Sunday, April 24, 2016

What's the funniest thing you ever did?

Good Day World!

What's the funniest thing you ever did?

In the spirit of sharing, I searched through 65-years of memories seeking the best example and came up with...

It was back in the late 1970s when I decided to impress our two toddler sons with my outdoor abilities (of which truth be told I had none).

It was the week before Christmas and I took my wife and boys to the nearby mountains to cut down a Christmas tree. We were all excited.

Pause for a moment.

Have you ever seen National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation? It's about a young family preparing to celebrate Christmas.

There was a scene in it when the main character's son (Rusty) asks his dad (Clark), if he brought a saw as they study a giant tree. He didn't. Chaos reigns and somehow they get the tree home.

Back to my young family. It was our first experience in the snow, in the mountains, and actually cutting down a Christmas tree. 

I was as enthusiastic as Clark and wanted to make it a special Christmas. But I didn't make Clark's mistake and take on a giant tree.

My wife and two sons followed me up a snowy slope like ducklings in my tracks. Then I saw THE TREE. It wasn't too big for me. It was just right.

Pulling out a little hatchet that I recently purchased, I gestured for them to step back a little. This was a man's work!

The sun peeked out from the clouds as if to watch me perform my task. A squirrel stopped running and watched me intently as I came up to the tree and swung my manly hatchet...

And missed the tree, but NOT ME. I nailed my shin and somehow managed not to scream. My embarrassment helped me focus and I checked to see if they saw what happened.

They didn't. They were all looking a little puzzled, but eager.

I smiled reassuringly and this time my aim was true and the hatchet bit into the tree instead of me. A few whacks later and the tree was down and I was sliding it down the slope like an old hand.

It wasn't until we got into the truck that my wife noticed the blood on my leg. My long underwear and jeans we're dyed a dark red.

We didn't say anything to the boys on the way home. I made my wife promise to never tell anyone what a clod I was. She smiled and shared the story before the week was out.

I have to say, it's much funnier in the telling than it was at the time!

Time for me to walk on down the road...

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