How pushing over an outhouse will uncover a pile of.....trouble. It was July in south Georgia and it was Georgia hot. It was a Friday afternoon and three of my best friends came out to the farm to camp out. We loaded up with hot dogs, sardines, vienna sausages, saltines, cookies, and co-cola. A feast. At least our 13 year old stomachs thought so. We took off for our camp site a mile away, far from watchful eyes, set up camp, built a fire, and soon the inevitable teenage dares began. I am not sure but I think at the time it was a Georgia state law that every country boy was required to push over at least one outhouse before they were 16. We knew the two square mile area like the back of our hands and as it happened there was a neatly kept, two holer quite close. With target in mind and using the woods for cover, we reach our objective quickly. There was other mischief that night, but it was the attack on the outhouse that got me nabbed by the authorities. Saturday morning my friends went home and sometime around mid day the Sheriff and his deputy drove up in our yard. Now I tell you this, if you look up Georgia Sheriff in the dictionary there should be a picture of this man. He knew the entire county like the back of his hand, he knew everyone by name, and more importantly he was a good and fair man. And as with most mischief inclined thirteen year olds, I was scared to death of him. He says to me, “ Allen, were you boys out messing around last night?” I stammered around but never really confessed to anything, so he says, “ Where’s your Daddy?” I say, “He’s in the watermelon patch.” He says, “ Better get in and we’ll go see him. They might want to press charges.” They put me in the back and as I got in I saw coke cans, sardine cans, and a hot dog bun wrapper on the floorboard. Evidence. This wasnt looking good. The watermelon patch was mile or so in the other direction and during the drive wild thoughts were going through my head, among other things I was trying to remember if the hanging Judge was still in office. When we pulled up Dad was in the middle of the watermelon patch working like a slave, sweating bullets on a miserable 100 degree, dead still, July Georgia day. He never move once as the Sheriff and myself walked out across that field to see him. After a handshake, couple of how you doings, and a hot enough for ya, the sheriff got down to business. “Emmett, looks like the boys pushed over your neighbors outhouse last night.They might want to prosecute.” My father looked at me dead away and with a look I had never seen before. If his stare had of been X-Ray vision, he would have burned a hole clean through me. The man whose outhouse we had turned over, he called it his laboratory, was kind, gracious, and forgiving. Standing before him, busted for the crime, and unable to look him in the eye, he said these words, “I dont reckon those boys meant no harm, it’s all right”. This good man and the High Sheriff let me off the hook. Dad wasn’t as forgiving and sentenced me to life without parole. Eventually he went soft as he always did and I earned a pardon by working my tail off in the watermelon patch, during the hottest July and August on record. There are many memories in a sixty year life, this one is unforgettable.
Posted on: Wed, 21 May 2014 22:22:49 +0000
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