All Creatures of Our God and King Part II (AKA: "New Jersey Raccoons of Terror")

The success of S's squirrel adventures has reminded me of an "encounter" I once had with some raccoons. To truly appreciate this story, however, you have to know that my dislike for camping can be compared with, let's say, Michael Moore's dislike for George W. Bush.

In New York I was one of the leaders in charge or the young men in our ward and had, on numerous occasions, weaseled my way out of having to take the kids on their beloved campouts. But after a year-and-a-half of successful weaseling, my guilt caught me and I volunteered to go with six 9th graders to sleep in the wilderness of New Jersey. They brought tents but the "leaders" were supposed to sleep in a lean-to with one side completely open to the wild. As I was getting ready for bed, the kids told me that on their last campout in this spot one of the leaders awoke to see a raccoon standing on his chest and staring him in the face.

Not long after I slid into my sleeping bag, I began hearing noises. Now, these sounds weren't snarls or anything--they were more like shuffles--even still at each sound my heart would race with terror: I was convinced that behind the shuffles was a team of snarling rabies-ridden racoons. My mind picutred the rabies shots plunging into my soft tummy--all this because these lousy kids dragged me out to New Jersey so they could get another patch on their uniform. Well, needless to say, I didn't sleep at all that night. My hyper-vigilance paid off, however. I can assure you that no raccoon perched itself on my chest that night.

Morning came, and I trudged over to the smoky fire pit and began eating some half cooked "muffin-on-a-stick". As I ate, I discovered the real cause of my New Jersey night-terrors were not stealthy raccoons, but rather LEAVES. Yes, leaves.........as in: "leaves are falling on the ground." As they were falling from trees and landing around my lean-to that night, I had mistaken these (apparently huge and noisy) leaves for deadly raccoons.


I have not been camping since...

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Full Circle

LYMA has officially come full circle. If I'm not mistaken, Chris unveiled LYMA in the current "Scribe" design when he recycled a Bushman post from T&S on June 18, 2004. In a sign of things to come, Chris' post received only one comment - a completely unrelated thought by Jason Knapp.

Chris' initial excitement in establishing a blog has recently been matched (and arguably surpassed) by S. I found the return to our original design worthy of note.

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How's this for serious intellectual debate?

Here's a fairly amusing story my wife sent to Reader's Digest in hopes of a $300 bounty. Alas it was rejected (most likely for it's racy language):

One Sunday each month, members of our church have the opportunity to take time during the meeting to share faith building experiences. Recently, at one of these meetings, a woman approached the pulpit to thank the church members for their support following her husband’s recent accident. She explained that his scrotum had been badly bruised, making many activities difficult. “He can’t hold the kids on his lap. He can’t lift things. He can’t even cuddle!” She explained sadly.
When she had finished, her husband got up.
“I have one word for my wife,” he said, gripping the pulpit. “Sternum.”

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