ESCAPING FLYING ROCKETS AND INSECTS IN SUMMERTIME SHERMAN, TEXAS

     This time of year I always remember the stifling heat of summer in north Texas during the 50’s & 60’s.  No one had air conditioning and it was torture to attempt to go to sleep in a hot bed and wake up in warm, sweaty sheets.  I read recently the human body dispenses north of 25 gallons of sweat annually into our beds.  (The point being, change the sheets weekly.)  In Sherman, Texas, that number had to be considerably higher in the summer months. 

     One source of relief from the summer inferno was the Sherman

municipal swimming pool.  It seemed anytime I was at the pool, my late childhood hero Judd Bell was present.  Judd was about 3-4 years older than me and always seemed to be in the midst of an adventure.  I witnessed someone finding a bottle rocket and Judd placed it down the back of his swim suit,  bent over and lit the fuse.  The rocket shot off his butt and into hot blue sky over Sherman.  I thought it was the coolest demonstration of ingenuity I had ever witnessed (even if he did get a bit singed) and marveled, as he secured his celebrity status in my heart.

     Another of Judd’s legendary moments was the occasion he was doing a convoluted dive off the high board and somehow got his big toe caught in his swim wear.  He hit the water at a bad angle and sank like a rock.   Through some Herculean efforts, he managed to get himself disengaged and come bubbling back up to the surface…out of breath,  with a bloody nose, yet alive and my hero worship firmly intact.  Judd recently passed on after a distinguished business career.  Another friend who has left us entirely too soon, yet his memory will last forever.

     In the summer months there were bugs flying, crawling and creeping everywhere.  Nothing died.  This played into the hands of another of my local heroes,  the late Joe Meade.  He was also a legend in Sherman, a stellar athlete and was equally famous for his daring and bravado.  I wrote a brief note about Joe a while back on Facebook and stories came from all directions.   

     It seems everyone had seen his stunt of gathering up a handful of crickets, shoveling them into his mouth, approaching a group of girls and smiling.  The crickets crawled out of his mouth and across his face as these young maidens screamed and ran in terror.  It was even more effective when a moth would fly out of his mouth or small snakes appeared from under his tongue and slinked across his chin.

     One hot summer day, I was perched on a ladder in downtown Sherman, painting an awning over a store.  My employer was worried about the heat beating down on my giant, Charlie Brown head and had slapped a pith helmet, (like the kind Clyde Beatty would have worn into the jungle) on my head before I began work.  With red paint all over me, this stupid helmet and my gangly white legs, I looked ridiculous on top of a ladder, in view of all who walked along the downtown sidewalk.

    At this moment, a group of young ladies from my school were approaching the ladder and I spied a cicada on the top of the awning.  I popped this winged insect into my mouth, per the Joe Meade example of female interaction, and envisioned it flying out of my mouth upon delivering my verbal greeting. 

     However, this bug did not have any intention of remaining for the necessary seconds in my mouth.    It began to flutter, spin and do all things necessary to get to freedom.  It moved about half-way down my throat, I started to spit, gag and cough.  I fell backwards off the ladder, along with the red paint and brush, while my helmet remained secured, with the strap around my chin.

     I landed with a crash on the sidewalk, as the ladder fell on top of me. 

While choking on this angry bug, I kicked in a circle like Curly from the Three Stooges, spreading red paint in my path.  The girls tentatively approached to see if I was hurt and were startled by the disgusting, gurgling sounds coming from my throat.  I finally coughed up the bug, he staggered away and I sat up, attempting a feeble smile. 

     My friends looked at me in my sorry state…pith helmet, coated in red paint, tears running down my choked up face.  Everyone looked at one another, shook their heads and walked away.  By this time, people were rushing up to me and getting me to my feet, expecting me to have broken bones and assumed the red

paint was my blood.  I broke loose, assured everyone I was fine, finally got that helmet off my head and staggered inside my employers store.  He was startled by my appearance, sent me home and began to clean up my mess in front of his store. 

     The message is this kids…do not try these stunts at home.  Leave it to the talented professionals, like the late Joe Meade and Judd Bell.  You have to be born with those kind of skills and not everyone can fire a bottle rocket off their own body.  You certainly don’t want to learn to train bugs to jump out of your mouth  while on a ladder, holding a bucket of red paint and wearing a stupid Clyde Beatty pith helmet.  This can only lead to certain disaster.