Ten years old. 1962. Christmas

"All you kids outside, NOW!"  Mom was on a serious mission. Some gossip hound had said that the Nelson kids "might have lice." Mom was so irritated that she decided to show the entire block of Birren Avenue that her children were absolutely purified of such a scourge. She marched us out to the front curb and poured some kind of "Kill Everything" solution on our heads. To me, it was a little embarrassing... but not much. 

Christmas was on my mind and a week away. The greatest day of the year!  I got a new BB gun. An upgraded Daisy that could probably shoot at least a mile. We went to grandmas for the day, and I carried the gun there. I just had to show Gramps that weapon. He was impressed beyond words. All he said was, "Stop pointing that thing at me!"   There were no BBs in it, but as usual, he didn't believe me. How sad. The power of just the air blew the ashes off his cigarette as he took a long drag. I guess I should have warned him first. Later that day, I finally got to eat…in a corner by myself. Some folks are a little edgy when a kid is walking amongst them with a Daisy as they eat the Christmas meal. 

The next day, Buttface and I hungered for an adventure. We decided to go on a Buffalo hunt in a well-known cornfield at the end of my street. Buttface brought a new guy along. Rats Larson had just moved into town from the nation of Iowa. We figured he would know something about Buffalo hunting way out west in Iowa. Dang... He did!  He heard stories from his grandfather. How to properly approach Buffalo as the Sioux Indians did. After all, he moved here from Sioux City, Iowa. Case closed. He was to be the guide. He said that Indians dressed in sheep skins and crawled to the herd, but owned no Daisy BB guns, so they used arrows. I offered him my old gun because none of us had any arrows left. All the arrows were lost in a local tribal war with the kids from Sunny Side Street. Most were stuck upon various neighbors’ rooftops. 

I convinced my mother to fashion paper bags for sheep heads. Mom was an artist at painting sheep heads. She even put lipstick on one for Buttface. Unusual but very clever. We borrowed old bedsheets from our mothers. We started the long crawl at sunrise. About noon, we finally found one Buffalo. He was attracted to Buttface, probably the lipstick ploy,  we could see the horns clearly, but they looked kinda different, kinda like longhorn bulls. We ripped off our sheep head bags and fired. The bull wasn't even fazed!   Attractive Buttface might have just as well been wearing high-quality perfume. Rats and I retreated as Buttface launched into his Belch language, wrongly thinking that he could speak Bull . He could easily speak much Bull, but not in this case. The last we saw Buttface that afternoon, he was riding the bull around the entire 80-acre cornfield. He was still carrying his daisy proudly. 

Rats and I got to my house looking a little bit in panic for some reason. Mom asked us how the buffalo hunt went. In two or three minutes, having found my voice, I just casually told her that we got one and that we left Buttface with the buffalo. They seemed to like each other. Mom asked my new friend what his name was, as she was making hot chocolate for us. He replied, “My name is Rats." “Oh that's a nice name for Nelly’s Buffalo hunting friend," she said. I explained that he was from Sioux City. Mom said, " I bet you know a lot about buffalo hunting."  I told Mom that he didn't have any lice that I noticed. She then marched him outside and gave him the treatment. I haven't seen Rats for 2 weeks.

Hug your kids and love your neighbor.

Merry Christmas!