Great Granddad Had A Blast

 

Part 22 of 30

Self-Abuse September

I would be a lot more interested in the past if the records were only there to consult. Who wouldn’t be? Just to know what was going on with Grandma and Grandpa and their parents and their parents -- humpa humpa -- all the way back to Sir Lancelot and the Seven Dwarfs, that’d be a great study.

But, alas, we’re not doing much better for those who come after us. It’s not like we’re making a spreadsheet of our own lives and passing it on to succeeding generations who themselves will be spread out over the sheets. I wish I would've done it, documented everything I've put out since my formative teen years. Instead, for most of us -- Grandpa included -- secretions were very secretive, and few tales are told of Grandpa in the field, Grandpa in the shed, Grandpa in the barn, Grandpa all over.

In a way we feel like "preseeding" generations had it over us. They lived in a world still in the grip of nature. Bulls in the field, rabbits in the pen, ducks laying eggs, cocks crowing in the morning, afternoon, and evening, their beaks grabbing and pulling the back of the hens’ heads -- humpa humpa -- nature at its craziest. It was a free-for-all but somehow every one of them was faithful to the task.

It’s probably normal that we try to see our forebears as basically gods in the flesh. With an all-seeing eye for the challenges they had to face, the Great Depression, Prohibition, then later the War, and best of all, the Sexual Revolution. They acted shocked, of course, but humpa humpa. Which is where they really bloomed and blossomed. They were so stoved up from bad times that when the Sexual Revolution launched it was all-out enthusiasm, even doing it in the road as the Beatles said. By then they had all the kids they'd ever have, so they were going at it for pleasure. Together, of course, but for an equally satisfying experience, alone. Self-abuse through the years. Mental humpa humpa.

They had the “need to breed” -- and it was crazy -- with mealtime often degenerating into a free-for-all of hands and relevant body parts, all without missing a bite, the potatoes being passed and consumed before they were cold, etc. You think synchronized swimming’s a talent, I wish I could describe my grandparents', aunts' and uncles', and even cousins' wanton behavior. The turkey wasn’t the same when they got through with it, strictly white meat, humpa humpa.

The first known libertine in the family was Great-Grandpa, whose reported fantasies of showgirls single-handedly kept the family fields fertile in the midst of the world’s worst drought. See picture.

Bull vs. Bad Egg Magistrate

Part 18 of 30 -- Speaking Ill of The Dead

The other case of a guy chased downhill by a bull was this guy, Thornton the Magistrate. Which could’ve been prevented. Let’s think of how:

You’re the only magistrate a county's had in 50 years and you still haven’t got a basic sense of the territory? You only know the town? Well, the country comes stocked with bulls everywhere, guarding their cows and from time to time mating with them. The fact that they’re mating with them means they’re sensitive to any posed threat. Yes, maybe the magistrate had no designs on the cows. He's never been known to be a swinger.

But the bull knows what he smells. If dogs can smell fear, bulls are equally good judges on horniness. Don't forget, they're bulls, with nut-sacks the size of parachutes. They live and breathe gonads. They get their daily news sniffing the air. You should never take a date to the country. Bulls out there are, constantly sniffing, and might tap your shoulder to step in like a guy at a dance. Or just take a big swipe at your head.

Then, the idiot magistrate goes to the country in a red suit? Which part of bullfighting did he miss growing up? When they came to the part where the guy holds up a red flag just before being attacked and having to kill the bull, was he shaking a pan of popcorn in the kitchen? Then he gets back to the TV, the rodeo still on, and asks the family what he missed? Of course they’re not going to tell him the embarrassing details, a bull and a red-nosed clown are about to have a baby. If he wanted to see the mounting suspense he should’ve stayed!

I guess those are my main judgments against Thornton. Except just to throw in, the guy was a bad egg anyway and this likely was merely his day for divine justice. With the servant of the Lord in this case being a mindless bull, possibly even a blind bull, and maybe neutered at that, that didn’t care anything about the red suit and wasn't the slightest bit jealous about the cows. Just divinely led to wipe out any and all magistrates, be they corrupt, conceited, or new to the job and harmless. But, really, would anyone wear a suit and hat like that if he weren't conceited? Should've toned it down, dead man.

But I’m fairly sure the magistrate was out there to enforce some unfair judgment against an innocent citizen. Boo, hiss! That's why you don't see any citizens. They're hidden away somewhere in the cellar or attic. And playing their hand pretty well, in my opinion, making the magistrate circle the barn a few times, calling out their name, and flashing his red suit. Perfect for the bull to get him! Which just coincidentally happened to out of his locked pen!

OK, Thornton the magistrate, RIP. I'm sure his death was a loss to the widow, but magistrates are well-paid and diligent. You really have to claw your way up to be magistrate. So he had good money and good life insurance. And the widow will be better off, maybe even with a million dollars! The old man couldn’t outrun a bull? Ha ha, his loss, everyone else's gain!

Boar Balls -- The New Family Fun Game

Here's a game I came up with because I had to come up with something! And you know what? It turned out to be a real hit! All the kids, my nieces and nephews, have been to the State Fair -- it's a family tradition -- so they know all about the horrendously large balls on the "Biggest Boar."

Every year farmers compete to bring in the biggest boar. They must feed them like crazy through the year, because they're the biggest things you've ever seen. They're so big, in fact, that you never see them stand up. Whether they could stand up, I suppose they could. But it's always so hot, it looks like they prefer to just lie there, their balls hanging out, exposed to a terrible swarm of flies. The two biggest boars are one of the main attractions at the fair.

Now, about the game. It came about because of a little serendipity. By that I mean, I have very sweaty feet, the weirdest, sweatiest feet you've ever seen. It happens like this: My feet feel like they're ice cold, while all this time they're sweating, making them even icier and colder. Consequently, if you see me walking around, I always have like three or four pair of fresh socks in my pockets. My pockets bulge out like a hamster's cheeks. It's quite a sight to see.

OK, next, it just so happened I was at the home of my nieces and nephews, and their kids, since some of them are getting older. This was at a birthday celebration for one of them. And some of them were looking curiously at my jacket, all bulging out, like maybe I was growing love handles. I was too embarrassed to tell them about my foot problems. So I thought quick and pulled out the socks so they could see it was all quite harmless. I said it was a game! But what?

Well, as these things go, one thing led to another. And next thing you knew, I had invented the game of Boar Balls. Which goes something like this: You have two teams. Each team has an IT. It is the teams' task, starting off about 12 feet away from the other team's IT, to ask questions of the other team. With a right answer, team 1 stays in place. With a wrong answer, team 1 advances one foot toward team 2's IT. Then, of course, the first team to get their IT smacked in the face with Boar Balls loses.

We've found you can make it a lot funner the grosser you are. Such as "Those are really sweaty ones coming!" Or "The flies are everywhere, swarming around!" And "How funky, very funky, those balls are!" You can picture how it goes: IT doesn't want to be smacked, because they're busy picturing in their mind an actual boar backing toward them. Which, if that really happened, it would be very gross and painful.

The day I made up the game I just happened to have 500 questions on small cards relating to true facts about hogs. Such as, "True or False, the boar is a male." I know, that sounds really easy, but some of these kids, with our educational system today, and their addiction to video games, don't really know what male and female even mean. Then there's questions that kids simply don't know because they're more agricultural whereas the kids are urban. Such as, "With the hog, it's a well-known expression that they're able to use everything but the __BLANK__." None of the kids knew this, again, probably a result of their addiction to video games and their lack of exposure to this fact. The answer is "The squeal." I also wrote in some gimmes, such as, "True or False, a groundhog is the same as a farm hog." That's false. The groundhog is different from a farm hog, the main difference its much smaller balls.

Since it's "The New Family Fun Game," naturally I'm sensitive that all families are not alike. There are some -- I'm thinking of our Jewish and Muslim friends -- who won't have anything to do with pork. For them, I recommend the same game, while calling it "Bull Balls." I've also written 500 questions on the big beefers.

My own family being at least nominally Christian, and not having any sensitivity about Boars vs. Beef -- frankly, we eat both, often together -- stick to the Boar version. Unless, and this is important, unless we've already memorized the Boar answers and need some variety, at which point we switch to the Bull questions.

No matter how you play it, it's both dreadful and yet kind of fun to picture that massive animal backing your direction, if you're IT, and having those huge balls smacking you solid in the face. As for me, even though I'm the guy that came up with the game, my imagination's working overtime and I don't want those huge balls in my face either! Crazy but true.

I Love Farmers Singing

I guess it's time for confessions and unspoken passions. Unspoken, not out of embarrassment, but because no one ever asks -- which I understand; I'm don't ask others about their unspoken passions. We just let these things go till we've passed and the family's looking through our effects. "Could it be?" they'll ask, that he really had a passion for ... farmers singing?

Why not? I've always loved the image of the happy-go-lucky, devil-may-care farmer, trusting his fortunes to the wind, sun, and rain, and keeping a song in his heart. He's going along on his tractor, either whistling a tune or belting out one of the old songs: "When the moon comes over the cowshed, I'll be waiting at the ki-ki-kitchen door," like that. (The modern corporate farmer, I wonder if they even know the old songs, but that's neither here nor there. They probably know enough of them to fake it...)

It's the old timers I have in mind, the ones who step out on their back porch, look out at the cow field as it starts to get light, and bellow with a musical lilt for Bossie to come. From there it might become a full-fledged song of love and camaraderie, not just for the cow but the whole great outdoors. "I'm gonna lay a furrow down today, down by the riverside!"

All this comes to mind, thanks to the commercial on TV with the singing farmers: "Bumpa-bumpa, bumpa-bumpa, We are Farmers!"

I've been out on the farm quite a number of times, especially earlier in my life. We used to go to lots of auction sales held at farms. While the adults were busy with the sale, we were scouting out the farm with the other kids. This included many happy hours swinging around the hay mow, and just generally having the run of the place. We never got in any trouble either. Although now, as an adult, I can imagine the farmer, if he were noticing, having a cow that these crazy kids might get hurt. But no one seemed to care, and we certainly didn't.

Or I'd be on the farms of kids from school, friends. We might be out in the chicken shed, jumping off it into the snow in the winter, talking about what they do about skunks that get in the corn crib, or listening to the gut wrenching squeals of pigs getting castrated. That's a sound that sticks with you. I can't quite write it out, of course, or spell it, or put it in print. But it's music ... of a sort. Just think of the most painful squeal you've ever hear, then run as far as you can so you never have to hear it again. Like some boy bands.

And I've even done some work on farms, like baling hay, where you're singing, "Oh, bury me not on the lone prairie..." Not the funnest work.

The farmers singing on TV -- who look like they're with an insurance company -- have great voices, but unfortunately, a very small, short song. They just get started with the bumpa-bumpas and it's over. But for those precious seconds, it's these cool, big bass voices, with a very strident beat. Strident without being overly martial or unpleasant in any way. I know what it is, they just have years of calling in cows, or singing at the top of their lungs on the tractor, or in an enclosed tractor seat. That's when the real singing is done.

If they can sing that great about an insurance company, which is probably paying them pretty well, then they can sing about nature, animals, the fields, and the great big blue sky, as well as the life-giving sun beaming down, twice as well. Or three times. You get them working on their corn or wheat, and singing at the same time, "Bumpa-bumpa, I'm a Farmer," or "We are Farmers," and you'll have a thing of beauty. With an extended version of the song. And a whole album of various remixes. "Bumpa-bumpa" with some subtle hip hop thumps and sound loops. An acid jazz version would be cool.

No one else on TV sings so much about their own occupation. Not in quite the same way. You can really hear the unique pride that farmers have, and to me it's very very cool.

Pigs: "Eat More Bacon"

[Artwork COPYRIGHT 2011 dbkundalini, All Rights Reserved, please don't steal it. Note: Getty Images, please feel free to contact me for usage rights. Limited rights offered to Pork Producers, International.]

I was with a guy at the local barbecued pork restaurant recently. I think it was last Thursday, possibly Tuesday or Wednesday, definitely not Monday, and they're not open on Sunday. And I was busy on Saturday...

Anyway, they have quite a few pigs and other hog-related memorabilia, statues, knickknacks, and portraits there, with the pigs seeming to condone and even encourage the eating of their meat. This struck my friend as being kind of odd.

And, now that I think of it, it also strikes me as being somewhat weird. Maybe they ought to be like the Chik-Fil-Et (sp?) chickens, I guess it is, or maybe cows, that are encouraging possible customers at their restaurant to eat more cow or chickens, whichever is opposite of what they actually serve there. I guess it'd have to be chicken in a place called "Chick-Fill-Et." Like they must serve chicken filets, so there's cows encouraging people to "EAT MOR CHIKN."

That makes more sense if your whole thing is to have people eat the other guy and not you. Or the other species and not you. But it's shortsighted, like in the Martin Niemoller quote, if Niemoller had been a cow: "They came for the chickens and I didn't stop them. Now they're coming for me and there's no chickens to save me." Still, being shortsighted when it comes to your self-preservation can be an effective way to save yourself, because it at least buys time and allows you to plan your next move.

But getting back to pigs, and I'm 100% serious about this, in my opinion it's better to exist than not. If I had never been born at all, imagine how unhappy I'd be. I'd be sitting there going, "What? A stinking chigger can exist, but I can't exist?! How crazy is that!" You'd be unhappy, too! Or step it up, with something better than a chigger but still not as good as a man. "A stinking pig has a shot at life, but not me? Good grief, what kind of world is this anyway?!"

Since I actually do exist, I'm happy to share the land with pigs and chiggers.

OK, back to the pigs existing. There are millions of pigs, and the fact of the matter is hardly any of them, like less than 1%, would exist if they weren't being bred for food. Think about it, no farmer is going to breed 5,000 pigs just to have them standing around. He's trying to make money, not clutter up the farm with useless pigs. Therefore, if no one ate pigs, pigs wouldn't exist in any quantity. So if you're a pig, and you realize all this, you are going to do what you can to make sure people eat more pork, because that's the only thing that gave you a shot at life.You're not going to have piglets without that policy, however revolting it might otherwise be to you.

Just today, I had four slices of bacon. And I feel good about it, because I'm doing my part.