Out-house tale

For those who don't know, an out-house was a bathroom in the old days located most times in the far back yard. It was a very small building with a door with a lock on it on both inside and out. It had a built in bench that went from side to side along the back wall and the top of the bench was one or two holes you sat on to do your duty, like our modern bathroom stool without the flush. Some had a small lid attached with hinges that covered the hole to keep some of the stink out. The entire building was over a deep hole my dad had dug. Anyway one night my dad while talking to our uncle said "I will have to rip the shingles off the outhouse and put new ones on one of these days." Now my little brother and I were by the wood stove enjoying the heat laying back against the wall listening to what they were talking about, sometimes the stories were great, because my dad was one of Merrill's Marauders in Burma during WW2. Every day my little brother and our cousin came home from school they would go out and look over the outhouse. Then one day I was walking to the barn with a pitchfork load of hay and of course in my dream world, like someone today with a Walkman or MP3 player, when all of a sudden I heard my dad shouting in his bear voice, "you destructive turds." I dropped my fork full of hay and turned around and my brother and cousin were ripping the shingles of the outhouse and throwing them into the air to fly like a tin can covers. They had a 2x4 leaned up against the building and my dads was halfway up when they jumped off the front and when he got to the top and saw they were gone, he got silent like a bull about to paw the ground. He had smoke coming out his ears and it wasn't caused by any tobacco product. I ran and got the ladder and leaned it on the outhouse so he could get back down. He never said a word took one look at my little brother and cousin running across the field to my cousins house and silently walked to his car got in and drove to my cousins house. Now I climbed to the top of the outhouse to watch, but before I got to the top I saw my brother heading back by way of the root cellar and my dads car slowly moving along the road parallel to my brother in the field running for his life. I was laughing so hard I near fell of the roof. My brother came running around the house and I yelled "get it over with" but my brother wouldn't listen to any of it. he just ran to the road by a dredged ditch and my dad came around the corner unbuckling his belt and whipped his belt of like Matt Dillon pulling his gun out in a fast draw. well my dad didn't make it to the road. He just calmly put his belt on as he huffed and puffed and told me to finish my chores. I ask "what about Mike." "Its about supper time," and sure enough he surrendered so he could eat. We all went to war about the same time, they joined the Marines and I the Army. After the war Mike was killed when his car went over and embankment. My cousin broke his neck in a car accident, but is recovering. And dad, well he mellowed out over the years and died of cancer at 56 years of age.

WOW

My son was on his way home from the construction site, driving his pickup, when he felt a tickling by his belly button. So he swatted the spot and the tickle went higher up and again he swatted it and when he felt it on his chest he looked down and couldn't see anything. Again he looked down and came face to face with a snake. In panic he tried to brush it off but it just popped back. Then he saw that it was stuck in his seat belt, so he unbuckled the seat belt and slapped it to the floor, where it curled up, so he stomped on it and it disappeared. Of course he was all over the highway, causing people to wonder what was going on. Anyway, he pulled over and opened the door and it quickly crawled out of the pickup. He had a string hanging down his shorts leg and from then on, all the way home he would feel it and think it was another snake. He worried all the way home, that it had babies or another snake in there. When he got home he had his two younger children clean out the pickup and they wouldn't let there older brother help , he came over to our house, but didn't tell them about the snake or it would never have gotten checked out by them. after they about had it all cleaned out, he walk across our lawn to his place and told them about the snake. My wife watched as he told them about what happened. At first they took a step back from the truck and then quickly backed off and told there older brother he cold finish the cleanup. But he don't like them critters either, so the cleaning ended real fast. There older brother had to go to the Construction site the next day with his dad and he did not like the idea. His dad seemed to have a lot of work for his son to do. In my younger days, I played with snakes, And I helped take care of two Boa's, while with the special forces in Vietnam; but today, well, I think I would have died right there on the spot.