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A virtual - and virtually unbelievable - online newspaper of humor, satire, parody, and fun published for Stray Lake, Stray County, and straying minds everywhere |
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Run That By Me Again by C.G. Scavola The friends that you keep My father used to tell me, “You are known by the company you keep.” I often wondered what he meant. The company I kept included Jimmy Horner from next door. Jimmy liked to eat beetles, the big ones you sometimes find inside rotten logs. He ate them right out of the log, raw. Would I be known as a beetle-eater? I would glance around at my classmates at school and wonder if they thought of me as “Ronald the beetle eater.” I also hung with Thomas Jeffers, who lived on the next block. Thomas would never eat anything raw. In fact, Thomas threw up every time he saw Jimmy eat a raw beetle. Did my classmates think of me as “Ronald who throws up a lot?” Then there was Billy Jones. Billy liked to tie cans to the tails of cats. This was hard to accomplish but the results were edifying, at least to Billy, and in truth to the rest of us. If you have never seen a cat running in circles trying to catch the cans tied to its tail you have missed something, and let’s leave it there. Billy may have been the most interesting of my friends, because the cat trying to catch the cans was surpassed as theater by Billy trying to tie the cans to its tail. Cats are notoriously solemn about their tails, not generally broaching any foolishness in that region. Billy paid a heavy price for his love of cats and cans; his nickname was “Scarface.” “Tie it to a dog,” Jimmy would say. “Dogs don’t care, and they wreck more stuff when they start running around.” “Where’s the challenge?” Billy would say. The rest of us did not understand then what he was talking about, and I’m not sure I get it even today. But Billy knew. He grew up to run a multi-million dollar empire until his wife sued for divorce, his girlfriend left him, and he opened a taco franchise. Was I known in school as a cat-can tier? I wondered about these things until my father left home to join a circus troupe where he became a sword swallower. I reasoned that I had kept company with my father but was certain I could never swallow a sword (in truth, I gagged each time Jimmy ate a beetle) and so “Ronald the sword swallower” was simply not a possibility. Hence the company I kept could not really have much to do with how I was known. My mother was very supportive of my father’s decision to leave home. “Take your whetstone,” she told him. At least it seemed supportive at the time. And my father made a name for himself as a sword swallower, went on to add fire-eating to his act, then branched into work as a clown. He visited me several years ago and entertained at my son’s birthday party. “Daddy,” my son asked after Grandpa had departed, “will I be a clown?” I wasn’t sure what to say. I had not grown up to be a clown, a sword-swallower, fire-or for that matter beetle-eater, or can fancier, nor do I have a particularly strong gag reflex. I told my son, “Who knows? But I’d avoid fencing classes.” That has been the sum of fatherly advice I have given. Practical advice – something I think entirely different from the fatherly kind – is another matter. Just the other day I counseled, “Stay away from hedge funds.” My son nodded solemnly and said, “The hedge is full of stickery things.” My therapist nodded solemnly when I told him about this and said, “The world is full of stickery things.” I will, of course, get into call margins, selling short, and various mortgage options as my son gets older, but not into being known by the company one keeps. My son currently had a best friend named Stinky. Advice about company could damage the boy’s psyche. And so I live my life today in the house where I grew up. Mother has a room down the hall, right next to my wife. My boyhood friends still live in the neighborhood and we see each other often. Tonight, for example, we will grill beetles at Jimmy’s place. Thomas and Billy and their families will be there. Jimmy, of course, will hide his cats, and Thomas won’t join us until the beetles have cooked for a certain time. I will bring my sword to chop the salad, my wife will blow on the charcoal to light it, and everyone will look out for my mother lest she trip over the ridiculously big shoes she always wears. But we will talk of the future, of the bigger beetles Jimmy is breeding, Billy’s collection of cat tails, mother’s bunions, and the large winged creatures which carry me each night to the fastness of the gods in the frozen north, nor of a clinging past where one was stamped by the company he kept. And just perhaps father will show up, bringing elephants. Copyright 2009, Robert A. Markwalter |
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Any resemblence in this material to any person, living or dead or in suspended animation, is purely coincidental. Planning a visit to Savannah, GA? Run That By Me Again author Bob Markwalter is also a licensed Savannah tour guide. Visit Savannah, the Walking City at www.walkingsavannah.com to see more about Bob's tours and tour services and the beautiful ante-bellum city of Savannah. ©2000 - 2009, Robert A. Markwalter. All rights reserved. |