My Nephews

My nephews would fill another book with stories, but here is a brief introduction to an average day around their place. I was about 17 at the time. I pulled into my brother’s driveway over on North Woods Road. As I pulled up behind his pickup, I noticed little Joey age about 2 ½ with a hand full of gravel and the gas cap off of my brother’s pickup, about a 1983 Ford. Just as he was about to deposit the pea gravel into the gas tank, he looked up and saw me. He threw the gravel down and dropped the gas cap… and fled. I said, “Hey boy, what are you doing?!” He just stood there shaking his head slowly side to side and discreetly wiping his hands together to remove the evidence. Joey was a cute little fellow, chunky and a big round head and very active. His momma called him moon head sometimes. Then I heard, “Help! Help!” I walked around my brother’s pickup and out beside the old garage was Jeremy, age about 4, tied to a horse apple tree with an orange extension cord. “What happened to you?” I asked. “Booty and Shane tied me up and left me!” He didn’t talk very much and most of the time it was kind of a whisper. He was wrapped like a mummy. The hundred foot or longer extension cord was wrapped around him and the tree several times. I unwound the cord and got him loose about the time I heard a commotion on the roof of the house. It was Shane age about 7, he had a half of a 100-hundred-pound bag of seed potatoes and was chunking them at Booty (his given name was Dennis Lee) age about 10. Booty was on the ground with the other half of the seed potatoes chunking them at Shane. These seed potatoes were meant to be planted in the garden. “What are you boys doing?!” I yelled. “Get off that roof before you break your neck!” “Me and Booty are having potato wars!” Shane replied as seed potatoes flew past his head and he returned fire. “I don’t care what you’re doing, get off the dang roof!” I told him. “Make Booty put his down and I’ll come down.” Shane replied. “Booty, put those potatoes back in the sack!” I instructed harshly. “Aw man, we were having fun.” Booty complained. “Where’s your momma and daddy?” I asked. “They’re over at Linda and Joel’s.” Shane answered. “Why did you tie Jeremy to the tree?” I demanded. “He didn’t want to play potato wars because papaw Tot bought these seed potatoes and he thought we would get in trouble.” “That doesn’t sound like a good reason to tie him up.” I replied. “He was going to go call Mom and tell on us too.” Shane and Booty both confessed. “Okay, that makes sense.” I agreed. “Go find Joey, he’s running around out here barefooted and nothing on except underwear. I caught him trying to put rocks in your Dad’s gas tank.” I told them. “I guess Dad needs to get a locking gas cap then.” Shane replied. He was always a smart ass, even as a child. Everyone was on the ground, untied, the seed potatoes were back in the sack and the half-naked saboteur was rounded up. I made them call their mom and then I left before something else happened. This was just daily life around these boys.