Laugh Tracks in the Dust

0
455

The geezers at our weekly Old Boars’ Breakfast Club are at an average age when health issues continue to rear their ugly head. Now, I’m not talking about your average run-of-the-mill aches and pains simply from getting older, but some health issues that are truly headscratching.

Such is the health issue that recently happened to the “highest flying” member of our club, ol’ Soran Landitt. He’s an experienced pilot of small planes and recently acquired a new “used” airplane with other family members. They’ve been flying the plane for a few months to vacation sites and just for the fun of flying.

Well, a couple of weeks ago, it wuz a beautiful day for flying and ol’ Soran decided to take the plane for a pleasant flight. So, he drove to the Coffey County Airport 40 miles away at New Strawn, Kan., where the family hangars its plane.

When he arrived, he prepared the plane for flight, checked with the airport controller, and sailed off into the wild, blue yonder. He circled the airport for more than an hour. He even told the ground controller that he’d fly out of the way to let another plane land.

However, all the time he wuz in the air, Soran kept mentioning to ground control that he’d land “just as soon as I figure this thing out.” Ground control thought he wuz fooling around and jesting with them.

Eventually, he did land the plane without incident, took care of it’s post-flight care, went into the hangar and ate a hamburger with his son and some of the airport personnel. But, his son noticed that Soran wuz unusually quiet and kept asking the same questions. Quickly, his son deduced that “something’s wrong with Dad” and took him to the nearby emergency room of the hospital in Burlington.

That’s when the big surprise, and bigger fright, wuz revealed. My friend Soran had suffered from an episode of  transient global amnesia. That’s when a person has a complete memory loss of recent events.

Yep, Soran lost five hours of his memory. He doesn’t remember driving to the airport or anything about preparing the plane for flight, nuthin’ about the flight itself or the landing. He doesn’t remember eating the hamburger, or going to the Burlington hospital. In fact, he sez the first thing he remembers about his day wuz waking up at the University of Kansas Medical Center in Kansas City where his diagnosis of TGA was confirmed.

Overnight, Soren regained his full memory except for those five “lost” hours. He’s functioning normally in every way. However, the docs did “ground” him from flying and driving for a few months.

Soren sez he had to drive his car and fly and land his plane on “pure repetitive instinct.” His family and friends are grateful for that instinct.It could have been a much unhappier ending. Guess you could call it a fllight of fancy.

***

Well, Halloween is just around the corner and I heard about a humorous farm event that happened around Halloween decades ago in Strong City. One local farmer (I’ll spare the name) for some reason, probably just on a whim, acquired a little flock of three Barbados Black Belly sheep. Alas, the sheep were wild as March Hares and would not stay in their pasture. So, after a few weeks of dealing with the unruly sheep, the owner made the decision to butcher them.

On the fateful day the owner solicited assistance from two of his buddies. But, the sheep, when the group got them penned, quickly soared over the fence like deer and scattered into the hinterlands.

The boys chased the sheep, couldn’t get within a country mile of them, and finally temper flared and the decision wuz made to “shoot them like deer and then we’ll butcher them.” So, out came the long rifles and the first Barbados Black Belly went down in the local cemetery. The boys quickly hung him in a nearby tree to bleed out, but it wuz right close to the blacktop leading into town. Then they went “hunting” for the other two wayward sheep.

Before they completed the “hunt,” a sheriff deputy arrived at the farm to inform the boys that he’d received a report from a concerned citizen about “some kind of bloody Halloween prank or cult thing” happening in the cemetery. He said to get the bloody sheep carcass moved immediately from public sight and to be “less obvious” in what they did with the other two sheep.

The boys did as instructed and I never did hear what happened to the other two sheep. But, I can just picture in my mind’s eye the whole event.

***

Last week I mentioned that our Old Boars’ Breakfast Club wuz dining on cold cereal, sweet rolls, and fruit because the old Saffordville schoolhouse wuz without electricity. Well, today, we — all 22 of us — had our third cold breakfast. Word is that the slow-as-molasses electric company will have our electricity restored by next week. I hope so because breakfast dining by candlelight ain’t very romantic.

***

I don’t know about you, but I’m getting darned tired of the political machinations and shenanigans taking place in Washington, D.C. Our nation’s capital, in my estimation, really is becoming a detestable policical swamp.

So, I’ll close this week with some political words of wisdom from some feller named Oscar Ameringer. He said, “Politics is the gentle art of getting votes from the poor and campaign funds from the rich, by promising to protect each from the other.” Have a good ‘un.

 

LEAVE A REPLY

Please enter your comment!
Please enter your name here