The X Files

So every day I drive past the field pictured above and the three file cabinets that are inexplicably located in the middle of said field. Except now there are only two. Where did the missing cabinet go?

While I'm sure there is some boring, ordinary reason behind its disappearance, I prefer to imagine more interesting scenarios.

Perhaps the cabinets contain the remains of Jimmy Hoffa. The body parts are distributed among them. The missing cabinet contained the head, along with the only way to identify the remains of Hoffa - his teeth. So, acting on a hot tip from a double agent for the FBI, the field's owners had to quickly dispose of the tell-tale cabinet and dumped it in the nearby lake.

Wait, maybe it contained the complete findings of the Warren Commission, along with a film made from an alternate viewpoint than Zapruder. This film shows clearly that Bobby Kennedy was responsible for his brother's death. Oliver Stone hired ex-Delta Force soldiers to sneak to the field in the cover of night to steal the evidence. It is to be used in his next film, The File in the Field.

Or it most likely it contained unretouched photos and film of the faked Apollo moon landing. The owner of the field is a former cinematographer who was paid off by the government to help fool the country into thinking that man could actually land on the moon. NASA, fearing that the film would leak out, had the cabinet airlifted to Area 51, where aliens will assist in destroying the evidence completely.

Yeah, I know that the cabinet probably just succumbed to rust or had a hornet's nest in it, but I think my explanations are far more entertaining.

I remember the day I almost died. Actually, as bumbling as I was a as a kid, it was probably just one of many days I almost died. This one involves other people, so it stands out more, I guess.

It was the summer before 3rd grade, so I would have been, um, let’s see, eight. We had a real live swimming pool in our backyard, in-ground and everything. A girl I knew in first grade but who had moved away came over with her mother for an afternoon of swimming and fun. It became an afternoon of terror! Okay, maybe a little overly dramatic.

All started off well enough. We swam around the shallow end, played games, dove for coins. Then we decided to race across the pool. She knew how to swim, I swear she did. But she must have panicked when she realized her feet wouldn’t touch bottom. In her panic, she crawled on my back like I was going to become magically buoyant and float her back to the shallow end.

Instead, I sank. But on the plus side, I do think I had enough buoyancy to keep her head above water. Problem was, now mine was underwater. I remember thinking, I don’t think I can hold my breath this long. Then, boy, I’d love to take a breath right about now. Lastly, everything turning a really pretty cool shade of blue.

Next thing I remember is waking up in the lounge chair.

But many more exciting things had taken place between the pretty blue color and the lounge chair.

My mother, who couldn’t swim, jumped in thinking she could hold on to the edge of the pool while pulling my friend off me. She was wrong, and was pulled out to the middle of the deep end where she promptly sank.

My sister heard the commotion and being the trained lifeguard that she was, jumped in to assist in the rescue. Sounds good, but in reality she only came out to see what was going on because she thought we’d thrown her cat in the pool. I have no idea why she thought we’d do such a thing, but I guess it’s fortunate that she thought so little of us or otherwise she would have stayed inside watching “All My Children”.

My friend’s mom was a nurse, and she also jumped in, fully clothed. My mom says the main thing she remembers about that day is that the woman had just come from the hair salon and had to get her new hairdo ruined. Yes, that’s her vivid memory, not that her youngest child was dying.

Everyone was fished out of the pool, given mouth-to-mouth as needed, and I must have awakened and gone to the chair, although I remember none of that.

In my mother’s defense, as afraid of water as she is, she encouraged me to get back in the pool, and I did. I would probably have an incurable fear of water if I hadn’t. But I do have an incurable fear of being dunked, which was difficult as a teenager when flirting consisted of punching a girl in the arm and dunking.

What does this story have to do with anything? I not sure it does, but it’s my earliest memory of being in danger. It was something so scary that didn’t seem like a big deal at the time. I’m sure if it happened now, I’d hide under the bed for days.

Granny and the Groundhog

In honor of Groundhog Day, I thought I’d present you with a story about my grandmother’s strangest pet, Squeaky the Groundhog. Yes, a groundhog. Hey, what is a groundhog anyway but an overgrown guinea pig and people have those as pets all the time, right?

So anyway, my grandmother was the quintessential mountain country grandmother. Toothpick perpetually perched at the corner of her mouth, beans growing in the backyard, fatback frying on the stove. My grandfather died before I was born, so as long as I knew her, she was on her own. She loved the TV and would talk back to it – not in a crazy way, but just in a general commentary way. She especially liked to talk back to evangelists and politicians. But I digress.

This story is to be about Squeaky. The story I heard is that Squeaky showed up as an abandoned baby, and she nursed him up to young adulthood, at which time he left home to find his fortune. She called him Squeaky because, like the aforementioned guinea pigs, he made a squeaking noise.

When I was about 3, Squeaky reappeared. Like many children who find the world too big and scary, he returned home to the warmth of the space under my grandmother’s kitchen sink. Because it was an old country house, he was able to come and go as he pleased through this sink portal.

My single memory of Squeaky is an unpleasant one. I remember holding him and feeding him something, and then out of nowhere he bit me on the wrist. My sisters were present and vouch to this day that I did nothing to provoke him. Maybe like many animals that aren’t used to small children, a sudden movement startled him. Or maybe the fact that he was a wild animal finally caught up with him. Whatever the reason, it was a big mistake on Squeaky’s part.

As the rest of the story has been told to me, Granny heard the commotion, and upon finding out what had happened, immediately lit out on him with a broom. She beat him back to the kitchen and under the sink, yelling colorful and often invented insults at him. All day long, if Squeaky so much as poked a whisker out from under the sink, out came the broom and the whacking and yelling resumed.

I suppose she eventually forgave him, but I don’t remember ever playing with Squeaky again. When I was in second grade, we were talking about wild animals and I mentioned that I had been bitten by a groundhog. My evil second grade teacher (didn’t everyone have at least one evil elementary school teacher?) called me a liar in front of the whole class because, as she said, “If you had been bitten by a groundhog you would be dead because they carry rabies”. I went home in tears and told my mom, and she sent me to school the next day with the above picture. I don’t remember the teacher ever apologizing, but I got my satisfaction.