Max and me had been having a not quite typical day. We had only been in trouble with his mom a half dozen times and it wasn’t quite ten o’clock in the morning. She was really starting to talk to herself now, something about crazy kids and making some pigmy stew. I think that the older you get the more you start to slip. It must start sometime after you have kids.

I don’t know what the problem was today. I guess we were off our feed. I mean, by now most days his mom was on her fourth pot of coffee and was just sitting and staring out the window, with a look like she was gone far, far away.

Max has a cool house it sits at the bottom of a hill. The hill slopes back for about two hundred feet at a nice gentle slope, then it shoots almost straight up for about a hundred feet and that hundred feet is covered with rocks and sagebrush and cactus.

We had been sitting around trying to think of something to do when Max decides that we need to take a ride down the hill. I agreed that sounded like fun, so we looked around for something to ride down the hill.  We couldn’t find anything with wheels all we could find was some empty barrels. So we proceeded to push the barrels to the top of the hill for a nice easy ride back down, you know we would crawl in them roll down the hill, like on a nice carnival ride and life would be good.

While we were pushing our barrels to the top of the hill the cows and chickens were eyeing us uneasily. They were always like that when we were around; I never realized that animals were such nervous wrecks.

 

We tested the ride and the hill on the nice gentle slope first. We crawled into the barrels and with a little rocking got them moving. It was GREAT. We just rolled down the hill at a nice slow speed. The world was going around slowly, the cows were right side up, upside down, right side up, upside down. Nothing to it, we rolled to a nice gentle stop after about a hundred feet.

Since there was nothing to it we decided to go to the top of the big hill try for a little more speed. After a lot of work we got those barrels up there. We looked around, this was a lot higher, Max said "why don’t you go first?" Being the young dumb one I agreed.

I crawled into the barrel and with a little help from Max got it rolling. Not bad, nothing to it, for about the first five feet. "ROCK" Max yelled. What rock? Seems we had, or at least I had, forgotten about the rocks, boulders and cactus. I hit that rock and it was all downhill literally and figurative from there. I bounced off that first rock, not too bad, but it got my attention and knocked the wind out of me. Well let’s just say it was not a pretty sight from where I was. I happened to catch a glimpse of Max as he rolled by; at least I was not by myself on this trip.

We came off that hill sounding like, well-like a freight train going by. We would hit a rock and bounce up in the air and come back down with such a jar that I am sure it was felt in town, which was twenty five miles away. There must have been a thousand rocks on that hill and I hit 998 of them.  Not only were we rolling down the hill at a hundred miles an hour we had to concentrate on keeping our heads and feet inside the barrel as they were open on both ends. And with the cactus reaching up and trying to grab us as we went by it was a full time job.

As we came off that hill we were going like a runaway truck with no brakes. We ran right through the fence. We then streaked down the straight away on that once nice gentle slope and came to a stop up against the house with a loud thump which I am sure rocked the house.

Thank you, thank you, thank you we made it alive, not sure about how many pieces yet. I just spilled out of both ends of the barrel trying to catch my breath. When I could focus my eyes I saw Max lying on ground beside his barrel not looking any better than I felt.

I had trouble getting out of the barrel. The world just won’t hold still and stop spinning long enough for me to get upright and not being able to catch my breath was not helping.  When we could finally motivate without falling over I saw Max’s mom lying on the ground by the back door taking a nap. I don’t know what it is with old people, every time Max and me do something she is always laying down napping. She really should get more sleep at night.

I remember seeing the cows and chickens running every which way as I streaked by. They were running upside down, then right side up and even sideways. But they were all out of sight when we came to a stop and I could see again.  Of course Max and me got blamed for spooking the livestock; don’t know why it is our fault. Because of this his mom thought we should have to go round them up. It took Max and me forever to get them all rounded up. Course being in the shape we were after that ride, we were not too fast at finding things.

After the barrel ride and getting all the livestock rounded up again we decided it was time to go to my house and bless my mother with our presence we hadn’t been around all day and I know she was having a dull day.

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