Not In A Long Time

I suffer from what I would call "thought strings." An idea pops into my head, then I chase all the possibilities, ramifications, applications off into the brush and sometimes forget where I started. But recently I wondered what happened to all the hilarity/nutty stuff that I did as a kid, and wondered why we don't do them now.

For instance: How long has it been that you got tickled about something and COULD NOT stop laughing? All of us as teenagers had a buddy make an outrageous, hilarious comment just as we were taking a drink of Dr. Pepper. You remember what happened...the Dr. Pepper spurts from your mouth, through your nose and out again, causing you to lunge forward to keep the stuff from spewing all down your front. It feels like the stuff is made of liquid fire, but you can't stop laughing. Choking, laughing to the point of tears, your side begins to hurt, by now you have had to find a place to set down your drink. And you can't retell the story to someone who wasn't there because the best you will get is a polite chuckle. You had to be there.

How about "papering" yards? Pick a girl you like, swipe the toilet paper from the men's dorm at ACU, then go toss the stuff into trees. There is a certain thrill to this mild act of vandalism. But here I am 40 years later remembering the thrill, the daring-do of my buddies as we ran back down the street to my '59 Chevy, now that's a get-away car. Of course as a 6th grader Mark and I made the mistake of shredding some of his school papers, with his name still on them, and papering a house within sight of his front door. Rookie mistakes. We had to pick all that up when the evidence, with Mark's name on it, was presented to his folks. So I will take this opportunity to apologize to the parents (those still living) of Betsy Dodge, Carla Willis, Teri Faneli, Ann Williford, Jody Whitefield, and all the girls my buddies were infatuated with. The list too long to write here, and there needs to be some plausible deniability.

Or how about skinny-dipping? I see photos of my 6-year-old grandson splashing through a creek in the Palo Duro canyon with his buddies and realize they are just a few short years from one of them saying, "I don't like to wear wet pants all day." It will not take those little inventive minds to come to the conclusion that swimming without clothes is both fun and problem-solving, no wet clothes. There is also a little bit of adventure in letting your "danglies" be in water that is also inhabited by turtles, fish, and all other critters. Frankly, I can't remember the last time I swam in anything but a pool. How domesticated have we become? Besides, we have finally reached the age where people won't stare at us anymore, in fact, there may be a certain amount of visual aversion.

So here is my plan. Let's go hit the local college, steal their toilet paper (revenge on the college punks who drive us nuts anyway) go paper some one's house, take a run to the lake, go skinny-dipping, then all meet at my house where we will relive the night with Dr. Pepper and peanuts. With any luck someone will shoot the stuff through their nose and we will all laugh until we pass out. Now that is my idea of fun. And long overdue. This grownup stuff is just no fun.

Godspeed out there. I have motion detectors on my house and a very vicious beagle...just FYI
Don