Mamma says I am an expert in remembering the little details that don't amount to a hill of beans. Keep in mind the fact that I have never cared much for beans. Especially re-fried beans. Nasty stuff. It looks like someone ate it already, if you know what I mean.
And I do mean – mean! Mean as Katie Winslow. Yeah, you know the type. She has that slippery smile, tight and pretentious, that can determine her pecking order for the day. I might suggest that you don’t wear stripes with a plaid. It just ISN’T DONE. That can get you sitting on the fringes of the lunch table – forced to be the runner who must get the needed, desperately needed, ketchup packages. One package had a tear in it. That was an unfortunate oversight on my part, I can tell you. Katie pointed that fact out in a quick demonstration of how fast she can make a fist. “Oh, I’m SO SORRY!” she cried when it squirted up into my face and hair. Yes, she did seem genuinely concerned that I knew where the nearest sink was where I could wash up the stick of me. I am afraid I reeked of ketchup and desperation, and everyone knows how that can spoil the taste of an otherwise great ‘fluffernutter’ sandwich.
Then one day I saw that a Massachusetts state senator had his picture in the paper when he proposed legislation restricting the serving of fluffernutter sandwiches in public schools. Our school, thankfully, didn’t apparently read important articles of national safety - so much for Mrs. Klinkstein’s efforts in forcing us to keep up with current events. We continued the daily attempt to sweetly glue the roofs of our mouths together, although it had no effect of Katie Winslow. SHE always had plenty to say.
Say, did I ever tell you about the time that Lyle Barton threw a fish down Mrs. Klinkstein’s blouse? Innocent Mrs. Klinkstein was outside with our class dropping eggs from the top of the playground equipment trying to determine how to protect precious new life from a smashing death on the blacktop with various configurations of cardboard and bubble wrap. You would have thought that throwing a fish down her blouse would have gotten that boy expelled, or at least pushed up against the lockers with a loud satisfying bang. But NO! Boys can be slippery, too, because technically, he didn’t throw it. Technically, when you are dissecting a carp that has been living its first few weeks of its unfortunate death in a jar of stinking formaldehyde, you can’t be held responsible if it’s slimy and just happens to fly out the second story window and just happens to fall into the voluptuous heaving breasts of Mrs. Klinkstein.
Yes. Those are some hills. But there are rolling hills, too. Like the kind that sends voices bouncing deeper and softer until it takes your very breath away. There are hills that make your stomach surge with that up and down, about to ‘hurl chunks’ kind of feeling. My dad's laughter would ring out with a John Wayne type of laugh when he would drive our woody station wagon up and down the dusty desert trails of the Wisconsin barrens where the wild blueberries grew. That's down Highway C, just out of Washburn. Never mind the fact that Dad sort of looked a bit like The Duke, who Dad said once worked for Fox Film Corporation for a measly seventy five dollars a week. Just try paying my Dad only seventy five dollars a week and think you'd still be sitting tall in the saddle! Dad had a way of lassoing his belt into a loop that he could hold in two hands, and let me tell you, if you were so foolish as to stick your finger into that hole, he could snap it shut before you could pull your finger back out. Now that was some mighty fast rope'n.
Rope, of course, is thicker and stronger than similarly constructed line, cord, string, or twine. I have lots of fun tying knots into this or that. Did you know that the earliest forms of rope dates back to prehistoric times when natural fibers were roughly twisted together? Then Egyptians, too, dating as far back as 3,500 B.C., even developed tools to help them make rope out of water reeds.
There were probably a few seaweed ropes made by Polynesians along the reefs. So you see, a reefer wasn't really a modern idea, but when my Dad's boy Wayne lost his battle with lung cancer, it was still not enough to convince Dad to stop smoking. Go figure. Grandma says they’re both broken men, and I think she’s right. You'd think they had more sense.
Sense and Sensibility, that's what my Mother always says I have. Miss Jane Austin published that in 1881, but it still fits me today. Not just because I once took a scissor to my sister's eyebrows like Willoughby when he cut a lock of Marianne's hair, but more because Mom says I am the epitome of subtle irony. Yes, I have ironed a few shirts in my time. Of course now, most younger kids don't have a clue what I'm talking about because all their fabrics are wash and wear.
Where was I? Oh, yeah. Beans. Did I ever tell you about the time my Grandpa fed beans to our Springer Spaniel? That was a good one.