I was down the street playing on a summer day when Friar Terry, hauling his clubs, came looking for me to shag some balls. I didn’t want to. I was having fun with my friends and, besides, I wasn’t wearing any shoes. Terry convinced me that hanging out with him while golf balls were coming in my direction would be way more fun than kick the can.
“Ya can’t make a quarter doing this now can you, ” he asked.
Well okay, but first I have to run home and get some shoes.
“Nah, you don’t need shoes.”
No. No. I need shoes.
“You’ll be fine. Shoes are for babies.”
Despite thinking differently and noticing that he had his shoes on off we went……….me and my big bro to the field for golf practice.
I took my position out yonder among the dandelions and I wasn’t liking what I was seeing. There were bees everywhere and I was scared, but Terry said they wouldn’t bother me if I didn’t bother them.
They didn’t for about ten minutes and then I stepped on one and got stung on the bottom of my foot. I started hopping around and wailing while dodging the golf balls that he kept driving towards my head.
I GOT STUNG!!!!!!
“Okay. Let me just hit a few more.”
NOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!
I started walking in from the field. Hurt, mad and not about to shag any more of his damn golf balls. He scooped up the rest while I sat on the bench by the baseball diamond crying, and then we made our way home – me hobbling all the way.
Mom took a look at it and said I’d be fine but before long my foot blew up to twice its size. This was problematic. Mom, who could fix any kind of injury and was the best butterfly bandager on the block for the really deep cuts that should have had stitches, was stumped. “We just may have to take you to the doctor.”
No. No. Not the doctor. Please, Mom, not the doctor.
For back in the 60s if you were a kid and had to go to the doctor it surely meant you were getting a shot. Everything that could be wrong with you required a shot. I don’t ever remember getting medicine when I was sick, but presenting my stark white butt to a nurse to get another shot seemed to be a regular occurrence.
By the next day my bee sting had not gotten better so Mom and I sat in a doctor’s office that smelled like formaldehyde and found out I was allergic to bees. “She’ll be okay,” the doctor said. “But we’ll give her a shot just to be on the safe side.”
Mom said well sure that sounds like a good idea and my butt got a needle jammed into it to cure the bee sting on my foot.
It was a big deal amongst the clan when we got home and I did some show and tell and soaked up the attention. “She’s allergic to bees,” Mom told Terry. “You’d better not take her out shagging again without shoes or you’ll kill her for God’s sake.”
Before long my foot got better and my brother came around looking for his best shagger. I had some time to think things over when it came to this job of mine and I made a few decisions about my future.
I’ll keep on shagging I told my brother, but there’s been a price increase while I was recuperating from my near-death experience. A dollar a bag. Take it or leave it.
He grabbed his clubs. I grabbed my shoes. We had a deal.
