Mitchell Way
Ricky Dandelion, Whatcom County’s foremost authority on guaranteed bad luck in farming, fishing, and camping, had just caught a break. A distant relative had passed away and left Ricky a 5th wheel pop-out trailer. This was indeed an upgrade from his converted school bus camper. Both Ricky and his wife, Venice, were giddy with excitement over the thought of finally being able to camp in style.
It all started when Moses led the Israelite people out of Egypt. After crossing the Red Sea to flee Pharaoh’s soldiers, they stumbled around in the desert for 40 years.
It was not unusual for mysterious events to take place around the Mitchell neighborhood in the 1970s. It appeared, to the untrained eye, to be just another group of normal homes with average families, but this was far from the case.
This blog post is my Christian perspective. If you are offended by something like this, please feel free to come back when I post the next satire story.
I am sitting out on my front porch under the hanging bird feeders which I keep filled for the menagerie of wild birds in my yard. The sun is bright and warm on this winter day, and it is very relaxing drinking coffee in my padded wicker chair, while I write my stories.
When I was born, the doctor lifted me upside down by the ankles and repeatedly slapped me on the bottom. Since that moment I have had an unnatural fear of piñatas.
Ricky Dandelion walked through knee-high field grass next to his back field property line. It was mid-July, and the grass stalks were getting close to the electric fence wire.
Normally, Ricky and his lovely wife, Venice, would consider it a Saturday date by going out together into the cow field with their matching Stihl-FS131 weed-eaters and cutting the grass away from the fence line, but things were different this year.
Poof! A chalk eraser ricocheted off the top of my head. Chalk dust settled in a cloud around my desk.
“I told you, Mitchell! I told the class that if I caught anyone looking at their keyboard, I would wing an eraser at them. There you were staring at your fingers.”
The rest of the class, afraid to look up from the test cards in front of them, nevertheless, giggled. It was after all, a timed typing test so every word counted.
It was a time in life that every boy either looked forward to or shuddered to think he must be a part of. It was a freshman class in high school that every boy had to participate in to graduate. It was a required class, and girls were not allowed. They called it Boys’ Health and, Sex Ed.
“Just another ripple on my lake of irritation,” I can almost hear custodian Luke muttering this as he hiked up the stairs to the third floor at Bellingham High School. For some reason the drinking fountain was plugged.
Ho, Ho, No! You ain’t getting me into that thing! And with that, Santa left his sleigh and drove off in his car.
Dad and I stared at each other. “Huh,” he said. “I guess we go with plan B.”
It was the yearly tradition of The Santa flights.
Light snowflakes were falling out of the evening sky as I crunched through the foot-deep snow covering the sidewalk in my hometown. This was something I looked forward to each year; walking the streets of homes in the historic part of town to look at Christmas decorations in their yards and the lights from their windows. Not only were the old homes elegant, but the trees lining the streets, the 100-year-old oaks which had long since lost their leaves, now shimmered with their white snowy coverings. Except for the occasional passing of a car, it was all very still and quiet.
My best friend, Chuck, was sitting across from me in a booth at Bunks Drive-in. It was late in the afternoon and the sun was setting. A blonde woman’s wig lay in the center of the table between our two Cokes.
Once upon a time, before freeways, and Safeways. Before Thriftways and Haggens, Fred Meyers and Walmarts, when boys wore Brylcreem and girls wore skirts with Bobby socks and saddle shoes, there were neighborhood grocery stores.
As I lay on my back under the stars I wonder, “Is that the Aurora Borealis or is my headache causing my vision to shift?”
As I lay on my back under the stars I wonder, “Is that the space station or a really, really, really high jet and if I had a flashlight could it see my twinkling light shining up at it?”
You’d have to be in a certain age range to notice: 50 years and older. Any younger and you would never have heard of the man, but it is not uncommon for me to get the same question asked from the 50+ crowd: “Have you ever heard of the humorist, Patrick McManus? You have the same writing style.”