Muddy memories

The ball squirted loose and the Whitefish kid went after it and three Columbia Falls kids went after it and they all started to slide to me. One Columbia Falls kid that was slicker than the others slid all the way to my feet.

Mud splashed all over me.

I smiled, bent over, picked up the ball and gave it to the ref.

"So," I said, "this is why you shouldn't wear white after Labor day."

My whitish pants (they were really tan, but white enough) were mud from the knees down. Welcome to Memorial Field last Friday night. Home of the Mud Bowl. Wildcats 27, Bulldogs 6.

I enjoyed the mud. It was about four inches deep in most places and smelled like a locker room, dirty underwear and wet dogs.

Yikes.

Mud like that brings back fond memories. I was a mud magnet growing up. I could get my shoes sucked clean off my feet walking from grandpa's Cadillac to the front porch of the church. I didn't find mud. Mud found me.

"Look at you," my mother would say. "You're all mud. Don't even think about coming in the house like that. Off! Off! Off! with those clothes in the garage."

Many a day I spent naked in the garage, peeling slick brown clothes off my shocking white skin.

My grandmother was just as bad.

"Look at those socks! How am I supposed to get them clean? I'm not washing those with the other whites. No way. How do you do it?"

I just shrugged. My grandmother's voice could cut through sheet metal.

At grandma's, I had to take my clothes off in the back room. A cold place that had rats. Grandma set traps for the rats. The secret to catching them is to smear peanut butter under the pan instead of on top of it. That way the rat was sure to set it off sticking his nose where he shouldn't. You could hear the trap go off from the kitchen.

Whack! It was the sound of a rat angel going to heaven. Do rats go to heaven?

I digress.

My mud coup de grace came at the age of 10. My cousin dared me to jump off a feed wagon into a quagmire of mud and my second favorite viscous substance—cow crap.

I literally jumped at the opportunity. And it sucked both my boots off. I stomped around in my sock feet trying to get my boots out. I tugged and pulled and finally got them out, put them back on my feet and washed myself off with a hose.

I then spent the next hour washing my socks with the hose, trying in vain to get my socks dried off enough before I had to go into the house for supper. I wrung them out. I waved them in the air. I even ( and I am not making this up) tried blowing on them, to no avail.

My cousin laughed and laughed.

Grandma, of course, found out what happened. She even got a smile out of it. At least I think she did. I mean, I didn't really see it. I was back in the woodshed, peeling off my clothes while everyone else told the story. Man, it was cold back there.