Drive - A Memoir 63rd Installment
Jean’s
house in minutes. Ronnie hurried over and clamored into the pickup
bed holding a broom stick with the sweeping end cut off.
“That’s
no club Ron ol’ boy!” I teased as I raised my hefty club over my
head. “This is a club! What are you planning on doing? Chasing down
a jackrabbit and giving it a little bonk on the head? You’ll just
make the jackrabbit mad, and you don’t want to be around a mad
jackrabbit.”
Ronnie
stood up and brought his narrow stick back like a baseball hitter and
managed to say, “I can hit, I can hit hard!” At that moment Edith
took off and Ronnie lost his balance staggering back and out the back
of the pickup.
“Well
he’s a tougher fellow than I thought. Look, he bounced up like a
rubber ball and here he comes.” I stood up and banged on the top of
the cab which is the universal signal for the driver to stop. Edith
stopped and Ronnie clambered into the pickup bed – again. We didn’t
talk much on the way there, the truck was loud and the wind at 50 MPH
whistled in our ears.
Russ
shouted, “We ought to go fishing,” as we barreled past Camas
Creek. Edith dropped us off at the intersection of Koefoed Road and
Highway 33. There were quite a lot of kids our age, a small number of
of college age guys, and a couple of adults.
“Look
there’s Wade and there’s Barney. I think we’re in for some fun
with those guys around,” Russ pointed out. “Let’s go see what’s
going on.” Barney was explaining where to go and how to line up so
we would meet the other line coming from Barzee Road a mile away. The
drive was close to Barney’s farm and he seemed to know what was
going on.
“Now
the last thing you ought to know, don’t kill any of my cows. Okay.”
Barney told us with a grin.
Wade
was already laughing hard – he was always laughing hard. I remember
a few years ago Wade was at our house and the three of us were
reading an ‘Archie, comic book aloud, and Wade started laughing.
After another page of reading, more laughing between every few words;
then Russ and I started laughing. For the next hour or so we all
three laughed constantly until he finished reading. It wasn’t that
funny. We were laughing because he was laughing, a merry little
cycle, first him then us.
We
were waiting around joking, pushing each other and generally having
fun. We were scheduled to begin at noon when a fancy sports car
stopped on Highway 33 and a couple of college age guys climbed out of
the little car. They were dressed way different than we were use to.
They looked like fancy dandies in their white shirts with colorful
sweaters, fancy pants and shiny black ‘going to church’ shoes.
500 more words tomorrow
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