Back to the norm.....

Today I'll get back to writing about things that are important instead of life on the stage. I'll have to admit that getting up in front of all those folks was so far out of my comfort zone that it will take a week or more for me to feel like myself. Its good to be uncomfortable once in a while. It keeps us from become to absorbed with ourselves.

A few days ago I mentioned that my Dad had been waging a one man war against the raccoons of Putnam County. The masked bandits had continued to make havoc in his corn patch. If you will remember I explained about the impulse fence, and what happens when something touches it. ZAP! On my recent trip I learned that my brother, Kevin, had become an expert in talking my nephew, Matt, into making sure the fence was still working. Dad explained that Kevin would begin by just asking Matt to touch it, then he would go on to say things like, " Matt, Grandpa wants to know if the fence works on the other side of the corn patch, why don't you go and touch it to make sure." or " Matt, them coons is getting into the patch on the road side, can you check and make sure the fence is on?" Matt would eventually grit his teeth and touch the wire. ZAP!, Dad says you could hear Kevin laugh all over the farm. Matt would just shake his head and say,
"I'm sure glad I can entertain him."
While visiting them last week I got the chance to see his one man war. Along about dark the first night I was there I seen him sneak out of the house carrying a small Styrofoam dish. In the dish was a small serving of dry gourmet dog food, my sister-in-law, Patty, feeds her boxers. He climbed on the four wheeler, and slowly putt-putted off towards the corn patch. That was the night that I caught the big bass and several others. The next morning my father comes into the kitchen and announces that it was time to check the trap. Now, one must understand that my Dad has had some issues with skin cancer on his face and my mother makes him wear a hat when he is outside working in the garden or mowing grass. So he has a Cami cowboy hat. He bought this hat down in Florida at a flea market. Now the other thing you need to know is, Dad just does not like to wear long pants. He lives in Florida all winter, wears shorts everyday. He does not come back to Missouri until its warm enough to wear shorts and he goes back to Florida about the time that long pants are a good idea in northern Missouri. The last thing is that since he always works in the garden after he checks his coon trap, he is wearing his garden boots. Now if it was 1957 these boots would be called boon dockers. The only thing they are missing is the two white round spots on the bottom of the soles. These garden boots are worn with no socks, because he has been fussed at by Mom for ruining his socks when the dirt from the garden gets in over the top and he walks it into the fabric to the point they will not come clean. Finally, the instrument he uses to send the trapped coons to the large cornfield in the sky is a .22 caliber pistol which he carries in a holster. he climbs onto the trusty four wheeler much like Matt Dillion climbed up on his horse Buck, then with a flip of a switch and a mighty Putt-putt-putt he is off to the corn patch. Mom then stands by the door and waits, after a few minutes the crack of a discharged .22 or the lack of it, determines the "He got another one" or "No coon last night" Another day on the farm has begun.