Chapter 20--Know Your Enema and Bulls Can Dance Too

Chapter 20--Know Your Enema and Bulls Can Dance Too

Good Evening Everybody, How the heck are ya?  I'm going to have to work hard to get  this one done before the day is officially over but I think I can do it. 

Does everybody remember the classic show MASH?  Its one of my favorites.  I loved the banter back and forth between characters. My favorite character was Sherman T Potter, Col. Probably cause he was a farm boy and rode horses and I thought his plain spoken humor was damn funny. How can "Buffalo Bagels and Mule Fritters" not be funny? It wasn't till much later that I figured out just how left leaning and liberal that show really was.  But in the fog of my youth, I couldn't find a better show to watch. Even though those characters fought and fought with each other, they could always count on each other in the end. If you remember Major Frank Burns, you can remember how much of a nitwit his character was. He was overly complicit to whatever he thought the government or army might want. Do you remember one of his famous sayings? "Individuality is great, as long as we all do it together!" He and Hawkeye and Trapper and later B.J. fought tooth and nail, but as in all great shows when the chips were down and you needed backup, they could always count on each other.  They, for better or worse knew their circle. For the hardcore MASH fans, did you get the 'know your enema" reference? Now their circumstances were a little different.  They had to count on each other or people died in their storyline, but you understand the point I'm making. You have to have  people you can count on, in good times and trying times.  

I have a similar circle of friends. Now I have great family I can count on whenever I need them.  I also have great friends that will help me out with anything.  Then, I have this smaller circle of buttheads that I would like to shoot most of the time.  I've never had the type of friends that greet you with a hug and sincere warm smile.  We normally greet each other with a "Hey Dumbass". Growing up we were horrible to each other.  Some dummies sent letters to girls on behalf of others saying they really liked them even though they didn't.  We trashed each others  vehicles and we stole and hid their stuff. I can't even go into some of the things that were pulled because I need to protect the innocent and the guilty.   In today's watered down version of the world, we would have been called bullies and probably gotten into a lot of trouble. The difference is, if I, or one of them would have truly needed something, any of us would have been there in a heart beat to help.  Technology has made it easier to keep in touch.  Our circle of dumbasses talk everyday.  Whether it's by text or instant message or whatever avenue we can make fun of each other by.  Our circle isn't for the faint of heart by any stretch, but its our circle and its hard to imagine not having it around.  Earlier this year I was seriously thinking about running for political office in this part of the state.  My mom, knowing me so well, asked me if I could put up with all the crap that seems to go along with politics these days.  I told her, my friends are 10X worse then any media or other butthead that I would encounter.  I'm not scared at all! I relate our relationship to you, because again, everybody has to have somebody they can count on. Whether it's a small circle or a bigger circle, you need somebody to help you through tough times some. Whether its an act of God, a self inflicted problem, a natural disaster or something else totally out of your hands, trying to plod through life by yourself would be almost totally impossible without a support team. 

Some people who know me think I am ornery.   I might come by it honestly. My family has a long history of being jokers.  My great-great grandfather supposedly rode a jackass into the newspaper office in Ashland in the early 1900's to protest somebody running for political office.  I'm making a leap to say he probably thought the candidate was a jackass.  I never really heard any good stories on my great granddad, but he spent a lifetime working for the railroad so I can't imagine  there wasn't any pranks or jokes pulled on people. Nothing wouldn't ever have happened on the railroad.  My grandad, who was always sick by the time I was old enough to remember, never would have appeared to me to have been a joker.  But in his younger days he was hilarious.  From dismantling peoples cars and putting them back together again on top of barns or homes or to hot wiring the outhouse toilet seat at school so a certain someone would get shocked you know where when his aim was off, he was always one upping the previous deed.  

My dad always claims he was innocent of any wrong doing in anything that could be called a prank. But yet he was always around when pranks were being pulled.  The best one I heard from him was in college at OSU.  After a rodeo, some of the guys wanted to go up to a dance at the student union that a sorority was having.  Now I'm guessing the sorority type and the cowboy/farmer/hick/redneck type probably didn't mesh to well. So to make it all the worse, since one of the guys suffered from polio when he was a kid, they decided if they needed to make a fast getaway from crashing the dance at least they wouldn't have to worry about getting him out of there, too.  So they loaded this bull, which obviously was pretty tame in the cargo elevator and off to one of the top floors they went.  You can imagine the sight when that elevator door opened and they stepped out on the dance floor with a bull and a guy on his back.  I imagine there was a lot of shrieks coming from the sorority gals.  One thing they hadn't thought about was though was all the sawdust that was spread on the floor.  So all four legs went out from underneath the bull, and you can also imagine what a big animal might do as well when they get startled.  Needless to say a lot of that sawdust was green by the time they got the bull off the dance floor.  Now none of these circles that I have talked about will win you awards or make  you millions of dollars.  In fact, with some of these circles, if you can just stay out of jail you might be doing good.  But one thing I've seen with them is they stay true for a lifetime. Those are the friends you really need.  Whether you are prepping and you are facing circumstances where you need help, or you just need a hand moving or hauling something around. Make sure you know that your set of friends can handle what might come up.  

I love the prepper community.  Now I don't necessarily agree with all of them and why they prep, but at least they are proactive in trying to make sure they are taken care of in a worst cast scenario.  When SHTF, nobody has to take care of them.  But imagine if all of the preppers or all of the doctors or lawyers or salesmen or name off any other occupation field, had a small circle of friends they could depend on when times got rough. Think about if you didn't have to fight things alone, zombies or a personal issue.  Wouldn't that make anything you were going through better? Preppers seem to have this down more then anybody else in my opinion.  Be more like a prepper!

If you like what you've read, please share with your family and friends.  You can keep up with me on Twitter @OKREDNECKFARMER. I am also on Facebook at OKredneckfarmer.  I can also be reached by email at bodarkspringsfarm@gmail.com.

Until next time everybody, have a great rest of the day and a better tomorrow.