NYC power tie?
It don't know the pygmy hauled ass one way and I was backpedaling to beat the band the opposite way the snake was going so I suppose my anus was in first place.?ÿ ?????ÿ
Had a young hand quit after lunch on his first day back in the mid 1970s.
We were traversing and staking a COE boundary up Johnson Creek at Lake O Pines and had stopped for lunch on a nice breezy spot.
In mid feasting I ask the young hand to be perfectly still and I grabbed my machete and loped off the head of a pigmy rattler between his legs.
He turned pale and passed out so we used some of our water to cool him down before heading out on the remaining legs of the traverse as he used all his will power to keep up because he did not know what else to do............
Paden, If you compiled your stories and sold the book on Amazon. I would buy the book just to leave it sitting on the coffee table so others can read and understand why some love land surveying.?ÿ Jp
Our friend in St Louis is maintaining a compilation.
Paden, If you compiled your stories and sold the book on Amazon. I would buy the book just to leave it sitting on the coffee table so others can read and understand why some love land surveying.?ÿ Jp
Our friend in St Louis is maintaining a compilation.
I need to check with him.?ÿ It seems there are several stories I remember well, but can't locate.?ÿ Hard drives use to be finite...they are so big now a fella could get lost looking around for stuff!
Yes, I do have a large document that I just copy and paste the posts. I have also gone back and started reviewing all the posts from Sir Cash, but as you can imagine there are quite a few...I think though, next time I pass through Okie Land I need to arrange a meeting with Mr. Paden Cash...
Yes, I do have a large document that I just copy and paste the posts. I have also gone back and started reviewing all the posts from Sir Cash, but as you can imagine there are quite a few...I think though, next time I pass through Okie Land I need to arrange a meeting with Mr. Paden Cash...
I tried to find a particular story about Easter church service years ago.?ÿ I thought I might repost it on Easter, but it's vanished.?ÿ It involved a nest of ground hornets that disrupted the final moments of the outdoor service.?ÿ?ÿ
If you happen to come across that particular yarn I sure would like to get ahold of a copy!?ÿ
I think this is the one...
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There's nothing more inspiring to a small flock of Christian worshipers than Easter Sunday (pronounced?ÿSun' dee) services held in the great outdoors. Other than the Christmas program this was THE big event of the year at the Pilgrim Congregational Church where us Cash boys learned our Holy Reverence.
I'm not sure of the attendance. In our sanctuary, on the wall to the right of the pulpit, hung the official scoreboard that told, among other things, of total members and how many showed up last week. As a small child I realized it was all hype though; the numbers never changed. I remember counting thirty something heads one Sunday. The next Sunday the scoreboard still proudly proclaimed 110 in attendance. I just assumed the remaining attended in spirit only.
But attending Easter Sunday was compulsory. It was such a big deal that the Saturday before all the men folk would show up to dig all the folding chairs out of the basement. This also required a bit of repair and oil for most of the chairs that hadn't been out since Christmas. And like all good Christians that survived the Great Depression chairs beyond repair were salvaged for good parts to keep the flock comfortable. After the big outdoor service we all would put on a pot-luck feed bag with a buffet line set up under the port by the side door. It was always a grand affair. Momma Cash loved it because she not only didn't have to cook on Easter Sunday, she didn't have to wash dishes either.
The outdoor services were held on the north side of the church with the chairs facing the traditional east. The north side of the church was a gradual slope down to an old 20 x 20 wooden by a creek we called "the annex". The annex was usually used for Boy Scout and CYF meetings and it also housed all the softball team's gear...and it was the bone yard for all the salvage folding chairs and tables. Sometimes the ground was a little soft for folding chairs and over the years the chairs migrated closer to the parking lot. But one thing that never changed was the "grand finale" at noon on Easter Sunday: "Christ The Lord Has Risen" being the last hymn (number 302 in your hymnal) as a 10' 4 x 4 wooden cross (painted in the finest gold paint to be had at the Otasco store) was raised by a few gents from laying on the ground and slipped into a permanent pipe base buried in the ground. As the congregation sang (all six verses because of the gravity of the day) folks would single file to the erected cross as our makeshift Calvary and toss their obligatory offerings into a brass offering plate at the base of the cross. As a child the significance of the worship escaped me, but it did signal that chow was fixing to occur.
And as it had happened for all the Easter Sundays of my life; Reverend Bradshaw began the hymn in slightly flat song and gave the signal for the "resurrection of the cross". As we sang our hearts the few elders assigned the task did so with a military precision reverence. But this one time it didn't go so well....
As the elders hoisted the cross there was one man that was in charge of centering the base so the cross could slip easily into the pipe as the other gents lowered it carefully. I remember watching the man in charge of centering stand up immediately, turn to run like he was on fire, and then immediately drop to the ground and begin thrashing around. The two "amen" widows that always sat on the front row were convinced the Holy Spirit had taken hold of him. The men holding the cross weren't so much convinced of the Holy Spirit as they were there was a nest of hornets that had occupied the buried pipe over the last year.
Reverend Bradshaw attempted to protect his flock in a manner of which Moses would have been proud. His volume doubled and he smiled as he spread his arms and waved to direct us all away from the horrible entomological carnage that was occurring at the cross. His smile turned to horror as he started swinging his bible to swat at the attacking hornets. Chaos ensued.
I'm not saying that your run of the mill Christian is an inherently 'starchy' individual. What I will say is nobody ever comes dressed to Easter service prepared to run for their lives. Old women with heels on soft ground is a formula for disaster. Old men will symbolically attempt to help their women folk until they themselves fall prey. Most of the men made it to safety a few yards ahead of their spouses, eagerly waving them on to "hurry". Momma Cash was lucky enough to get Pops to wake up and herded all her brood, including your truly, to the safety of the parking lot.
It was a horror eclipsed only by the sinking of the Titanic or possibly the final moments as the flaming Hindenburg settled to the ground in New Jersey. Oh, the humanity...I remember people will scream and howl with a lot more passion from a stinging hornet than singing a hymn.
Someone quickly made it to the mower shed by the annex and retrieved the jug of Malathion. It was soon determined there was no time to fill the galvanized sprayer. Men were volunteering for kamikaze duty to douse the nest with insecticide from the available Dixie cups. They really were the true heroes.
In good prairie settler fashion the women folk quickly made a makeshift triage in the basement of the church where our social meals were usually held. Everyone with bites and injuries were being seen to and doctored. Luckily there were no fatalities. Reverend Bradshaw (and quite a few others) looked like they had been in a bar fight. And the young folks were given the task of ferrying the foil covered dishes of chow down to the basement so we could eventually enjoy our communal meal in relative safety. And although the basement was a bit stuffy that time of year, we all eventually sat down for our Easter meal.
With a swollen face Reverend Bradshaw got us all to bow our heads and thank the good Lord above for not only the good fellowship and groceries, but for delivering us all from the swift retribution that boiled forth from the bowels of hell in an attempt to destroy our Holy worship. He made the point the devil lost this one and the righteous prevailed. Preachers are good with picking up on those things.
On the way home Pops made the point that sitting too close to the front of the congregation could be dangerous. He dropped back a few rows every Sunday after that.
Here is another good "Easter" story once told...
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After an illustrious career as a juvenile delinquent my oldest brother Cole eventually became a "man of the cloth". His "transition" years were spent as the youth minister at our local church. And being the wheeler-dealer he always was, he still was able to con his younger brothers into taking care of HIS business. One I remember all too well was the mowing chores at the church. Somehow he was always able to get Holden or me to either help him out with the grounds keeping chores at the church...or better yet, get us to take care of it without his presence.
One late Spring afternoon I wound up at the church taking care of his mowing. The church had an old shack that was way in the back and at that time was the local Boy Scouts meeting place. Everything between the Scout shack and the church was nice Bermuda grass and got mowed regularly. Somehow I was conned into mowing around the back of the shack that sloped down to a creek. By late April or early May the grass was pretty tall. It was quick work however because we never raked or bagged "the back part".
I remember being cutting along with a 3.5 horse Briggs roaring at top throttle, thinking I'd be finished pretty soon, when something so horrible happened that I still can't describe it....I had mowed over a stash of four or five week old Easter eggs that had been hidden but never found from the Sunday School Class's Easter egg hunt. Before I could recognize the smell that hit me like a brick, I was gagging. I turned and ran back up the slope with my hands over my mouth...gurking the whole way. I left the mower running..
I was up by the Church's water spigot washing off my face when Cole pulled up in his old junk pickup. He could hear the mower running down in the creek and started chastising me for leaving it running. As little brothers do, I told him if he wanted it finished,?ÿdo it himself. He was shaking his head and calling me names as he headed to the back to finish.
I was sitting on the back of his pickup watching him as he started pushing the mower..and low and behold..he must've hit another patch of rotten Easter eggs! I watched him cover his mouth and try and back up the hill with the mower. In his haste?ÿhe slipped in something?ÿand fell back down. In a second he was running back up the hill toward the water spigot....He had, however, managed to shut the mower off before he retreated.
When he started washing his shoes off I could tell he had rotten egg goo all over one pant's leg. I could also tell from his gaping, drool dripping mouth he had gotten a good hit of the smell. He was starting to gag. He also promised to "whip my ass" for laughing at him.?ÿOh...the memories.
We managed to finish up AND get the mower washed off before we put it up. He left his pants and tennis shoes back at the church and put on an old baseball team uniform for the ride home. You could still smell that horrible mess...
He's retired now and lives up in Colorado Springs...doesn't even preach anymore. I talked to him today to wish him a "Happy Easter". I asked him if any of the grandkids had an Easter egg hunt...
"Not on your life"?ÿwas his reply. I could tell by the tone of his voice that 55 years had not erased that smell from his mind.
Mine either.
Thanks!?ÿ I owe you one.?ÿ I was thinking that was one story that got away.?ÿ
No problem, just keep them coming...
Cripes I??ve never encountered some of the stuff y??all are gabbin?? about. Closest I ever came to a ??mishap? was getting run over by an 11 year Mexican kid driving a roach coach for all it was worth. Well that and stepping on a pygmy rattlesnake. Do any of y'all shoot back? ???? ?ÿ
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Not yet.?ÿ But I told a rancher North of Crane, TX, that made some not so veiled threats, to keep in mind one thing.?ÿ I shoot back.?ÿ
Then I found out his real gripe, took care of it and we got along fine after that.
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I highly recommend you do so.?ÿ He is fun to talk to.
