Death By Christmas Robot

There are certain things that are a standard part of the christmas holiday. These things can vary from person to person and may even change over time. Decorating the christmas tree, stringing lights on the house, baking christmas cookies, eating christmas cookies, listening to old christmas music, etc.

Some standards are regional, for instance I grew up in a small town in south Arkansas. Each year in El Dorado the local television station KTVE would sting lights from it’s TV tower that when lit would appear to be a giant christmas tree that could be seen from many many miles away. Every year our family would all pile in the car to drive under the giant christmas tree. As a teeneager I figured out a way to get to the roof of the TV station which gave me access to the tower. I climbed up the tower with my video camera and filmed cars driving under the tree and the city thru the lights of the tree. The next year my friends and I staged operation “lights out on christmas” in which we may or may not have developed a plan to pull the plug on the entire GIANT christmas tree. If such a plan did exist and was implemented it would have involved some climbing, a planned escape path thru backyards over fences and a get-away car. I can neither confirm nor deny this.

Another one of my christmas standards as a child was the church christmas play. Every year…...every single year….no matter who died….no matter if the entire town was in quarantine from an outbreak of rabid fleas, the show must go on! In fact my mother who was always the director is on this very day in the middle of yet another church christmas play. She surely should get an award for longest running director of the church christmas play. Somebody give that lady an award.

So if you’ve never had the privilege of being a part of a christmas play in a small church in a small town then you would never know that shepherds in the bible wore bath towels on their heads, or that if you need some palm trees you only need to dumpster dive the local carpet store because palm trees are actually made of the cardboard core of carpet rolls. You then have probably never heard a narrator nervously reading the christmas story and in all of his country back woods draw say “and there they found the little baby Jesus wrapped in SWAPPING clothes and lying in the MANAGER!”….not manger….manAger!

But not all plays involve shepherds, palm trees and manAgers.

When I was about 10 or 11 years old the theme of the play was telling the christmas story thru the eyes of toys in a toy shop who came to life on the stage. By this time I was pretty aggressive about which part I wanted and then working my tail off to memorize the lines to ensure I landed the part. (I received no special treatment from the director)

That year I had my eyes set on the toy robot. I nailed the auditions, as I had perfected not only the lines but I spoke them with a nice robot mono-tone. I was awarded the part. I convinced the director to let me design and fabricate my own costume. It was over the top and would definitely make this years play bump up a couple notches on the cool scale.

Here is how I made my epic costume. 1 box slightly larger than my head wrapped in alluminum foil, 1 large box also wrapped in foil with a hole in the bottom that fits over my head and rest on my shoulders covering my body down to my knees, four of those cardboard tubes from the carpet rolls for my arms and legs. And then to top it all off I figured it would be cool to have the front of the robots chest have lights that blink just like a real robot. I would poke holes in the box and push about 10 lights thru to create the effect. The only multi colored blinking lights I could find was a strand of 100 christmas lights, but I only needed 10 so I decided I’d take the other 90 lights and just tape them to my chest and then cover them with a black shirt. Brilliant!

So the show begins and all is going great I’m killing it with my robot vocals and I’m feeling great. But about 20 mins into this hour and half show I begin to get really really hot! 90 lights strapped to your chest covered by a shirt and then covered by a box covered in alluminum foil is like…well it's like an OVEN! I had created an oven and then put myself inside to cook. And to make matters worse I couldn’t bend my arms or my legs because they were constrained by the rigid cardboard tubes. The circulation was being cut off of both my legs and arms….I couldn’t feel my toes or fingers and my head is in a small box that only has 3 small holes and 1 large whole. The large hole is connected to the inferno of hell below!! So I’m getting almost ZERO fresh air. After 45 mins I realize I’m not gonna make it to the end of this horrible story. I thought “I must get air….I must get air!”  But I couldn’t move my arms to remove the box from my head….I was just gonna die in this robot oven. Then as if my processor was rebooted I suddenly had a plan, I could bend my hips a little and if I bent over enough I might could get this box off of my head. I began bending over and at the same time I started violently shaking my head back and forth. It took a couple of tries but finally the box went flying across the stage! 

FREE…..FREE….I breathed in that fresh air like a boy saved from a burning furnace robot. I was gonna be ok….I was gonna live! And that’s when I saw Raggedy Anne had hopped up and fetched my head from across the stage…..and while singing “Go Tell it on the Mountain!” she made her way over to me. She was bringing my head back and was about to lock me back into this robot prison! I started screaming from the top of my lungs “NOOOOO Don’t put that back on my head!!! NOOOOO!” but my voice was drowned out by the choirs of angels singing “Go Tell IT!!”

From the audiences perspective they were probably thinking "Wow this play has many cool nuances...the robot is so excited about the birth of Jesus that his head pops off, and just like Jesus little Raggedy Ann restored him."

I immediately bent over again and violently shook my head until the box came flying off again. And again I breathed the fresh air….but again to my dismay faithful Raggedy Ann retrieved my head and plopped it right back down over my face as I’m screaming “NOOOOOOO I can’t breathe!!!!”

The third time I ejected my head my parents realized that something was wrong and began sprinting to the stage just in time for me to turn to a very large potted tree and there I puked all the complementary cookies and koolaid I had just consumed proir to the show.

So every year when I crack open the christmas lights I hear in my ear a little robot saying "MUST GET AIR!!"

Memphis

Memphis

When I was roughly 9 or 10 years old my dad announced that we were going to take a vacation to Memphis. We didn't take many "normal" vacations in my family. My dad was a pastor of a church and so once a year we went to a large national conference for the organization he was a member of.  A lot of our vacations were these combo vacations traveling to the national conference. Because of this I was able to visit a number of large cities, which was cool. We never flew but rather drove, so I would also get to see several states on our way. As a kid we drove to or thru California, Arizona, New Mexico, Illinois, Kentucky, Indiana, Colorado, Utah, New York, all states that border Arkansas as well as Tijuana, Mexico.

As a kid I was excited to see a Zebra in Tijuana….turns out it was a DONKEY!

So on occasion we would take what I would as a 10 year old call "normal" vacations.

Anytime in my family that we were leaving town it would be announced that we were leaving on a certain date. I always assumed that meant we would get up early that morning, pack the car, drive thru McDonalds for some breakfast, stop for gas and be on our way out of town by 8am, or 10am the latest. But often I would be awake, packed and waiting to depart and my dad would finish his morning coffee and paper and he'd say to my mom "I'm going to go run a couple of errands, when will you be ready to leave town?" and my mom would say something like "As soon as I do the books (aka pay bills, balance check book), wash some clothes and pack then I'll be ready". I was always let down because this would mean a bit of a delay, but thought surely she can get all that done and be ready by 10 or 11am. For some reason it seemed like it was always late in the afternoon before we actually left.

So somewhere leading up to this vacation my dad had put out this idea of going to Memphis to spend a couple of days. He had given some suggestions of what we might do there.

1. Get a hotel room! (which included swimming at the pool and jumping on the beds and watching cartoons! We didn't own a TV.)  
2. Ride Go-carts! 
3. Go to Liberty Land! (Liberty Land is an amusement park in Memphis with rides, ferris wheel, roller coaster etc. Elvis had a favorite ride there called The Zippin Pippin) 

I can't overstate how excited I was!

One small detail is that my grandparents lived just a little over an hour outside of Memphis and we lived in El Dorado which is in south Arkansas. My parents had also mentioned that they might drive over to my grandparents house after a few days in Memphis. ( I could live with a brief visit to the grandparents after a few days in Memphis.)

So in my 10 year old mind this is how this vacation would work. We leave El Dorado around 9am and that would put us in Little Rock just in time to stop at Casa Bonita for lunch. Who doesn't love eating mexican food in a cave with torches blazing, a monkey riding a unicycle on a wire over your head and unlimited hot sopaipilla's with honey. Plus they had a game room that you could win tickets from and the gypsy fortune teller behind the jail bars (who was way creepy) would exchange those tickets for prizes!

Casa Bonita Cave Eating

Casa Bonita Arcade

Then we'd be off to our destination, MEMPHIS!!

Well as usual we didn't leave until sometime late that afternoon. My brother had just started driving and so as we loaded up it was decided that this would be his first vacation that he would sit behind the wheel.

Shortly after we got on the road my dad began a discussion with my mom. The topic was "should we go to Memphis for a couple days and then go over to the grandparents OR just skip Memphis and go straight to the grandparents?!!!!"

I loved my grandparents and have many fond memories of being at their house, but my grandparents house pales in comparison to hotels, go-carts, amusement parks, and eating at new restaurants! I was appalled and immediately verbally objected and insisted such non sense be silenced at once! I was told to put a lid on it.

We hit the city limits of Little Rock too late to eat lunch at Casa Bonita. I had waited patiently for my parents to realize that the absolutely best plan would be to go straight to Memphis. I had only mentioned it as we passed thru Hampton, Arkansas. Oh and also I mentioned it at Fordyce, Sheridan and as we hit the interstate that would lead us into Little Rock. Each time I was told to be quiet. So now as we rolled into Little Rock it was full court press. My window was closing quickly and my parents were not budging. For some strange reason they had been deceived into choosing to go to my grandparents instead of Memphis. My persistence and reason was quickly met with aggressive resistance and because my brother was driving this allowed my dad to back up his verbal resistance with a very accurate threat of his hand coming from the front seat to convince me. Usually on road trips he was driving and when we pushed his buttons and he became, "FRACTIOUS" (as he called it) his hand would come flying into the back seat and like a blind fox in a chicken coop he would swing away as we flipped and twisted in all effort to dodge the blind fox!

So there I sat….brooding….sulking….scheming….

My brother had never driven in heavy traffic, on an interstate, and having to navigate multiple lane changes and follow those large green directional signs. He had a lot of pressure on him to keep the family safe and keep us on the right highways and in the correct lanes.

As we approached the interchange where Interstate 30 merges with Interstate 40 it meant we were just moments away from the next big interchange, the point where the left two lanes veer off towards grandma's and the right two lanes continue on towards Memphis. Now was the time to ask my dad one last time, "could we please go to Memphis?" He replied, "No…we've already decided, we aren't going to Memphis." Then he instructed my brother to merge into the left lane. As the car settled into the left lane and we approached the exit I felt all of my Memphis dreams slipping thru my hands like sand.

And then it was as if time stood still and I had the most desperate and most amazing feeling pulse thru my veins. I could feel the white dotted line sounding out to me like mission control counting down to launch. This was it….this was the defining moment of my life (or at least this vacation). We had already passed under the giant green directional signs and the dotted line was at T-3……2…….1.

Then the dotted line turned into a solid white line, inside my emotions felt like the rockets had ignited and were beginning to shake everything. The solid white line split in two, and in my head it was if I could hear it crack like a whip. And then like a hot geyser I erupted! There had been silence in the car since I had asked about Memphis just a couple of minutes ago. From the back seat and with everything I had in me I screamed,

"MEM……..PHISSSSSSS!!!!!!"

Like blowing an air horn into a room full of sleeping sailors, my voice shook everyone in the car and instantly caused as much panic as my dad swinging his arm from the front seat. My brother startled and already stressed, pulled hard right on the steering wheel and punched the gas, sending our car bolting across the rumble strips that lie between the now far separated white lines. Cars all around us were swerving, my mom and sister in the back seat with me were screaming, and my dad was yelling "NOOOOOO!" But it was too late. My desperate cry from the back seat had changed our course! We were headed for Memphis!


(until the next exit when my dad had my brother turn around and head back towards the grandparents)

71 Fiat 124 Spider

Ever see on the news how some 10 year old kid took his parents car for a joy ride and smashed a bunch of cars and led police on a high speed chase? 

A few days ago I spotted a little car on the road and it reminded me of such a story.

Not only did I spot a car...I also took a photo while driving!

My brother is 6 years older than me, so about the time I hit 10 he was a new driver and this opened up a whole new freedom for him and for my parents. It also rocketed my cool level through the cosmos!  Leading up to his sweet 16 he and my dad had been restoring a 1971 Fiat 124 Spider. Like the one in the 1983 music video of the band called Air Supply, which is probably why my brother wanted that car.  He was a huge Air Supply fan! Sorry to rat you out bro!

The truth be told, I probably spent more time than he did behind the wheel of that amazing piece of French history. Seriously I spent hours pretending I was speeding through the streets of some tiny European community with the top down as the local police tried to catch me at every corner. One day I overheard my dad tell my brother that it was good to fire up the engine every few days to keep it lubed up. So I appointed myself as the pit chief and regularly, when no one was looking, revved up the horses! 

My brother's car looked just like this, but was charcoal grey.

So one day while performing a standard engine firing, I decided that maybe it would be a good idea to just take this baby for a spin. ”Only around the block!!” I said. My parents were taking a Sunday afternoon nap and they would never even know about this. I had learned to drive a stick shift in the parking lot of our church. On Sunday nights as soon as service was over me and my best bud Marcus Hale would grab our dad’s keys and drive circles around the church with the windows down and the music blaring! He in his dad’s Oldsmobile and me in my dad’s Mazda.  

So just one block would be nothing compared to the miles I’d driven in the church parking lot. Of course one block didn’t satisfy my thirst for speed! So after speeding through the deserted streets of the industrial park under what locals called the viaduct (Fancy name for large bridge).  I downshifted into 3rd and decided to take the long way home. This was the best place to lose these pesky police that were chasing me in my make believe world. Cruising at a nice speed of around 45 I topped a little hill and saw a kid on roller skates in the middle of the road just a couple blocks away. 2 things are important to note: 1. I knew this kid and we didn’t have the best relationship 2. It was apparent that he wasn’t a very good roller skater.  So here is this kid (whom I don’t like) wobbling on roller skates in the middle of the road, I couldn’t resist, I downshifted and popped the clutch as I hit the gas pedal! The engined roared and the tires squealed and while in my mind I was a safe distance from this kid, it terrified him and he dove head first into the ditch. I then drove by and honked my horn and knew that he could hear me laughing! I was invincible! 

I returned the spy car to the carport and slipped inside as if nothing ever happened. I was feeling much like James Bond must feel after returning from a secret mission, relaxing in the parlor rehearsing the excitement of that adventure. (we didn't really have a parlor..it was just the living room)  Suddenly there was a knock at the front door. Yes it was odd for someone to be knocking at the door but I never could have imagined who would be standing there.  I opened the door to find one of El Dorado’s finest there to greet me. A really large, really scary POLICE OFFICER! I’m sure I turned white as a sheet at this point! The officer asked who owned the gray sports car with the black rag top. I told him it was my fathers but my dad was taking a nap. “Son you better go wake him up!” That’s when it started sinking in that this was the day I would die!

My mind was racing trying to come up with a good story that would get me out of the trouble that was at the door....a way to escape death. Should I run out the back door and embrace the life of a criminal on the run? I can’t blame my brother or blackmail him into taking a hit for me because he wasn’t even in town! I imagined being handcuffed and carried away like some thug. This sounded like one of the better options, compared to the spanking I would definitely be getting from my dad and the beating my brother would bestow upon me for “stealing” his car!

I woke my dad by announcing that a police officer was at the front door and wanted to speak to him.  “About what?” he asked. “I dunno??” I said thru my nervous lying lips. As my dad greeted the officer at the front door I nervously played with my Hot Wheels in the living room. I was both listening and racking my brain for a good cover up. The officer explained to my dad that someone ran down a young boy on roller skates and he barely escaped being crushed because he dove into the ditch. I thought, “what a liar!! I was no where near that little punk!” The officer continued to say that the description of the vehicle matched our gray Fiat.  My dad said, “That’s not possible because I have been taking a nap and my son who drives that car is out of town.”  He meant “my son who legally drives that car..” The officer said well the kid that was run down said there was a kid about his age driving. “That little Rat!” I thought. 

I will never forget my dad’s face turning towards me and his eyes piercing my guilty conscience. “Shane??” is all he said. Now this was the usual protocol whenever my dad was upset with me or trying to get me to stop doing something annoying, he would call my name out in a stern voice and I would always in a polite, not paying attention voice respond, “Yes sir?” And he would respond, “don’t ‘YES SIR’ me!” However this was way out of protocol. On this occasion when he sternly called my name, “SHANE??”.  I broke into tears, apologizing and sobbing and apologizing and begging for my life!

I spilled the whole story out to my dad and the officer thinking all the while I will forever be restricted to public transportation and bicycles. The officer then gave me this very scary speech about how I could have died and the kid could have died and innocent puppies could have died and then he confirmed my fears as he explained that this sort of criminal offense could cost me a huge delay in getting my drivers license.  

And then he asked me, “Young man....will you promise me that you will never again drive a motor vehicle until your are properly and legally licensed to operate such a vehicle?” 

“YES SIR!” I said

And with that he told my dad and I to have a good day! I was in shock! Could this really be true that I had a run in with the law and by some miracle of God I was pardoned? I was on the brink of life in prison and just like that....mercy was given to me! And just as I began to breath a sign of relief, my dad sternly said, “you better count yourself lucky that he gave you a break.....but that doesn’t mean I’m giving you a break....I’ll be back with my belt!”

My dad kept this belt in the top drawer of his chester drawers. I never have asked him, but I’m pretty sure he went shopping for this belt specifically to spank us kids.  I mean it was hideously ugly and definitely not my dad’s style. About a 4 inch wide strap of leather with 1 inch strips that criss crossed making nice little “x’s” that tattooed wonderfully on your back side as a souvenir and token parting gift. All tastefully rounded out with a giant silver and gold, bull riding championship looking buckle.

I wish I could end this story on a more chipper note but like a lot of my stories this one resulted in a spanking. This could be why my brother and sister nick named me “hot hiney” 

I went on to have many other vehicle stories, some of which I may write about and others that I can’t share yet because of fear of that big ole piece of leather in my dad’s top drawer!

Note: my brother wasn’t really a huge Air Supply fan....not that there is anything wrong with that!

The Origin Of Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving always means crazy Indians and wild corn and turkeys running crazy and a bunch of weird men dressed in tights with giant belt buckles the size of a bedroom window and women with a whole lot of something stuffed up their dresses and other interesting things that this run on sentence has no room to mention.

I will just tell you of one Thanksgiving.  No not the one that my mom hand stitched an Indian costume for me (moccasins included) out of the thickest brown suede known to man. I wore said costume to school with no back up change of clothes and had to lie down most of the day because I was in danger of having a heat stroke. (it is usually still 80 degrees in a South Arkansas November) (was I the only idiot that wore a Thanksgiving costume to school that year?) (Be looking for this costume to be recycled on Tyrone the only African American kid in my church. He of course got the part of the Indian in the christmas play one year.  I'll post a blog about that closer to Christmas.) (I will now stop putting things in () and carry on with this story.)

Ok so I'm in the 2nd grade.  2nd grade is know by my parents as The Year Of The LIAR!  For some reason 2nd grade was a banner year for me as a liar. It probably had a lot to do with my teacher, Ms. Hollis. A tall woman, who had dark hair cut in the style of most of our dad's hair. She wore plaid button down shirts, like most of our dad's and double knit trousers, like most of our dad's and had a scary deep voice, like most of our dad's and a she had a MUSTACHE, like some of the dad's........I'm just saying.

So apparenlty I got a reputation real fast in 2nd grade for not being 100% honest.  My stories included, but not limited to:

-My parents own derby race horses and we have a couple running in the Kentucky Derby and that is why I will be missing school next week. (the truth is that my dad is a pastor and we were going to Kentucky for a pastors convention) I returned and got up in front of the class and told a big long, long story about my dad's horse and his great win at the Derby! (I got busted at the parent/teacher conference when Ms. Hollis congratulated my mom on our horses big win.)

-I raced motor cross (dirt bikes) and I was going out of town to race in the national chamionship. ( truth is it was another trip with my dad, he was preaching for some church out of town)  I again returned and told my class all about my big win.  Don't think Ms. Hollis gave me the floor anymore after racehorse gate so I gathered them all at recess.  Sad thing is that Jason Jeeter was convinced that he saw me win on TV!

-Came into class one day wearing sun glasses and Ms. Hollis told me to take them off. I explained to her that these were perscription glasses that I needed to read the chalk board. We argued for a moment about the reality of my story and then she threatened to put my name on the board and I agreed to take them off, but stated that I wouldn't be able to see. I forgot to bring my cool shades the next day and Ms. Hollis first thing says from the front of the class "excuse me Shane, but where are your glasses today?" That was the moment I realized I had forgotten them, so I quickly replied "I got contacts yesterday after school." Ms. Hollis was determined to prove me the liar I was so she comes back to my desk and says "really...then look up to the light, I want to see those contacts on your eyes." After she failed to see them on my eyes I then explained that these were some new invisible contacts.

-I hated waiting in the bus riders room, I was envious of the car riders because they got to escape the choking walls of school an hour earlier than the bus riders. We bus riders had to wait in a classroom with the lights out and watch cartoons. Now I didn't have a TV growing up and anytime I got a chance to watch tv it was like candy or Disney Land, but for some reason getting out of school earlier was more enticing than cartoons. So one day I just decided to line up in the car riders line. Ms. Hollis of course noted my actions and questioned me. I explained that we had moved and I no longer needed to ride the bus because my mom would be picking me up from now on. She should have known better. So want to know what I did?  Well I walked out those prison doors with all the other lucky car riders and I walked down the sidewalk chatting with my buds and said my goodbyes and they got in their cars and I crossed the street and found a nice shrub to hide in.  Yeah that's right, I could be inside in the nice a/c watching cartoons with all those other lame bus riders, but I was far too smart for that. I was crouching in a shrub across the street, free, FREE! This plan worked for a few days, I would wait til all the other lame bus riders came out and in the confusion I would slip out of my shrub and onto my bus. But one day for some reason I got impatient, could have been the heat, or the itchy shrub or ants, but for whatever reason I decided that once the bus got there I didn't need to wait for all the lame bus riders, I could just go wait on the bus for the rest of them.  Of course my bus driver questioned me, but I thought it was just between me and the bus driver, I wasn't aware that the now evil bus driver had notified Ms. Hollis. So the next day I lined up with the car riders and said my goodbyes and slipped into my shrub and waited. Then about 15 minutes into my hour long crouching session this kid (Johnny Bush, for real that was his name) comes out the front door of the school, walks down the sidewalk and crosses the street and walks strait up to my shrub and says, "SHANE!"  I'm like "shhhhhhh........go away......" he says "Ms. Hollis says that if you don't come inside right now that you'll get your name on the board!"  She get's me every time!!

- other things I did in 2nd grade were take 5 pounds of comic books to school in my backpack most days, packed a giant Rambo style buck knife in my backpack one day, brought a jar full of fire ants to school....etc

Ok so back to thanksgiving. So for thanksgiving I went with my family to visit my dad's family on the banks of the Bayou Mason in Lousiana. While playing with cousins I hopped onto the tire swing right on the bank that slopped to the water.  My lovely big sister decided to give me the ride of my lifetime and so she began twisting the tire swing round and round.  As the tire swing got tighter and tighter my sister was constantly assuring me that this would be better than a ride at Disney World (which i had never been to and probably told my 2nd grade class that not only do I go all the time but my dad owns it).   After what seemed like an hour she reached maximum tension and released me with a one giant spin.  I quickly realized that this was not my kind of ride.   As the G force was pulling my cheeks away from my gums I felt my pinky slip from the rope, I knew right then that this was not going to end well.  That moment is forever etched in my mind as a slow motion movie, my sister is laughing with this scary man laugh (because it's  slow motion) as I scream "MAKE IT STOP!!".  I can hear my cousins laughing in the background and cheering with glee.  Then my sister gives the worst wisdom of all time, she yells to me "Just let go!"

I've been holding on for dear life for what seems like as long as all the recesses combined that I spent inside the classroom writing "I will not lie" on the chalk board. Now with such spinning force on my body I am down to just three fingers of the ten I started with.  Those remaining three fingers are clinging by the tips to the old rope, holding the fate of my life in the balance, so letting go isn't such a stretch.  With not much effort but a lot of guts I watched my three white bloodless blistered fingers slip from the rope and I went sailing through the air.  What would have been great is if there was a pile of leaves, pillows or blankets at the base of that old oak tree.  What awaited me was instead the giant and very hard roots of the large oak tree from which this tire swing hung on the banks of that bayou.  This was no soft landing, I immediately went into an all out scream as the pain pulsed all over my body. Those cheerleaders and my sister the ring leader suddenly became the EMS and carried the victim into the house.  Once inside I was met by a team of aunts and older cousins and my mom, who were all in the kitchen preparing Thanksgiving dinner.  This team however showed little concern for me the victim and didn't even put down their deviled eggs or stop stirring the giblet gravy, my mom just gave me a once over and said go put him on the couch.  As I laid on the couch the pain in my body began to give way to the pain in my arm. I continued to cry and yell "IT HURTS!!", but no one seemed to care.

After over an hour of this the men of the family returned from where ever men go when the women are preparing Thanksgiving dinner and the kids are outside putting the smallest among them in harms way. Mind you I was still crying and yelling.  So my dad suggested that maybe I had a more serious injury than just my pride being broken.  My dad and mom packed me up in the car and drove me to the nearest ER.  We were many miles from town and the nearest ER wasn't even in town but two towns away. So after a very long and painful car ride we arrived at the ER where I was X-rayed and it was determined that those roots had given the bone in my arm a good crack, I had indeed broken my arm.

This ER was so backwoods that they didn't have the ability to cast my arm.  The doctor told my parents that they would have to take me all the way into Monroe, the closest ER able to cast my arm.  So they put my arm in a sling, BUT they only had an ADULT XL sling, therefore they literally duct taped the thing to me.  So while making the more than hour drive into Monroe my parents decided for whatever reason to journey all the way back to Arkansas which was another hour pasted Monroe.

While my sister and brother and aunts, uncles and cousins are back on the banks of the bayou eating a Thanksgiving feast, I am being driven back to Arkansas to see if someone in this region might know how to cast a poor 2nd graders broken arm.  Eventually we make it and are informed by our Doc that a normal arm cast won't do the trick because the bone is broken to close to the shoulder joint.  They place a body cast which wraps around my belly going under my left arm but over my right shoulder and leaves my right hand exposed just above my cast covered belly button.  We then got back in the car and, yes you guessed it, drove all the way back to Louisiana arriving sometime that evening after the sun had gone down and just in time for some left over turkey, deviled eggs and giblet gravy.

Definitely a memorable Thanksgiving, but I'll end this story not on that Thanksgiving day but rather the following Monday when I returned to Ms. Hollis 2nd grade class with only my left arm exposed and my right arm inside my shirt.  Ms. Hollis says from the front of the class, "Shane please put your arm back through your sleeve RIGHT NOW!"  I proudly explained that I couldn't because I had broken my arm on Thanksgiving.  She of course was not in any mood to hear another one of my crazy stories so she threatened to write my name on the board, but this time I stood up and lifted my shirt up to expose my new body cast with my little 2nd grade hand sticking out just above my belly button. That was the one day that she invited me to the front of the class to share a TRUE story of epic proportions!

Candy Rain

What kid doesn't love a candy rain?  Some of you might be asking, "what is a candy rain?" If you are asking this then you have lived a pretty sad life.

                     Webster's Dictionary gives this definition to Candy Rain: little pieces of heaven 

                     mysteriously falling from the skies. 

So this story starts back in the mid 80's.  I grew up attending summer camps in a little town in Arkansas whose name, Redfield surely came from the place crawling with red bugs or as we called them, CHIGGERS.  

While other kids where enjoying horse back riding, zip lines, ropes courses and swimming pools at their camps, the highlight of Chigger camp was playing softball. Oh and if you were a girl you could either watch the guys play softball or do arts and crafts. We had to sit through 2 church services every day and regardless of if you wanted to or not everyone was required to be in the choir, which meant an hour long choir practice every day.  The precedent was somewhere established that you must dress up in really fancy clothes for the evening church services but they would lock us out of our bunk house an hour before service and wouldn't open the doors to the "tabernacle" until just moments before it started.  So it's the middle of July and of course it's like 150 degrees and we are all dressed up with our 3 piece suits and neck ties and the girls have frilly dresses, panty hose and enough White Rain hair spray to put 3 holes in the ozone.  We would all pile up at the door like a bunch of fans at a Bieber concert and just sweat!

Ok so you get the picture that Chigger camp was in need of some excitement.  Well one year some amazing person had a most brilliant idea.  When we arrived at camp we were told that if we were really good campers that we would get a HUGE surprise on the last day! (apparently they had trouble with us being rowdy campers.....YOU THINK...we are bored out of our minds)

So the last day came and we were herded out to the back side of the "tabernacle" and each of us was given a plastic bag.  They spread us out on the grass and from up on top of the "tabernacle" appear these guys with buckets full of candy!! We probably didn't even know what they had in the bucket but we were still all screaming like girls.  Then they began to throw handfuls of candy into the air and every kid lost his mind!  CANDY IS FALLING FROM THE SKY!

That was a huge success and if they did that every year it would probably make up for the other 4 days of boredom.  But somebody must have said, "Gentlemen.......let's take it to the next level!" The very next year upon arriving at Chigger camp we were told that there was an even bigger surprise this year.  So Friday comes and we are taken out to the field once again but instructed to spread out all over the field. (those of us that were there last year were trying to get the best spots around the "tabernacle")  But they said "spread out all over the softball fields".  We were a bit confused but still were trying to figure out what will make this an even bigger surprise.....better candy.....bigger candy........more candy??  Oh I forgot to mention that somebody had a bull horn. Someone always had a bull horn at Chigger camp but no one cared to explain to them that we couldn't understand what in the world they were saying.

So they guy on the bull horn says, "EEEERRRRYYYYYYY GOOOEETT THOTOOOOO"  well that's what it sounded like, but i'm sure he said "every body get ready.....here comes the candy!!!"  And in the distance we see this air plane!  Are you freaking kidding me!!???!!!  We really lost our minds.  Imagine 300 kids with plastic bags running in circles as this plane approaches.  As it flies over us hundreds of little white parachutes with bags of heavenly candy come floating out of the back of the plane and like little clouds of cotton they drifted to the ground, only to be attacked by 300 screaming kids. So as all of these parachutes are falling to earth the plane makes another pass and as it approaches the screaming intensifies once again.  More parachutes, we are in heaven, we are the happiest kids on the planet.  It was like mana from heaven.  We were screaming things like, "this is the best day ever!", "this is amazing!", "thank you Jesus for parachute candy!", "I love Chigger camp!", "I love bull horns!".

 So the 3rd time the plane approaches, and just as before we scream, run in circles, little white parachutes come floating from the plane, we scream some more, and then something that we never could have imagined would happen, happened. In fact no one could have imagined this.  The pilot somehow got distracted (screaming kids, parachutes, bull horns) and he didn't notice the TREES!!

So suddenly the amazing air plane that rains little white parachutes full of candy from it's backside, smashes into the trees and crashes into a cluster of RV's!  It was like one of those slow motion shots from the movies, we went from screaming with joy "best day ever!" to screaming in horror.....just screaming! Everyone was crying, kids screaming "I want my mommy", the adults were now screaming and running around in circles. My friend comes running from the other end of the ball field crying and screaming, "MY PARENTS ARE IN ONE OF THOSE RV's!!"

In just moments our lives there at Chigger camp went from Heaven to Hell!

Well mostly good news, a few broken bones, a few busted RV's, a few broken trees, and one destroyed plane, but by God's grace no one was killed.  There are however 300 children who grew up to be adults and are working through their trauma from that amazingly dreadful Candy Rain.

Easter Cantata

Nothing says Easter like a good Easter Cantata. The definition of Cantata is: a medium-length narrative or descriptive piece of music with vocal solos and usually a chorus and orchestra.


 And so begins this story. It was spring of my sixteenth year when I learned that my Sunday School class was putting on an Easter Cantata. As we talked about which parts would be awarded to whom it was decided that I would be the lucky person to play Jesus.  I was pretty excited to have the "LEAD" role in the play.....um I mean Cantata.  We were acting out a song by Ray Boltz called "Watch The Lamb".  If you find yourself saying "I've never heard this song" or "Who is Ray Boltz?" then I suggest you stop reading this post right now, do a quick Google search and get acquainted with this epic piece of Easter Cantataness.  At the risk of angering many who read this blog I must admit that I have never met a Ray Boltz song that didn't make my skin crawl, but unfortunately for me and our entire church body I was the minority of my Sunday School class.

I should have paid closer attention when they were handing out the parts.  I shouldn't have gotten so lost in my own fantasy of how I would be the best Jesus ever to step foot on stage. (well since "Jesus" never really did many Easter Cantatas I could be the best.) I seemed to miss that the guys that got the roles of the Roman Soldiers were the guys that I picked on all the time, I seemed to miss the glistening in their eyes as our Sunday School teacher described how they needed to make the beating of Jesus as realistic as possible. I never imagined they would take their roles so seriously.

Each of us was responsible for our own costumes and props. I eagerly designed the robe that I would wear, doing extensive research.  One baptism robe and some purple cloth, a real crown of thorns and then most important part, a real life rugged cross.  I engineered a base that would allow the soldiers to drop the cross into it and some nails that were pre nailed that I could hold on to making it all very realistic.

Dress rehearsal went fine, but I still didn't get the tip off in the soldiers eyes. They carried out a nice "soft" dress rehearsal. Everything was looking great, I was about to seal the deal on my future acting career with this one stellar performance.

Three, Two, and we are live.......  I waited in the foyer for my moment to arrive, and then my Sunday School teacher opened the door and I entered, stooped, dragging my custom made cross with pre nailed nails. And then the Roman Soldiers, aka guys I picked on a lot, went into action. The whips that barely could be felt during rehearsal now were ripping through my baptismal robe and seemed to be tearing my flesh away with each lashing. I suddenly remembered how one of those guys was bragging about how his dad had gotten them "real" cat of nine tails whips. I also remembered how my Sunday School teacher had earlier encouraged them to make their beating of me as realistic as possible. Suddenly that center isle of our little church grew from just 15 rows of pews to 15 miles of agony. "I'm not sure I'm going to make it!" I thought. I tried to make eye contact with these rogue actors hoping to give them the "look" without of course breaking character. They were too busy yelling at me and making this whole thing look as "realistic as possible".  I even tried some improv, "Why beateth thou me so hardeth?!!" I yelled back at them. There was no reasoning with these hardened soldiers.

After what seemed like hours I finally made it to the front at where I collapsed, which was actually part of the program but I'm not sure I could have stood much longer.  Ray shouted from the sound system "You! Carry his cross!" This was the point which the soldiers picked up my custom cross with the pre nailed nails and made Simon carry it from that point on. I'm not sure this breed of Roman Soldier actually had the brain power to plan something like this but it sure worked into their evil plan to give ultimate punishment to this Jesus poser. Remember my custom cross with pre nailed nails? Well with me laying on the ground face down and the custom cross with pre nailed nails resting on my back, one of the Soldiers picked up one side of the custom cross.....well you get the idea. This made the other end of the cross come flying down to the ground and the pre nailed nail smacked me right on the face just below my eye!  It literally knocked me dizzy and I immediately could feel the blood beginning to run down my face.  We continued on with the Cantata and the thing is that all of these unfortunate events actually made what promised to be a sterile Easter Cantata a huge success.  Very realistic many would tell us later. Those Roman Soldiers claimed that they just got caught up in the excitement of the drama, but instead of learning from the character that I had just portrayed, I nursed my injuries as I plotted my revenge.

The Storm

Well I found myself awakened at 2 am this morning by a friendly call notifying me that a tornado was heading my way. So as my wife/meteorologist was checking in with the weather ninja online and turning on the telly, ......we lost power!  Only for a moment, but our hearts paused and then like a miracle from heaven the power jolted back on.  And that's when it all went into crazy mode.  Apparently the momentary loss of power created a surge that sent all of our sophisticated networked meteorological equipment (tv/internet) into a state of shock, which in turn sent us, mostly my meteorologist, into a crazy state of insanity.  So it's 2 am and we are running around the house screaming TORNADO!  I did a commando style belly crawl to the closet on the other end of the house where the shocked equipment is housed. Once there I used my skills to try to repair it, all the while I imagined that the tornado will be bearing down on the house at any moment. I gave the modem a good kick (learned this in Diesel Repair Academy) and then re-joined the rest of the family running around yelling TORNADO!

Eventually the hail stopped and the rain let up and we managed to log into our secret weather resource which my meteorologist with once sleepy now blood shot eyes informed me that the tornado was never even close. I sheepishly turned our house security alarm siren off and yelled to the neighbors that it was just a false alarm. (which I'm sure they appreciated)

I fell back into bed and tried to force myself to drift back to sleep in spite of the fact that I now felt like I had just finished my 12th cup of pure caffeine.