Drive - A Memoir 32nd Installment
“Okay,
we each get a brick of bullets for Christmas.” I started.
Russ
finished the sentence with “I’ll ask for another brick on my
birthday.”
I
continued, “Each brick has ten boxes of fifty rounds which is five
hundred, and three bricks makes fifteen hundred rounds.”
Russ
took over, “I never miss a shot, well maybe one miss in ten shots,
and you miss lot, maybe every shot!”
“Do
not! I'm as good a shot as you are,” I shouted squaring off for the
fight. “Only I don’t brag like you do.”
“Just
teasing, say we miss ten percent – mmm that would be about thirteen
hundred and fifty dead jackrabbits times ten cents is ONE HUNDRED AND
THIRTY FIVE DOLLARS!” Russ was doing the math in his head.
“We’re
going to be just as rich as those fat men from the East,” I said.
“Yeah,
loads of money, but will we get to spend our earnings? No,” Russ
continued, “We'll never touch a dime of our earnings. You know
Edith's first rule?”
“Yeah,
don't eat so fast! You'll choke and die.” I answered.
“No!
Her first rule is all the children will go to college and her second
rule is they’ll pay their own way.”
Then
it hit me and I understood. “That’s why she has that combination
safe where she puts all our money; it’s not for safekeeping so we
can’t spend the money on candy, but safekeeping for us to spend the
money on college,” I moaned.
“Nooowww
you're thinking,” Russ drawled.
“That's
okay. We hunt for the fun of it, we work for the fun of it, and we
have fun for the fun of it,” I reasoned, and I truly believed it.
In my mind work and fun was the same thing. “Hey, this is the tenth
year of the ten–year–cycle of the jackrabbits’ plague. There
are more jackrabbits this year than there are fleas on Bowser.” I
said as I stepped up on Tex's tractor, moving the sack of peanuts and
plopping down in the seat. Nice ride, this tractor, almost
new–fangled in my mind. The tractors we get to drive are already
old when we get them. The old Farmall “C” you had to start with a
crank.
“We
were talking jackrabbits, remember?” Russ said. “Ye of little
brain; we weren’t talking about tractors or our dog Bowser. Come to
think of it, Bowser is the only life form that is dumber than you
are, but only a little because he barks at jackrabbits, chases the
duck, and hates tractors.”
“Ha
ha, you want me to talk jackrabbits? I've come across dead rotting
jackrabbits that are less offensive than you are!” A good comeback
I thought. “Well,” I continued, “there are lots of them which
means we can fill our hunting barrel faster; we can trap jackrabbits
in the farmers’ haystacks,
500 more words tomorrow
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