Hornet's Nest
As a boy up on the farm, one sunny July day I found a huge hornet’s nest out behind the cow barn. I decided to knock it down, for no good reason other than it was there and I wanted to see what would happen. I looked around and found a good solid maple tree branch on ground out by the edge of the field.
I ran back to the barn, and in the batting stance of my hero Mickey Mantle, I took a long, hard home run swing at that big buzzing nest. I was instantly swarmed in a mass of pissed of wasps. I came to fully understand the term, in that painful moment, ‘mad as a hornet.’
Uncle Jeff, a kind but gruff man. A loving man, but not the kind to coddle, hearing my screams came running, grabbed me and dragged me to the front of the barnyard. Finding the cleanest, most cow-shit free mud available, he scooped big gobs of the smelly cool muck all over the welts on my arms and face and scalp. My butt stings calming as I sat in muddy jeans in the slop.
As he worked the cooling mud into my stings he said, “Billy, you’re not a stupid boy, but that was a stupid thing to do. You don’t ever go after a hornet’s nest unless you know what you’re doing. Whacking it with a stick and wondering what will happen next isn’t a plan. That was stupid.”
Sage advice from a wise man.
I sit here on this summer morning, so many days and years from that afternoon up on the farm, watching news telling me the war with Iraq has taken another turn in a catastrophic direction. I think to myself it’s a shame the President of the United States didn’t have an Uncle Jeff to raise him and tell him things like: don’t attack a hornet’s nest and not know what you're about to stir up. Those pissed off hornets will hurt you and bite you in the ass.
That’s it for me this week. Here are some books to look at.
Stay safe, it’s getting weird out there!
Bill
