Funny stories about people I've knowed

Bill and the Snow Fort.

Bill is my neighbor. His large family can be traced back to the early settlers of the area. He is about 80 now and still in good heath. Although from the stories told of the things he did in youth and in maturity, it's a wonder he's still alive!

When Bill and his brothers attended the little one-room grade school in the area, there came a heavy wet snow. When school was out, the whole student body set in to have a big snowball fight. Sides were chosen and lines were drawn and snow forts were built.

The next morning when Bill and brothers got to the schoolyard, Bill thought it would be great fun to knock down the opposition's fort before they got there. Sparing no effort and with a fateful "Watch this!", he lowered his head and ran into the fort like a charging bull.

Sometime later it dawned on Bill that the temperature had dropped to below 0 through the night and what had been soft snow was now hard ice.

Bill and the Cedar Tree.

Another time the boys were all swinging on grapevines hanging in a large oak tree. Bill thought he could swing high enough to reach the top of a 40-foot tall cedar tree some distance away. He swung higher and higher until he thought he could risk letting go of the vine and grab the top of the cedar tree.

Not quite!

Witnesses said he fell through the cedar tree like a cannon ball - hitting the ground in a dusty heap. They thought he was surely dead but they picked him up and walked him around a little. He was a little worse for wear, skunt up, bruised, cloths torn, but otherwise no permanent damage was done.

Leo and the spark plug

Seems like I've been blessed with the opportunity of working with a lot of colorful people. I've told stories about Dickey, Tom, Bill, Kenny, Opie, and Bullseye and the things they've done. But I got to thinking about another guy that was also an amateur Evil Kanvil. His name is Leo.

Leo has an interesting collection of scars from various stunts he's pulled. He has cut the limb off he was standing on on more than one occasion. (in his youth and as an adult) He has scars running from the corner of his mouth on each s ide from the time he played a Halloween prank in a small town and ran from the local deputy in the dark - smack dab into a cloths line! He once found a stick of dynamite and set it off in the top of a tree on the backside of the farm - breaking windows f or a half-mile radius from the spot.

But this story always makes me cringe to think about it:

He and his younger brother were playing with a go-cart they had built. They were running it around the field and through a mud hole. Occasionally the cart woul d get stuck. Leo jumped off and left his brother at the wheel while he pushed. He said he was standing behind the cart and pushing against the roll bar behind the seat. He would rock it forward as his brother gave it gas and when it wouldn't go, pull i t back for another try. On the last forward shove, the wheels caught something solid and being wound up tight shot out of the mud hole. The go-cart immediately died and his brother looked back to see what happened. Scene reconstructed: As the cart le aped forward, Leo could not let go fast enough and was pulled down. His face hit the top of the engine and the sparkplug ran up his nose and ripped it's way out and in the process killed the motor.

Can you compound the injury? Falling face first on a hot engine. Running a sparkplug up your nose. Having it short out the spark. And then ripping it's way out your nose!

Tommy the Cowboy

I worked close to Tommy for a number of years. He is a short but muscular man about 5'8" and is of mostly Native American ancestry - one of the eastern "Civilized Tribes", as I remember. But he always dressed in fashion of the Southwest with his cowboy hat, shirt and boots plus the required silver and turquoise ornaments. Kind of a 7/8 scale Roy Rogers.

He also fancied himself a horseman and would amuse us with one of his "close encounters of the equestrian kind" from time to time.

One day he limped in to work all bunged up. The story unfolded that he was going to catch his horse and lead it into the barn for some reason. But beings he couldn't find a proper lead rope, he'd just use the 50' rope he had hanging handy on the wall. But .. what to do with the excess rope? He'd tie it around his waist and wrap it around and around to use up the excess.

He caught the horse and all went well until he stepped past the barn door and onto his sleeping hound dowg. The dowg yelped and then frightened by the sight of the horse over him, went for the horse. The horse jerked free from Tommy and headed for greener pastures with dog hot on it's heels. Out went any slack in the rope, then the rope uncoiled spinning Tommy to the ground. Then Tommy did a quick but close inspection of the pasture for about 50 yards - taking sample of dirt and grass and leaving samples of cloths and skin along the way. He literally "bit the dust" and it' s a good thing that god protects fools and drunks because he could have "bit the dust" figuratively as well.

He had a way of breaking horses too. One day he got his unbroken gelding up and got the saddle and bridal on it. He led it out into the pasture and then blindfolded it with his cowboy handkerchief. His wife held the horse by th e bridal until Tommy got on. Then by signal, she released her hold as he reached up and pulled the handkerchief loose. Well, it almost worked. It may have worked. But while he was extended forward to remove the handkerchief, the horse took its first lunge thus putting Tommy in uncertain control. With the blindfold partially removed but partially effective, the horse went flat out but not too far as there was this barbwire fence ahead. The horse with Tommy ran full speed into the fence. As Tommy was also responsible for the construction of the fence, it was none too good so down it went, down the horse went, taking Tommy with it. They couldn't just fall over a fence, as on the other sided was the road embankment. They both landed at the bottom of the ditch tangled in barbwire. Thus necessitating a trip to the ER for Tommy for stitches and X-rays and a visit from the Vet for the horse.

Kenny and the Campbell Soup Song

My first ten or so years of office life were before the famed cubical. We were housed in big open spaces with desks rowed up like cars in a parking lot.

Life was wild then. In the early 80's we had an influx of new people. Each would have to run the gauntlet of pranks and practical jokes. I must say they were all good sports because they fell right in with us when the next poor victim showed up.

One guy, (I'll call him Kenny because that was his name) never really graduated past the victim level. You could always fool him. Got to where the old pros would let the new guys trick Kenny because it wasn't sporting enough.

Big Mike McNown set about the distance between horseshoe pegs from Kenny in the sea of desks. Mike was about average at everything but B.S. That he excelled in.

On day Mike gets the idea to call Kenny and impersonate a radio disk jockey and get Kenny to sing the Campbell's Soup song - You remember: "Mmmm, Mmmm Good! Mmmm, Mmmm, Good! Campbell's Chicken Soup is Mmmm, Mmmm Good!"

Well the whole area knew what was going down. Kenny gets the call and Mike explains who he is and if he (Kenny) could sing the Campbell's Soup song, he would win a case of soup. Kenny was too thick headed to understand him so he just hung up. Then he had to tell everyone about the odd phone call he got. The news spread through the office bay like ripples from a rock thrown into a pond.

A couple of people explained to Kenny what the jockey was offering him and what he had missed. MAN! Kenny was disappointed! He was getting married in a couple of months and sure could have used that case of soup.

In the discussion, someone mentioned that the radio station sometimes has a second chance Tuesday. (and, by golly, it was Tuesday!) If you missed winning, then they would put your name in a hat and give you a second chance. But Kenny didn't know the song! He had to be coached.

After lunch came the second call. Explained that he had been chosen to have a second chance. He was ready. He sang his song. Then Mike explained he got the song right and won but they needed to reenact the interview and have him sing the song again so they could record it to play on the radio. So Kenny sang the song again. Mike explains they has some recorder problem so if he could sing it just one more time. He does. Well, that was good but most people sound better if they were standing up. Could he stand and sing the song? He does. That was much better but if he could sing it a little louder, it would be much better. Kenny really puts some effort into it and signs again.

Meanwhile, everyone within 50 feet was about to bust a gut. The Engineering Manager was in the area and not in on the prank was standing about ten feet from Kenny with a puzzled look on his face. He just shook his head and walked back to his office.

Finally, with jubilation and pride in his work, Kenny put down the phone to share with the others his accomplishment. We all agreed he had performed perfectly.

A few minutes later, Mike comes over to Kenny's desk and puts down an office Dictaphone recorder and pushes the play button. Kenny was totally confused. How did Mike record his interview? Mike breaks it to Kenny.

Now the Kenny doesn't really have a laugh. He makes an "Eeeeek!" sound like a dolphin and then holds his breath until he turns blue. He was a good sport about it.

Bullseye and the Cat Call

You may remember Bullseye from the turkey hunting story I posted a while back. Well, Bullseye didn’t limit his bonehead stunts to just hunting. He really did make coming to work on Monday mornings a little bit more interesting. You could count on him getting into some kind of fix. I thought of this one the other night and had to chuckle again. Mary asked me what was so funny.

Here is the story:

Bullseye and wife Birdie lived about 40 miles out from Capitol City where they both worked. As the State is by far the largest employer in the area, either you worked for the State or you didn’t. Birdie did and Bullseye didn’t but their hours were close enough together so they could ride together to work.

Birdie’s mom also worked for the State and carpooled with three other ladies – one also worked for the state but the other two didn’t. As the major function of the state government is to spend money (don’t get me started!), they tend to give far more paid holidays that any private business would. As it happened, a holiday came up and it was Birdie’s mom’s week to drive. She didn’t have to work but she was obligated to get the other two to work. Since Bullseye wouldn’t have Birdie, she asked him to give the other two ladies a ride.

The morning commute went as expected. And in the evening Bullseye even managed to remember to pick the ladies up. It should have been easy as when the state is shut down, the office area of down town is practically empty.

Anyway, the heavy set lady got in the back seat of the Mustang and sat in the middle while the other rode “shotgun”. Bullseye made it out of downtown, out the row of stoplights on the expressway and then onto the open freeway. No problem.

Then the impulse. Why? There is no answer for why. End of work on Friday and getting out of the traffic and heading home the exuberance must have overcome his normal imbalanced senses. In one swift movement he extended his right arm out straight with palm turned back, fingers spread as if cupping a basketball. Without so much as a “May I?”, he grabbed the lady’s left breast and gave a good twist as if taking the lid of’n a large mouth pickle jar. The action was accompanied with a rousing “RrrrrEeeerrr” of a wildcat call.

I couldn’t guess how many milliseconds it took before his action was met by a reaction – but it couldn’t have been many. The lady’s left arm came up to break Bullseye’s grip and she flung herself against the passenger side door panel. Bullseye, now coming to realize the mistake he made, moved as far to his side as he could. He stared straight ahead for the remaining 40-minute ride home and she just looked out her side window. Not that there was silence as the heavyset lady in the back had seen it all and couldn’t stop laughing all the way home.