
A "Nancy Pelosi" (shot that goes far to the left)
Two "Yasser Arafats" ( very ugly shot and in the sand)
and last but not least,
A "Rock Hudson" (shot that looks straight but isn't)

There were some highlights to balance out the lowlights. Still beats working.

That's it for now.