Two Truths and a Tale_ Part 2

For those of you who have read Two Truths and a Tale_Part 1 (Featuring: Vampire Bat, Toe Story and Stupid Girl) you may find the answer below. For those of you who are new comers to my blog please be a good sport and immediately go to my April 2007 posting and read Two Truths and a Tale_Part 1 first. There's a link to your right or you can just scroll to the bottom of this page. You'll find instructions on our little game there as well.

Two Truths and a Tale - Part 2

The Wedding Singer
What is it about human nature that finds it excruciatingly funny to laugh during moments when you are not supposed to laugh?

I hate singing at weddings to begin with. They are so serious. The bride and her family are typically wound way too tight. You have to deal with abnormal stress levels and bad church sound systems. It all started as the guests were being seated. The gentleman I was singing with was a tad large. He was wearing some suspenders that were a tad small. In front of everyone the back clips of these suspenders unhinged from the rear of his trousers and bungeed up into the air over his shoulders and down towards the floor in front of him. He was able to keep his pants up and for the most part we were able to keep our composure. But the silly-damn was beginning to break.

It was during the communion portion of the wedding ceremony that the best thing ever happened. The pastor, along with the bride and groom had their backs to the audience as they faced the make-shift alter on the back part of the stage. All eyes were on them except for mine. I was looking out towards the audience as I sang a solo from the side of the stage. I wasn’t even half way through the song when IT happened. At first my shoulders began to shake and my voice started to crack like a bad country singer. Then the giggles just leapt out of me and I couldn't reel them in. I burst out in uncontrollable laughter in the middle of the ceremony… and I could not stop. The pastor, the audience and certainly the bride and groom were not impressed. There was nothing I could do but very ungracefully leave the stage, still laughing.

What happened? While all eyes were on the couple at the communion alter or closed in prayer, I saw a man in the balcony lunge forward like he was trying to hold back a sneeze. Disastrously for him his hairpiece fell off of his head and fluttered down into the main seating area below right into the lap of an elderly woman. The lady lifted her head just high enough to notice the gentleman in front of her was balding. She picked the toupee off of her lap and innocently placed it on the stranger’s head in front of her.



Red Dawn
I think my mother must have been trained as a spy. How in the world she found us that day I have no idea. She completely ruined the fun… but saved the day.

The sawmill in our town was a great place to play “Red Dawn.” The mill workers were the evil communists driving their war-like machinery (fork-lifts, excavators, dump trucks and loaders) and my friends and I were the good guys under siege. The borders of our war games consisted of rows and rows of fallen trees piled high on the north and east sides of perimeter. Train tracks, often with moving train cars loading and unloading, established the southern border while the western edge of the sawmill was closed off by the Kettle River. The middle of the playing field consisted of wonderful mazes made by the innumerable stacks of cut lumber wrapped and ready to be shipped to a Home Depot near you.

Every kid had a sling shot in those days. Some kids shot birds and other small animals with these ancient weapons. I was never into animal cruelty. Especially not after our cat Barney came home one day moaning something awful with suspicious devices attached to his underside. It turned out that one of the neighborhood kids had attached a clothes pin to each of Barney’s testicles. Ouch!

No, my sling shot would not be used on animals…people maybe, but not animals. The mill workers wore hard hats so when we were aiming for their fork lifts and dump trucks it seemed a pretty harmless game. Besides, in our minds, we were fighting the dreaded Red Army. Our targets could be difficult to hit because they were darting in and out of buildings and lumber piles. We would sometimes climb the lumber piles and shoot at them from atop the vantage point or we would press our bodies between narrow passage ways and launch our assault from inside the maze, knowing we could lose them with our speed, skill and prowess.

I don’t know which one of us fired the shot that made it inside the cab of the vehicle but it must have wounded one of their soldiers because that area of the mill was abruptly shut down. They literally stopped working because they were searching for us. We could hear the mill workers cursing and yelling instructions to their comrades, “Over there, I saw them run that way. Follow me we’ll catch those #@!*#! kids around back.”

The fear and thrill of being chased by angry grown men was exhilarating and unmatched as a kid. They tried for a long time to locate us but we knew the inside of the lumber maze better than they did. Plus we could squeeze into small spaces and climb precarious ledges that our big-bellied enemies could not. We could hear their footsteps and heavy breathing as they approached. So far so good, as long as we didn’t giggle too loudly we were safe. As the sun began to set, it dawned on us that we did have one problem; we were unable to go home because we were surrounded and trapped.

Unexpectedly, we heard someone making their way confidently towards us. Then a voice called out, “alright boys, it’s time to go home.” It was my mother. I couldn’t believe it, how did she find us? Was there a homing device planted in me at birth. Did she have supernatural powers? Regardless, I was thankful she came. She led us down the main road of the sawmill right through the front gates without anyone seeing us. It was the last place the Soviets would expect us to exit through.


Aerodynamics
I don’t remember anyone ever telling me that you shouldn’t ride your bicycle downhill on a one-way street the wrong way with your head down to cut the wind. I happened to think it was a brilliant idea.

My older brother always beat me in races so this was my chance, my moment to make a statement to him and to the world. I saw him out of the corner of my eye on the opposite side of the road just a little ahead of me. I pedaled hard until I reached the point when pedaling becomes irrelevant. I leaned forward and tucked my head down to reach full speed, then hyper speed, then finally ludicrous speed. I glanced over at my brother to see that I was in the lead for the first time in the history of this post-elementary school day rivalry. He had his head up and seemed to be slowing down. In fact I think he was trying to tell me something. The sore loser is probably trying to distract me I thought. The finish line was the bottom of the hill and nothing could stop me now, or so I thought. There was a horn blowing but I couldn’t be bothered, I was preparing for my victory speech. Thankfully, the car had pretty much come to a complete stand-still when I hit it. My bicycle became one with the front bumper and I defied gravity; I was flying. The way I remember it is in slow motion… me flying over the entire vehicle without ever touching it. It was awesome!

I was lying on my back, now behind the vehicle, with the wind knocked out of me expecting some sympathy from the driver. Instead Satan’s wife stepped out of the car and began giving me heck. I heard words from the driver that day that would have made Scarface blush. Answer for Part 1: Stupid Girl is the tale.


Now make your guess for part 2. Which one is the tale? Wedding Singer, Red Dawn or Aerodynamics? Good luck! I'll let you know in the next blog.

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