WHAT’S SO DOGGONE FUNNY? (Part One)

 

What’s so doggone funny is my former life! “Adult lips on a child” is what’s so doggone funny. Outhouses and picking cotton for a living are not so funny! Growing up in the fifties as a poor, black step-son of an ex-military, migrant worker is also very unfunny.

Can you imagine sitting in a man-made, wooden box situated over a temporary hole in the ground, that was full of “your guess is as good as mine”, and smells worse than “who did it and what for”? That is a childhood description of the neighborhood outhouse! “Toilet paper? What is that?” “Here, crumple up this brown paper bag a few times until it gets good and soft.” (Did I not mention the black widow spiders that lived under the seat and fed on the flies that spawned there?)

Near the putrid, neighborhood outhouse was the perfect battlefield. It was cluttered with hard dirt, rocks, and various other debris. Dirt-clod fights were a poor kid’s national pastime. You would launch a salvo of packed dirt at your pre-selected and agreed-upon opponent, striking them anywhere the dirt clod landed. (Great fun!) I was deadly accurate and deft with a dirt missile. My first weapon of mass destruction landed with explosive force on my opponent’s forehead, knocking him off his feet. It was fair, even in mock war to hit your enemy wherever the dirt bomb landed. He missed; I did not. My enemy ran home crying, but soon afterward returned with reinforcements, (his older sister). His older sister was not amused by the sight of her little brother crying from defeat and dirt stains, so she retaliated by picking up the first thing she found, (a Skippy® Dog Food can that had been opened with a bottle/can opener, giving the can a ninja star opening). She threw it at point-blank range, directly in my face. Needless to say, I did not have ample time to dodge the frontal assault, nor could I stem the bleeding that gushed from my upper lip as I retreated to the fort. I was taken to the hospital where I fought a team of doctors and nurses until I surrendered to the ether mask that took me to “LaLa Land”. I woke up with stitches and a fat lip that never went away. That whole incident would lead to my being called, “HercuLips”, “Adult Lips on a Child!”