Juice Jug & A Hatchet

The evening air was thick with the smell of fresh mowed grass.  The sound of suburban lawnmowers hummed from the neighborhood. I could hear my cousins laughing with delight.  They lived two doors down.


Our families had been drawn to the beach subdivision just a 20 minute drive south of Cape Canaveral where our fathers both worked for the space program.  My step-dad worked for Martin Marietta in their shipping and receiving department.  Martin was building the Titan missiles at that time.  My uncle worked for Boeing in the VAB.  That's the Vertical Assembly Building where the missiles were erected prior to launch.


As kids we were blasé when it came to the launch of missiles since it seemed it happened all the time.  I was 10 in 1960 when we moved from Seattle to Satellite Beach.  It was, as I was to discover in my later years, a great place AND a great time to grow up.  Homes at that time didn't have air conditioning, but since we only lived two blocks from the ocean we had cool breezes to soften the heat of Florida. 


I went down to my cousins yard to find out what they were laughing about.  They had two baby rabbits.  Furry brown balls of cuteness.  My uncle had disturbed a nest while mowing the yard.  I wanted one.  I searched the yard but no more baby rabbits were to be found.  I went home disappointed.  It was Sunday night and Bonanza was on!


The next morning I joined my cousins at the corner to wait for the School bus.  While we were waiting around I spotted something brown and furry squirming in the grass a few feet away.  YAY! A baby rabbit.  I ran over and scooped it up.  OUCH!  It bit me.


I was totally surprised to discover what I thought was a baby bunny was actually a really angry rat.  It had been disabled by the neighbor's Siamese cat.  My uncle, who was in the driveway about to head to work noticed the commotion at the bus stop and came to my aid.  He caught the rat and put it in a paper bag and summoned my mom.


Great, I didn't have to go to school now.  It was off to the doctor in Cocoa Beach to see about my finger.  After getting in to see the doctor he contacted the county health department for guidance.  They advised they would have to send the rat for rabies testing to determine my medical treatment.  We were to bring the rat to their offices in Rockledge, a town on the mainland about 30 minutes away.  Great, I don't have to go to school at all today!


We drove up there with the rat scratching at the bag only to be told they only wanted the rat's head and it had to be in an airtight container before they would accept it.  OK, now what?  First on the to do list, an airtight container.  There was no such thing as zip lock food storage back then.  It was glass or Tupperware and Tupperware was had to come by at such short notice, not to mention expensive. 


There was a hardware store down the road so we went in there to see what they had.  Back then hardware stores also carried kitchen ware.  We found a glass jug for keeping orange juice in the fridge.  It had a plastic lid.  Perfect. 


Now came the problem of separating the rat from his head.  Hardware store.  Hatchet.  Handy.  Ok, so we went thru the check out with our two purchases.  The juice jug and a hatchet. 


Back in the car we were faced with the terrible fact that someone had to chop off that rat's head and get it into the jug.  My mother was not about to do that job.  Not in a million years.  And that acorn didn't fall far from the tree since I was not about to do it either.  I imagine the rat would be none too fond of that plan either.


We drove around as though somehow an answer would reveal itself to us.  Then, as we stopped at a rail road crossing we spotted two guys walking along the tracks.  My mom got their attention and they came over to the car.  They were teenagers, likely skipping school.  My mom offered them $5.00 to chop off the rat's head and put it into the jug.  While I am sure they thought she was crazy, I am equally sure they were happy to get the $5.00.  They did the job and we submitted the grizzly prize to the Health Department for it's testing.


Three days later the lab report came in.  Inconclusive.  Meaning I had to get rabies shots "just in case".  So I got a full series of rabies shots which took place over a month.  The horror stories about agonizing shots in the stomach were not true in my case.  They were simples shot in my shoulder blade and  didn't hardly hurt.  I was very lucky. 


Still, in my later years on the police force I was bitten by a rat snake, squirrel, dog and teenage girl.  For which I received equally painful tetanus shots.  I also received tetanus shots for being skewered in the hand by an anhinga and sliced up on barbwire fences chasing cows and horses from the highway.


It's all fun and games until you have to go to the ER.

When do you really know that you are a police officer? The transition from 'civilian' to 'cop' is complete when:

By Doug Wyllie
When do you really know that you are a police officer? Is it when you realize that you find humor in other people’s stupidity? Or is it when you know for certain that unspeakable evils will befall you if anyone says, “Boy, it sure is quiet tonight.” Is it when you’ve left more meals on the restaurant table than you’ve eaten, or when you come to the knowledge that discussing human dismemberment over a meal is a perfectly normal thing to do? Maybe it’s when you feel good when you hear someone say, “These handcuffs are too tight.” Here are 25 ways you can be pretty reliably sure that you’re really a cop.
1.) You have the bladder capacity of five people combined.
2.) You have restrained someone and it was not a sexual experience.
3.) You believe that 50 percent of people are a waste of good air.
4.) Your idea of a good time is a “man with a gun” call.
5.) You conduct a criminal record check on anyone who seems friendly towards you.
6.) You believe in the aerial spraying of Prozac and birth control pills.
7.) You disbelieve 90 percent of what you hear and 75 percent of what you see.
8.) You have your weekends off planned for a year.
9.) You believe the government should require a permit to reproduce.
10.) You refer to your favorite restaurant by the intersection at which it’s located.
11.) You have ever wanted to hold a seminar entitled: “Suicide: Getting it right the first time.”
12.) You ever had to put the phone on hold before you begin laughing uncontrollably.
13.) You think caffeine should be available in IV form.
14.) You know anyone who says, “I only had two beers” is going to blow at least a .15
15.) You find out a lot about paranoia just by following people around.
16.) Anyone has ever said to you, “There are people killing other people out there and you are here messing with me.”
17.) People flag you down on the street and ask you directions to strange places...and you know where it’s located.
18.) You can discuss where you are going to eat with your partner while standing over a dead body.
19.) You are the only person introduced at social gatherings by profession.
20.) You walk into places and people think it’s high comedy to grab their buddy and shout, “They’ve come to get you, Bill.”
21.) You do not see daylight from November until May.
22.) People shout, “I didn’t do it!” when you walk into a room and think they’re being hugely funny and original.
23.) A week’s worth of laundry consists of five T-shirts, five pairs of socks, and five pairs of underwear.
24.) You’ve ever referred to Tuesday as “my weekend.”
25.) You’ve ever written off guns and ammunition as a business deduction.

The Good Old Days

 

 

 

 

There is a reason it's called  the 'good' old days.

 

Ha!  A friend recently sent me this photo that she took in 1978. 

I don't even remember her taking it.  Dang, I sure wish I had that car back.  It ran like a scalded dog.  And in the days when seat belts were an option that no one 'opted' for.  They are pretty much a nuisance when you are trying to jump out of the car quickly.  Don't want to get hung up. 

Other 'improvements' that interfere with old time police efficiency:  Dinging noises from the dash, cars that don't want to go into gear unless your foot is on the brake, back-up lights that come on when you are in 'stealth' mode, cars that honk when you lock them, doors that ding if you leave them open,  and headlights that 'fade off' when you need instant darkness.  The things car makers add to make their cars idiot proof are the things that call attention when you don't want people to know you are there.  Not a good thing.  And don't even get me started on the size of back seats now.  YOU try stuffing a two hundred pound drunk into backseat of one of these new itsy bitsy cars.

In fact I'm sick and tired of any mechanical device whose job it is to do my bidding is now trying to boss me around.  I hate washing machines that refuse to open their lid if I need to add an item to a load in progress. They might use less water but you have to run truly dirty clothes twice to get them even close to as clean as an old water guzzler could do in one try.  Toilets are stingy with water too, but how is that efficient if you have to double flush for, well, I'll leave that to your imagination...Snotty refrigerators  that scold with warning bells if  the door stays open longer than it has decided is necessary.  I guess it thinks you should actually know what you want before you open the door. No always an option in my house.  And  now the damn TV can  go into screen saver mode because I left it on one channel so long it's decided I'm sleeping or left the room.  Hello....... some of us watch FOX NEWS CHANNEL for more than an hour.  At least people who have an attention span of more than 10 minutes.

I'm loving Al Gore getting his theory on global warming shoved up his Al Jazeera arse. What with the entire chicken little Antarctic Expedition ice-locked during their trip to study the melting polar ice.  I hope all those 'drowning' polar bears eat THEM for lunch.

 And, while I'm on a rant against new technology, how about these new light bulbs?  I don't want to pay $2.50 for a .30 bulb.  Especially one that has a color that hurts my midnight shifters eyes and if you happen to break it you need a hazmat team in full protective gear to clean up the 'mercury' spill.  And who in heaven's name decided fuses in two dollar string of Christmas lights was a good idea?  It's easier to throw the string away and get another one than fiddle with those little stuck closed slidy things in the plug, and that's only if you can find the microscopic fuse in the first place.  Then, if you get it in and test the string, it does not work anyway. 

My Garmin in the  wagon queen family truckster insists I need a new version because it's over a year old.  Duh, I don't think the highways have been changed all that much to find a route from here to there.  And besides, half the time it tries to send me the wrong way down a one way street.  It never chooses the same route twice.  And I think the bitch that did the voice that talks started out with an attitude because she's always snotty when she tells me I missed a turn.

I tried switching her for the British guy but he can't pronounce anything right.  At least when he says it, it sounds sexy.  Thank heaven for the mute option.

 Now, if I could just mute the washer, dryer, fridge, my whiny dog, iPhone, and the people who ignore the fact that I'm on the 'no call list'..................