For us kids, winters on the local farms could be a very boring time. Lucky for me, I was a reader. I could always bury myself in a magazine or a good novel but I never, ever liked Mad magazine. In fact, I would have nothing to do with what I always called “absurd humor.” I never liked Mad Magazine or the Three Stooges, such things gave me headaches. The winter rains would keep you indoors and when it wasn’t raining, the many fallow acres would be as muddy as hell, mud that made you tennis shoes or cowboy boots as heavy as hell. The winter was the time to build crystal radio sets, learn how to play solitaire and make eccentric contraptions with the erector set and Lincoln logs.
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As the rains subsided and ground started to dry out, and before the season’s first disking that would turn under the tall grasses covering the fields, this was the time of the forts. We made forts in trees, in the barns but, most especially of all, we made these very elaborate forts under the surface of the fields. When you were eight or ten or twelve years old, the wild grasses would almost grow head high. As the ground dried out, the combination of dark, rich earth and the tall grass would make for great dirt clods. You could grab just the right sized handful of grass, keeping the grass straight, and yank it out of the ground just so, so as not shake too much of the dirt out of the root ball. Once you developed your technique, you could lob a nice heavy dirt clod maybe more than fifty feet with a long, under-handed swing. These guys could give you a hearty thump on the chest if they hit you, but they soared through the air pretty slow, trailing their dark green tails. You really seldom got hit, it so easy to dodge them. However, if a participant in the dirt clod games wasn’t paying ample attention, he might get hit square in the back and let out a little grunt. The others, on both sides, would congratulate the shooter with screams and yells, “Man, great shot, Whoa, what a hit, right on! gotcha’ big time,” and everyone would immediately reload.
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We would choose sides and pick out a lone sapling or a single high mustard plant and call it our “home base,” the thing that the other side had to capture to win our little war. We might have five or six “wars” it a single day. You could see tons of grass and dirt flying in big, curving arcs against the deep blue sky of spring. Laughter and screams would fill the air for hours at a time. No one got hurt and no one had to babysit. Your hands and clothes would get filthy but all that could be washed out with a single bath.
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