After Winnie made her presence known to her teacher, which took much tugging on the coat of and jumping up and down, she headed over to the sledding hill. It was massively tall in Winnie’s eyes and excitement surged through her in anticipation of hurtling down its steep slopes.
About 20 feet out from the bottom of the hill was a nice sized pond shoveled off for ice skating, but no one had yet ventured out onto it. As the freshly fallen snow was still soft, the hurtling sleds all stopped well short of the pond itself.
There was a small break in the action on the hill as the adult in charge had to take a break. While Winnie was dutifully trudging up the slippery hill to reach its summit and take her turn on a sled, unbeknownst to anyone, Josh the aforementioned bully whom Winnie herself made sure was present, was liberally pouring water all over the ground on the sled run, in order to increase the distance and speed once it froze over.
Winnie was the first to be loaded onto a sled when the adult in charge returned, steaming hot chocolate cup in hand. “You ready to fly down this hill, young lady?” he asked. Winnie’s hat tail swayed wildly as she shook her head in an excited affirmative. “Hang on tight!” he yelled as he gave a push to the back of Winnie’s sled.
Winnie fairly flew down the sledding hill, happy screams trailing out behind her like invisible streamers. As she reached the bottom and struck the newly formed ice, Winnie’s sled hurtled onward toward the waiting pond, not slowing even a bit. No one but Josh was paying the least bit of attention as Winnie’s sled crashed over the ice of the pond and out onto the very weakest part of the ice, the middle. The blades of the old wooden sled cut deep grooves into the ice, causing it to crack. The sled stopped achingly fast as it ground into the ice, throwing Winnie several feet up and out onto the ice with a sickening crack.
As Winnie was thrown onto and through the ice, it reformed quickly over her and within a few hours Winnie was embedded completely in the frozen water of the pond, forever gazing skyward.
The End.
Xerxes
There are few things more wholesome for a child than to be raised on a farm with the clean country air, the wide-open spaces for playing and running, the inspiring vistas of mountain and sky. Farm living fosters an appreciation and an affinity for nature. The link between earth and life is apparent every day. The cycle of birth and death and of sowing and reaping fosters a gratitude for hard work that is well rewarded, along with a belief of everything in its own time.
A farm life can be a tough life though, being primarily dependent on the bounty of nature. Droughts, floods, infestations, sickness, disease and death all can take a toll. There can be as many bad years as good years, but typically the good years are very good, while the bad teach one a certain stoicism about life, a perseverance not often taught in city schools or families.
Xerxes’ family was no stranger to the bad years. Nine years ago, Xerxes father was badly injured when the tractor slipped and rolled onto his left leg, leaving it crippled. Eight years ago, a new born child passed in its crib, only a few weeks old. Seven years ago, Xerxes became the 6th and last child for the Woodsons, Xerxes mother having died only a few days after his birth.
Xerxes oldest sibling, his only sister Naomi, tried her best to fill her mother’s shoes for her younger brothers. Through chicken pox and the measles and colds and flus and scrapes and breaks she took care of them all, the best her young years allowed. But as happens to every young woman, a young man won her heart and carried her away. Xerxes felt the pang of this loss more acutely than his brothers because of his tender years and just when a mother’s influence was most important in his life.
Now left on his own devices, a young man of Xerxes years would not have an appreciation for say, clean clothes or balanced meals, tidy surroundings or clean hands and face. And farm life being what it was, Xerxes father and older brothers were busy with working and schooling and their own lives and desires and maybe didn’t pay enough attention to Xerxes.
So as the months after Naomi’s wedding went past, Xerxes reverted into being a total boy, unclean, unkempt and uncaring. One night, while sleeping haphazardly on his unkempt bed in his little room downstairs, he was woken by a sharp pain on his wrist. When he got up and turned on the light, he discovered to his horror that his hands were covered in blood. Through a jolt of fear and not knowing the meaning of this he ran upstairs to where his father lay snoring.
“Dad, Dad, you awake?” Xerxes ponderously asked from the doorway, the light from the hall’s single hanging bulb outlining him. Parents of any ilk seem to have some supernatural sense when they are needed by one of their children and Xerxes father was immediately awoken.
“What’s wrong, Xerx?” he asked tiredly. It had been common place for Xerxes to wake his father up at night in the first few weeks after Naomi’s departure because of a nightmare or a night-time accident.
“Dad, my hands are covered in blood,” Xerxes said on the verge of fearful tears, holding his arms out. I’m sure his father assumed this too was another nightmare, but as he sat up and reached for the light switch cord that dangled above the bed, he was shocked by what he saw. Xerxes hands were covered in blood. He jumped up out of bed and in two lopsided steps was kneeling at Xerxes side, holding his arms out to examine his son’s hands. Unknowing disbelief clouded his sleep-fogged reasoning.
He turned Xerxes around. “Are you hurt anywhere else?” His father urgently asked, scaring Xerxes just a little more.
“N-n-no.” Xerxes said barely controlling the tears now, as his father picked him up and limping, carried him across the hall and into the upstairs bathroom. As Xerxes’ father examined his small son in the bright fluorescent light of the bathroom, he noticed two small puncture wounds on the side of Xerxes’ right wrist, set close together. He also finally noticed another thing; his son was filthy. Xerxes’ hands encrusted with dried food, his face smudged with God knows what. It didn’t take long to put all this together. A mouse, most likely drawn to Xerxes unkempt state bit Xerxes thinking he had found a new food source. Farms and mice go together like bread and butter. After he washed Xerxes’ hands and arms and saw to stopping the tiny trickle of blood that was still oozing from the bite marks, he ran a bath for Xerxes. He commenced on extolling the virtues of cleanliness, feeling just a pang of guilt for his obvious ignorance of his youngest son’s state of well-being.
Once Xerxes was cleaned and bandaged (farmers know how to take care of themselves) he walked Xerxes back down to his room. Upon seeing the sty that was passing as a bedroom he immediately sent Xerxes to wake up his two oldest brothers, Balthazar and Esau (their mother had had a penchant for unusual bible names). When they saw Xerxes had been hurt, and also feeling a twinge of guilt over their lack of attention to their youngest brother they set to cleaning up without a grumble.
Conditions for Xerxes were nicely improved. His brothers made sure he had clean clothes, washed regularly and that he kept his room neat. His father made sure he ate a sensible diet, heavy on carbs and fats like all farmers, with plenty of fresh vegetables. He got to school on time and had help with his homework. You might say, exterior conditions for Xerxes were vastly improved, almost back to pre-Naomi leaving times. But his interior condition was worsening daily.
He made sure he slept every night with his arms securely tucked under the covers, never dangling any part of his body off the bed at night. He used a flashlight to check the darker corners of his room for micely interlopers, those would-be assassins. He started to see mice where there wouldn’t be mice, in the sock drawer (pair of rolled up grey socks) for example, or in the refrigerator and when he convinced Balthazar to extricate it, it turned out to be only a moldy avocado.
You could say mice, or at least the fear of mice, were taking over Xerxes life.
Now about this time his brother Boaz’s class was reading a particularly well-known story about a fisherman and a whale. Boaz, a more bookish type than the rest of the brood, enjoyed talking about books and to much eye-rol
ling, launched into an explanation of the true meaning behind the story one night at the dinner table. Xerxes was all ears, but again being only seven may have missed the true gist of the story. That night in bed, Xerxes spent long hours planning the extermination of his mousey nemesi.
His pogrom of mice extermination started the next day once he gathered up all the old mouse traps he had seen laying around in the sheds, barn and basement. With peanut butter jar in hand, he proceeded to lay as many traps around the house, paying special attention to his own room for this perceived scourge, as he had working mechanisms. Mouse traps could be found under the sofa and all the beds. Additional traps were laid in the darkest corners and behind large furniture. Several were strategically placed in the kitchen cabinets. In Xerxes mind, those little devils were goners.
Rising early the next morning, Xerxes scurried around the house checking his traps for dead mice. To his disappointment, all he found were a few snapped traps and one or two more with the alluring peanut butter eaten away. One lone mouse is all he caught, and that poor thing was still twitching. Xerxes, not knowing how to kill it, sadly left it to worry itself to death.
That night with his father off in town at a grange meeting with Balthazar and Esau, and his other brothers ensconced in their rooms, music or video games playing, Xerxes decided he had better redouble his efforts. He ran around the house resetting and re-baiting his traps with cheese and peanut butter, all the while liberally spilling large amounts of it on himself, in his haste. But he needed more traps. More traps equaled more dead mice, in Xerxes mind.
He scoured through the house for unused traps, finding none. He braved the basement once again, looking though all the dusty boxes and shelves for more traps, coming up only with two broken ones. Still carrying his cheese wedge and peanut butter jar, he ran out to the barn, sure there would be more traps lurking in corners.
Now as I said before, farms and mice go together, especially in the barn. Mice love barns. In fact, Xerxes’ father’s barn literally had dozens of mice living in its holes and shadows. Dozens of hungry mice, anyone of which would love some peanut butter and cheese.
That night, as Xerxes was hunting mouse traps, he tripped and fell into the wall of the barn at the corner, smashing the peanut butter jar on the floor and spilling the cheese wedge on the floor. When Xerxes dizzily woke from the knock on his head, it was already too late. Dozens and dozens of ravenous mice were almost upon him.
The End.
Yorick
If you’ve ever driven the back roads of the White or Green mountains in late winter/early spring you are sure to have noticed a peculiar thing in the woods. Seeming miles and miles of white tubing stretching up and up through the endless maple forests. For the first-time observer, this is indeed a strange sight to behold, up and up and deep into the forest the tubing stretches connecting from tree to tree. From the days of the original natives, people have been collecting maple sap to produce a sweet flavorful syrup. Three types of maple trees can be tapped for sap, the Black and Sugar maples yield the sweetest sap, while the Red maple provides a less sweet sap.
One large maple tree can produce up to 20 gallons of sap, which after processing results in only two quarts of syrup. How is the sap from the Maple tree processed into syrup, you may wonder? In the easiest, if time consuming way – it is boiled down. The longer the water is boiled out, the sweeter the syrup becomes. Generally, it is boiled down until the sugar content is consistent at 67%, making for the sweet mapely treat you liberally drown your pancakes and waffles in.
One late autumn about twelve years ago, a young up and coming attorney in Tucson by the name of Frederick Neissen had taken on a client few others would have consented to, it was considered a losing case by almost everyone involved. The case involved murder, extortion and bribery committed (allegedly) by Mr. Neissen’s new client. Through the use of supreme logic, deft investigation and a charming personality, Mr. Neissen was able to prove his client was innocent, in a very Perry Mason kind of way. Mr. Neissen had no use for legal flumoxxery or technicalities, if he proved you were innocent, it was because you were not because the cops or the prosecution skirted the law, mishandled evidence or otherwise didn’t word their petitions correctly. Mr. Neissen dealt in absolutes. His clients were either innocent or guilty. If they were innocent, he got them off. If they were guilty, well he did their best for them, but they were still guilty.
Now Mr. Neiss came to the attention of a high-powered law firm in Bennington Vermont, who was on the lookout for an attorney of spotless character and record, to lead the defense of their innocent clients. They did just well defending their not so innocent clients themselves, in a Boston Legal kind of way. Because of a reputation of playing loosely with the spirit of the law, even when they defended an innocent client no one ever really believed it.
That is how Freddy (no one ever called him that more than once) and his wife, Judy found themselves driving through the Green Mountains of Vermont, looking for the new home they had rented online, which they liked so much they ended up buying and a few years later had their first child in, Yorick.
Lawyering can be a stressful profession. It is recommended that one take up an interesting and enjoyable hobby in one’s spare time. Our friend Frederick took up golf, but in Vermont, even the most ardent golfer can only play for about six months out of twelve, so what to do with the winter months? Obviously, as the saying goes, make hay while the sun shines. Or in New England terms, make syrup while the sap runs. Frederick decided he wanted to make his own maple syrup.
It’s easy enough. Step one – poke hole in tree. Step two - collect sap. Step three - boil sap until it tastes like maple syrup. Ta dah. And like the home brewer, and the bathtub gin maker, serious maple syrup producers are a breed of their own, don’t ya know, ayup.
The seasons passed and Frederick developed a nice little cottage industry of making maple syrup. As Yorick got older, Frederick shared this passion for syrup making with him. The selection of the trees to be tapped that season, the correct insertion of the spiel, the running of the sap lines from tree to tree and to the downhill collection area and most importantly the art of boiling down the sap to just the correct temperature and consistency for syrup, were the steps.
The large back yard of the house, next to the small barn was dedicated in winter months to sap boiling. There were a dozen small boiling stations set up because Frederick believed small batches were best.
After the sap collection began, he and Yorick would clear out the fire pits, set up the supports that held the large, deep pans which the sap would be boiled in and would spend weekends making maple syrup. As the sap boiled down in each pan, more sap would be added until each pot contained about five gallons of syrup. Once cooled slightly, the pots would be carted into the barn and the newly boiled sap would be poured into smaller pans on the gas stovetop, where Judy would watch the final boiling stage closely.
Once the new syrup passed Frederick’s taste and consistency tests, all of it was filtered into large wooden barrels for storage until it was time for bottling.
One year when Yorick was about ten years old, a big murder case consumed Frederick’s time all winter, even on the weekends. It being well past time for the tapping to have begun, Yorick finally convinced his father to let him go up into the hills and start tapping the trees. Because Frederick sorely missed his maple syrup making time and knew Yorick was anxious to prove himself, he consented.
As Yorick was in the barn one day in the early morning readying to commence, Frederick asked him, “What trees will you tap?”
“Only the sugar maples up on the far hill.” Yorick dutifully answered, for they had been over this several times already.
“Remember, you can get the pits ready, but don’t start the boil until I say. The sap will keep fine in the outdoor collection tanks as long as the temperature stays below 38.” It wasn’t that Frederick didn’t trust Yorick, it was that he was sorely missing the opportunity to engage in his
favorite hobby along with him that made him seem so naggy.
“Yes, dad.” Yorick patiently said with a hug for his father as he trudged out the door and through the snow, his pack of spiels and coils of tubing swinging along behind him.
Yorick spent that whole day up on the far hill identifying the best of the sugar maples and placing his spiels, all dutifully plugged until he connected the tubing to the downhill storage tanks. That first day Yorick tapped and connected almost a dozen trees before he returned home to warm up and eat. There was just one or two more Yorick wanted to tap tomorrow, then he could finish connecting the tubing and start the sap running.
Yorick was asleep in bed long before his father returned home that night after a long day in court. He was gratified to hear from his wife Judy how well Yorick seemed to have gotten along on his own today. Hewas looking forward to examining the tap line once completed. He went to bed a happy man, looking forward to his return to making maple syrup with his son Yorick as soon as this case finished.
26 Absurdities of Tragic Proportions Page 14
