Uncle Art gets puckered by a privy and a bear in an earlier time.
Copyrighted for Jerry W. Engler by Kansas Publishing Ventures and Print Source Direct
UNCLE ART IS BARELY BEARABLE ESPECIALLY WHEN HE’S BEARLY BARABLE
You might say that Aunt Lydia’s fried chicken was barely bearable to eat it was so extremely delicious, with its delicate crisp brown crust and the succulent layers of white and dark meat underneath.
At least that’s what Uncle Art said, that it was “barely bearable,” some of the best he ever had. “And that’s the gospel truth,” he added. “It don’t get any better for an old single fellow than to be invited over for a spread like this. My innards can hardly stand the ecstasy of consuming such a well-singed rooster. Why things don’t often get barely bearable like this unless the situation warrants. Yes, it takes somethin’ special like what I’m rememberin’ now. Guess I might as well tell you about it.”
“Oh, Art, you aren’t going to tell one of your stories when I’m about to bring out hot sour cherry pie with vanilla ice cream are you?” asked Lydia. She was smiling, but she had let him sit at the head of the table where his brother, her husband, used to sit, and she could hear a low moan spreading among the other guests.
“Uncle Art, you aren’t going to tell a story when we can have cherry pie, are you?” said Paul.
“Oh, come on everybody,” said Paul’s sister, Linda. “Let’s eat, and listen at the same time. If Uncle Art can’t talk fast enough, maybe we’ll have some pie he might have eaten.”
“That’s right, Linda, give me my slice of pie first—I don’t have to have seconds, but not having firsts might leave me with the pits,” said Uncle Art. “And it was nearly the pits. Like I was sayin’, we was travelin’ through the Rocky Mountains, me and Aunt Gladys and Uncle Ernest and little Jimmy, I believe it was, probably close to where Jimmy built his double deck house when he grew up.
“The mountains were beautiful, all open with grand vistas of black-green pine and fir trees, snow to contrast with it in the gullies on the naked rock parts above you. The air was thin and heady so I felt like singing like I was the gal in ‘The Sound of Music,’ barely bearable you might guess. Actually I probably was oxygen starved cause everything those trees puts out sinks down the draws.
“That’s fortunate these days because folks down the slope in places like Denver would smother in their car fumes if oxygen went up. At least that’s my theory, and it’s probably as good as the next guy’s. That’s why those people are building their houses higher up too instead of down on the flatlands where it’s easier. They’re instinctively tryin’ to nip a share of the oxygen from the trees before it gets to the bottom. Of course, the grass puts out oxygen too, doesn’t it? I guess that oxygen is driftin’ down the slope to Kansas City and St. Louis. God knows what the people in Washington D.C. are going to do with what’s left of the oxygen sinking their way, but then, they’re the government so confusion is a way of life to them.
“Which, probably you see, explains why the government was doing things so differently in those days, and why they contributed so heavily to the situation I’m tryin’ to tell you—I see you lookin’ at my pie, Paul. Now I’m going to want it when I run out of jaw here, so keep away. You see, the forest service or the park service or maybe some refuse service, they’re all government so it don’t matter, would put out toilet houses every once in a while along the roadway, or privies if you are acquainted with older English,
They would put them on the edge of high over-hangs or cliffs, usually stuck there a little ways over the chasm itself supported by bridge beams so the waste would drop maybe a thousand feet before it was forcefully flattened on the ground or some unfortunate far below. It was an early attempt by the government to be environmentally successful. They didn’t have to dig holes for public sanitation, it fertilized the trees down below, helped fill up gullies, and there was usually pretty little pure water mountain streams flowing down to help spread the benefits. It also kept the flat-landers from seeking secure spots for their habits near the picnic table. Oh, I forgot to say the spot usually included a picnic table for the rest of a privy-goer’s family to sit at contentedly while he was occupied because, after all, the place was scenic. You might say it was also an early attempt by the government to create convenience stores, too.
“But the government changed its mind about all of this as time went on. They do every time a new crop of meddlers gets in, and there have been a couple of generations of them since then. They get to be barely bearable. Hey, I want ice cream on my pie too.
“Yes, let’s see here. Oh, we had to stop at one of these privy overhangs because of me. I tell you the pressure inside me was something fierce in that thin mountain air because my innards was used to being down lower. The others didn’t help any because they all wanted to come in to look down the thousands of feet through the privy holes before they left me to my privacy to sit around the picnic table and wait. I wanted to strangle Jimmy when he remarked that his toothpick was spinning end over end as it went through the hole.
“Now you see, these mountain roads frequently wrap round and round the mountain you’re on, so way up above us, there was more road. Away up there, the rest of the family told me they heard a car horn honking several times. The flat-landers who drove down the slope later on to admire my situation later admitted they started it.
“Big old boy with silver hair and a shameless smile named Roy Dean, now what kind of mother would combine names like Roy Dean, said he was drivin’ when they came around the curve, and surprised this big brown bear in the middle of the road. The bear stood up on his hind legs, so Roy Dean figured from everything he’d heard that it was going to charge his car, maybe scratch it up, and who knew whether an animal with such big paws could break a car window? Anyway, Roy Dean just laid on the horn as hard as he could, and it startled the nerve clear out of that bear. He hadn’t heard such a thing before because tourists were newly invented.
“I guess you could say it was barely bearable for that bear, get it Paul, barely bearable. You got ice cream still on your mouth.
“Anyway, that bear did something that even most experts don’t know a Rocky Mountain bear will do. He turned his head down, and wrapped his big body into a somersault ball to start rolling down the steep slope at high speed. He must have hit 70 miles an hour rolling down that mountainside, until ‘kerboom,’ all 600 pounds of him crunched into that toilet to knock it off its beams with me in it. How do I know he was 600 pounds going 70 miles an hour, Paul? Well I guess I don’t rightly know for sure because I was otherwise occupied than to get precise instrumentation. Maybe it was 599 pounds at 69 miles an hour. At least it knocked the government’s good intentions right from their foundation.
“Fortunately the force of that big of a fur ball saved me. I’d just fastened my belt, and when he hit, the force knocked my rear back to lock into that privy hole, kind of like vacuum sealing a Mason jar. You see, I could have been throwed out of that privy to my doom. The government types took note of it, and a couple of generations later came out with vehicle safety belts.
“Me and the privy and the bear went sailin’ over the edge of that mountain arching like a basketball on its way to swish through the hoop. The family said it was an awesome sight, barely bearable.
“I got knocked into the hole even tighter, and the whole toilet broke in parts when we hit the big tree about two thirds the way up it, maybe a hundred feet up it. No, Paul, I never did go back to measure it. But it was big enough to hold a big bear with a privy roof stuck over his head like a party hat and a young man hanging upside down by virtue of being puckered through a privy hole. I was light-headed, and getting more so by the minute swinging back and forth like that. No, Paul, I wasn’t going to say it was barely bearable. What’s barely bearable is the disappearance of my pie when I got up to circle the table for the climax.
“Oh, Lydia, you say you did put it in the refrigerator for me? That’s good. Thank you. Well, why’d you let Paul eat the ice cream off it just cause it was meltin’. No, Paul, I ain’t going to say that it’s barely bearable.
“Now for those of you who want to hear the end of this story. The bear did hit the ground first, and the party hat broke off him. He just shook his head, moaned as he got up, and then walked off. I was grateful I was severely suctioned, and not down there for his leave taking, although he was so quiet I don’t think I ever met a more bearable victim.
“They got me down OK too. But riding in a car on mountain curves is rough when you have bruise rings round your rear. And, no, Paul, I just ain’t going to say it was barely bearable no matter how much you insist, and as for them that listened politely to my story, I can barely thank you enough.
“No I ain’t bein’ bearish, Paul. You should just be glad you can listen to my stories. I tell you, they’re the gospel truth.”
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