Pokin’ Fun by Doc Blakely
My friend, Linda, was telling me about a little girl of her acquaintance, about 4 years old, who was in the kitchen watching the grown up ladies prepare for a feast. They warned her not to touch anything because they didn’t want to get the food contaminated. One lady was cutting carrots into slices to go into a vegetable dish of some sort. The little girl got bored and went out into the garden where others were harvesting a plethora of plants. Her Grandpa, who didn’t appear to be all that sanitary to her, was pulling more carrots from the ground and shaking the dirt off them. She came running into the house and told her Mother, “I didn’t do it. I didn’t do it. Somebody has taken your carrots and stuck them in the ground and they are all dirty again.”
Kids are inquisitive about the most innocent things. A little boy asked his Father where he came from. Not wanting to get into a biology lesson he told him to go ask his Mother. The kid said, “To tell you the truth Dad, I didn’t want to know that much about it.” But reluctantly he did approach his Mother with the question. She was totally prepared for this day and went into Anatomy, Physiology of Reproduction, Gestation, Prenatal care, Labor, Nursing, even Post-Partum Syndrome. When she finished she asked if he had any questions. He said, “Just one. I just wanted to know where I came from. Bobby said he came from Chicago.”
Al “Bear” Walker, of Chapin, S.C. told me via e mail recently that he was one of those kind of kids but he was held in check by his Mama who let him know when she disapproved of something…anything. Bear says, “I never could tell the difference between a conniption and a hissy fit, but if Mama had either one of them I knew I was in serious trouble.”
Remember Dr. Spock? Well, my time was way before his. When I was a kid my Daddy told me that if I ever started a fight in school that he would give me a whuppin’. He also advised me that if some bully started the fight that I was to defend myself and if I didn’t win the match when I got home he was going to give me a whuppin’ for losing. Naturally this leads to some conflicted feelings but I learned how to be honorable in dealing with others, courageous in the face of a just cause and creative in telling stories from my point of view. But just to keep me on my toes my Dad would sneak up behind me once in a while and bust me with his open hand on my backside. I’d say, “What was that for Dad?” He’d say, “You know what that was for?” And it always made me wonder, how did he find out about that? www.docblakely.com
