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Texas
Agriculture Archive
June 7, 2002
Mel has been restless lately, with lots of pent up energy. We’ve
been hitting events like the Texas Crawfish Festival and different music
forums as well as making jaunts here and there to fish or sightsee. Just
last week, while I was on assignment, he went to the Alamo and the Buckhorns
Hall of Fame. To tell you the truth, I think Mel has a full-blown case
of “go-itis,” and what with all the recent graduations, weddings,
birthdays, family reunions and holiday picnics, I’ve just about gone
my limit. I’ve tried to persuade him that it would be much more productive
if he would just channel some of that energy into completing several of
the projects on my honey-do list, but I saw right quick I could forget
that. Then I had another thought: They have summer camps for kids, where
they wear them out and wear them down and send them back home, why not
husbands?
It’s really not all that farfetched. So I asked Mel just what kind
of summer camp he would envision for himself.
“Man o’ man,” he said, licking his lips as if he were about
to dig into a pile of barbecued ribs. “First off, I’d go sumwhur
cool. The older I git, the harder it is fer me to take ’is summer
heat...”
“Okay, so we have it narrowed down to Iceland or Antarctica.”
“I’m serious,” Mel continued. “Let’s see...I’d
like a place whur you started off in the mornin’ with a big ol’
breakfast o’ pork sausage, sunnyside-up eggs, an’ biscuits ’n
gravy. Then I’d take a few laps aroun’ the swimmin’ pool.
“Next, I’d pack me a picnic lunch, saddle me up a horse an’
ride up into the mountains, like I said, whur it’s cool an’
you can breathe an’ git up high whur you can see wide open country
instead o’ acres o’ houses crammed up one aginst th’ other.
I’d jist lollygag about an’ enjoy God’s creation, find
me a fishin’ hole whur I could break out my fly rod an’ catch
me a trout or two. Might eben kerry me a hammock along an’ rig it
up sos I could take me a li’l nap near a babblin’ brook. Then,
late in the day, I’d mosey on back an find me a high ridge close
to camp to watch the sun set.
“Supper’d be ready when I got back—T-bones or ribeyes cooked
over a campfire, red beans an’ cornbread with a big ol’ hunk
o’ red onion, roasted corn on the cob, an’ lemon icebox pie,
peach cobbler er banana puddin’—er all three fer dessert.
“After dinner, we’d break out our guitars an’ fiddles,
mandolins an’ harmonicas an’ play to our hearts’ content,
songs like Wahldwood Flow’r, Ol’ Joe Clark, Rosewood Casket,
Wabash Cannonball, San Antonio Rose, an’ Amazin’ Grace,
to the wee hours o’ th’ mornin’.”
“Sounds like fun,” I commented.
“Yep, wouldn’t bother to bathe, er shave, er eben take my cap
off ’til time to come back home...an’ thur wudn’t be a
soul thur to tell me I got to.”
“I might have known it. I asked you to describe the ideal summer
camp and you turn it into hog’s heaven!”
