When I was growing up, a family lived next door that had four rambunctious boys who were very close together in age. I’ll call them the Fitzpatrick’s. I have been telling stories about the things that their boys did for years, never dreaming that I would be the head of a family just like them before I was through.
Two of the Fitzpatrick boys used to play a game that took place on the hood of their mother’s station wagon (the precursor to the minivan). They would stand on the hood of the car with a baseball bat and take turns almost hitting each other. The batter would try to swing as close to his brother’s protruding chin as possible without actually hitting him. The game always ended the same way; when one of them got hit in the chin by the bat and fell backwards off of the car. Fortunately, their father was an orthopedic surgeon.
My boys were playing a similar game last night and it reminded me of my former neighbors. It’s the time of the year for me to go into my gardening mode. I am currently distributing a truckload of mulch (ten yards) to all the places that it will be needed. For the time being, there is a really nice (from a boy’s perspective) pile of mulch to play “King of the Hill” on.
As I worked shoveling mulch into a wheelbarrow, whoever was king would stand on top of the pile and push any intruder off the edge backwards. If I took a fall like that I would not walk for a while, but for a boy, a three foot fall backwards to the ground is fun.
Halfway through the game, the biggest spider I have ever seen outside of a zoo came crawling out of the mulch pile. Rather than be alarmed, the boys then started to look for another spider which involved digging with their hands and covering themselves with mulch. Isaiah’s hair is long and very curly, the kind of hair that most people would pay a small fortune to have. It was quickly full of mulch.
To make a long story short, we had to once again undress everyone at the back door and carry them to the bath / shower. I even had to take off my shoes, socks, and blue jeans. It came off of bodies and out of hair easier than dirt does. However, Nancy reported this morning that one trip through the washer did not clean their clothes.
We thought it would be good for our five rambunctious boys to live in the country. It seemed like a good way to help them heal from their wounds of the past. It’s a little challenging when it gets wild like it did last night. It was also fun; I used to be a little boy.
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Funny, and Frustrating, Boy Stories