I need to get my man to the country. He needs to learn a few things about being a boy. Now I’m not saying you can’t learn to be a boy in the city, I’m saying I know country, and I’d like to see him get a taste of country living. When he’s older I’d like to have him spend a summer working on a farm chopping cotton, or spraying Johnson grass. I’d like to watch him climb up into the cab of an eight thousand series John Deere tractor and run a tandem disk for a day. Better still I wish he could have a day sitting in the seat of an open top 4020 John Deere pulling a stalk cutter. On a cold day driving into the wind the air is fresh and clean, but it has a bite of cold to it that works its way all the way to the bone. Awe, but when you turn around and drive with the wind at your back the warmth returns and the chill slowly drifts away. There is a price to pay however because with the warmth also comes the dust that the stalk cutter is kicking up behind you.  The dust makes it harder to breath, and it also finds its way into the corners of your mouth, and into corners of your eyes where it cakes up in the moisture formed there while driving into the breeze. Sounds like fun doesn’t it?  

But, that’s for later he’s only five. A weekend ago I spent the day taking care of him and his little sister for a day. While watching the Cowboys play we snacked on Shrimp and cocktail sauce, (ok ya can’t be country all the time) when Major politely said, “I don’t double dip.” It took me a second or two realize that that was his way of saying, “Grumpy, don’t double dip in the cocktail sauce.”  

“I’m sorry Maje, I’ll be sure not to double dip again.

“Thanks Grumps.”

I was probably past my teenage years before double dipping became an issue. I’m not saying it’s right, I’m saying it’s so. We never saw anything wrong with it, and it didn’t matter if a body was with family or friends. We shared a bottle of coke without worrying about the germs.  You could take a bite off of a candy bar and pass it on without thinking about it either. As a teenager I guess double dipping would have meant taking a pinch of Happy Days from between someone’s cheek and gum and then inserting it between your own cheek and gum. Let me assure you, we would have never done that, but that is double dipping.   

Here are a few things I did as a kid and lived to tell about it. I have been known to drink out of the cow tank, right along with the cows. I also know what it’s like to lick a salt block that the cows have made deep groves in with their tongues. I know what it’s like to take care of my “business” in the pasture and use weed leaves to do the paper work. I know that the best water in the world comes straight out of the ground via an irrigation well. I have enjoyed sneaking out of granddad Clark’s back door to go eat supper with the hired help. Man, I have to stop this right now before I start telling about walking bare foot, in the snow, uphill to and from school every day.

To tell you the truth, I’m not worried about my little man growing up to be a man. He comes in with bruises and cuts everyday it seems, and says “It didn’t hurt, a boy has to be tough, and I’m tough.” The last time he went to get his shots at the Doctor’s office he told me that the shots hurt a little but that he didn’t cry because he was tough. His mom wanted him to put on Mary Alice’s toboggan the other day as we were headed out to play catch with the football.  “Mom, I can’t wear that it’s a girl’s hat.”

Well I guess after thinking about it a little he is doing ok living in the city, and learning that a body shouldn’t double dip. Heck, for all I know the country folks may have gone soft too. As for me, I still don’t see the problem with double dipping…as long I’m DD’n with someone I love, or a really good friend. I don’t have a problem DD’n at church fellowships.  (What, you don’t think Jesus did the double dip thing with bread and gravy?) I can even DD with complete strangers unless their teeth are all gross, then I guess I’d have decide how good the dip really was or how hungry I was.  There is one thing I won’t DD, and that’s a tootsie pop. Well I would DD, or in this case DL (double lick) a tootsie pop with any of the grandkids, or with Paula, Miranda, or Amber, but I’d never DL with a man, that’d just be too gross.

I know what you’re thinking. You’re thinking, wait a minute, he drinks with cows, and licks salt blocks with cows, but he won’t stick a tootsie pop in his mouth that another man has already licked? Yup, that’s what I’m saying. Some things are just too gross, even the thought of that gives me the willies.

Till next time,

Grump