September—school was two weeks old already and I met a new buddy that just moved from Montana. I soon learned that Montana was another world. Buddy’s name was Durwood Windslinger. Durwood was a year older than me. I was nine so I guess that made him ten. He lived on the far end of my street so it was a hike of about 100 yards and slightly uphill from my home— the ranch as I later called it. Durwood and I quickly made plans to camp in his backyard one Friday night. His mother had received a humongous chest freezer and it arrived in a gargantuan cardboard box. The box became our cabin on the range in the backyard. Mosquitoes still prowled at night so we ingeniously used a big piece of cheesecloth as a door. Durwood had secured the top of the cloth with thumbtacks he borrowed from his mother…I don’t think she knew.

I made the long hike to the Windslinger ranch about sundown dressed in my flannel cowboy pajamas and my fake cowboy hat made of some kind of fake red straw. Durwood laughed upon my arrival. This was unusual behavior for him. I never knew that he could laugh…kind of a perpetual serious expression usually etched upon his face. We bunked down in the cabin which was surprisingly hot from basking in the sun all day. Durwood brought a very long kitchen match (about a foot long). It was a new invention to me and I figured it was a Montana match for lighting fire to brand stolen cattle. He informed me that its use was for scaring animals away kinda like a torch. That made sense to me as this was the first night for me camping in a cardboard box. 

Sure as shootin’ we soon heard a wild animal very close to the box. We peeked through to the dark yard and agreed it had to be behind a bush about 6 feet from the cheesecloth door. I began nervously shaking as I was in the back along with Durwood. We put our feet towards the “door” in order to kick at that wild animal and save our scrawny lives. Then in a flash, Durwood had the branding foot-long match at the ready!  He pulled his knees up to his chest and in the exact same moment struck the match. Between the glare of the match and the strange sound of a Whoopi cushion from that animal... a huge 2-foot ball of orange fire came right from Durwood. Cheesecloth was burning away fast. “What happened?”  I calmly asked in my three-year-old sister’s voice. Durwood was laughing really hard and couldn’t answer. I grabbed for my hat which was blown out of the box somewhere in the dark. I ran home without the hat and jumped into my bed still shaking. Mom asked if I already went to the bathroom before I got in bed. I responded in my little sister’s voice that I was positive that I did. “Ok, son I was just curious. Sleep tight.”  Three weeks later I found my hat in the bush with a note from Durwood. The note said, “Hey cowboy, do you want to camp out in an igloo this winter?” The End!

Hug the kids and love your neighbor.