Mitchell Way
In a small cabin at the Fisherman’s Cove Resort on Curlew Lake, eight men prepared for a week of deer hunting on Vulcan Mountain. This was the opening weekend. This was the final weekend of the World Series and this was the year we witnessed “The Phantom.”
“I once sucked down a whole can of sardines — heads, guts and all, while only taking one breath.”
“Ok,’ I said. ‘You’re a liar.”
My friend Rex removed a can of sardines from his backpack, peeled back the lid, took one deep breath, and proceeded to slurp down the whole can — head, guts, and all.
It has always been my opinion that too much of a good thing is never advisable. Too many rides on the Zipper at the carnival can make you sick for the rest of the day as will too many hotdogs or pieces of pizza. After four days, relatives staying at my house begin to become annoying because they are in my space. Too much of a good thing. This is why I have my own office, or as I like to call it, The Laboratory for Creative Ideas. I can be around my wife Cheryl for a short amount of time before my adorable, sarcastic, small-talk drives her up the wall and she shouts, “Get out of here. Go to your office!”
Obviously, I’m too much of a good thing.
I have special interest in three sciences: Ornithology, because my wife says I am ornery. Ichthyology, because the girls in elementary school constantly said I was icky, and Entomology for my appreciation of honeybees. Not that we have not had our differences; the last time I was stung, my arm pits swelled up like there were golf balls under the skin. Now when I travel, I must bring my Epipen™ to prevent my tongue from swelling up and choking me. Yet, I find the little fellows interesting. They leave the hive in the early morning and work all day gathering honey only to give it up to the Queen and the 500 kids. (I won’t try to draw any parallels here.)
The slush pump, or more commonly known as the slide trombone. The instrument which has mystified children since the day it was created — “Mommy, where does that tube go when he slides it back and forth. Into his mouth?”
The instrument which mystified me for over 50 years — “Cripes, where do I position the slide so I don’t make the sound of a bellowing cow?”
In my young years, life was all about flying and before Bellingham airport became a fenced business park which happens to have a runway, it was a young boy’s dream. It was a place where you could ride your bike right up to a parked airplane and press your nose into the window. The smell of aviation oils and leather interiors are still logged in my memory. Evenings, we would bring home model airplanes and spend hours in my bedroom building them, only stopping when we could not see straight from smelling the rubber cement. This of course led to the need to build something bigger which we could make fly, so we put wings on a cart.
It started as any of our other hunting trips — with high hopes and low expectations. Sturgis Fenton and I were going to spend three days hunting the hills of northeast Washington.
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 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.
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.