I did more things at and after work in the army than any other time. Maybe it was I grew up with no boys to play with. In the army it was 90% male. Somehow I became ringleader for our group of guys. As some trivia, we would “eat by the numbers.” Here’s how that works. Lunchtime on weekdays was usually at the mess hall. Weekends we ate off-post. We’d pile in Ed’s car and drive out to the highway. We rotated turns. When it was your turn, you would pick a random number, say 26. We’d drive and count places that served food. It could be a pub, a restaurant, a hotdog stand or grocery store. It didn’t matter. It counted. When we reached the 26th place, that’s where we ate.
Eating by the numbers gave us interesting experiences. More than one restaurant had soda pop bottles filled with hot sauce or barbeque sauce on all of the tables. Another place had each table leg stuck in a tin can that held half an inch of turpentine or diesel fuel. The cans were to keep bugs off the tabletops.
Another pastime was shooting snakes. We used Randy’s 22 pistol and go after water moccasins. They’re a poisonous snake that are at home in swamps, streams or rivers. They are attracted to vibration. We usually went to a swamp where a downed tree lay halfway in the water. With another chunk of limb, the size of a baseball bat, we’d drum on the tree. Snakes would appear in the water, in the grass or anywhere and crawl toward the tree. The last time we went, there were snakes all around us. We counted at least fifteen on our dash back to my car. Getting in the car was a challenge. We both used striped branches to push away snakes in our way.
Another weekend we took my canoe to a bridge that crossed a small stream. The stream snaked aback and forth across the road about every couple miles. We parked one car at a bridge and drove to another spot downstream with a second car and my canoe. Three of us were on this adventure. Randy, Barry Hammerberg, who we nicknamed Hamburger, and me. We had two canoe paddles so the people in the bow and stern paddled. The center passenger just rode.
The stream flowed well and was maybe three or four feet deep and twenty yards wide. Both banks were high, and trees lined both sides. Sometimes we’d round a bend and find the stream cut through limestone bluffs that rose up a couple hundred feet. At more than one spot, the water depth shrunk to an inch. Most of the water disappeared flowing under the bluff wall. We had to walk in the water and tow the canoe. Around another bend the water would return from the bluff, and we’d paddle again. We’d been on the water for half the day and wondered why we hadn’t come to the second car. It also seemed strange we had not come to any other bridges or landings. At one point a guy on the lower bluff side fished. He hollered a greeting. We asked him how far to the nest bridge. He said the by water about five miles. He suggested we haul my canoe up the bluff where he was. He said there was a road only half a mile away.
We thanked him and paddled on. We came to snag of branches and small logs. Hamburger paddled in the front. When we got to the snag, he started pounding the water with his canoe paddle. “Snakes,” he yelled.
It was a watery nest of moccasins. Ten or twenty swirled in the shallow water. I Sat in the stern and joined in, smashing snakes. Cracking wood sounded. The wide flat part off Hamburger’s paddle floated past me. He kept smacking snakes with the stubby handle.
Half an hour past the snakes the stream joined the Pennyrile River, wide and deep enough to float a river barge.
Behind us a fisherman in a small boat with an outboard motor maneuvered toward us. “What are you boys doing out here?” he asked. “You’re miles from anywhere.”
We were so glad to meet him. He laughed when we told him our story.
“You’re going to need a tow,” he said and tossed us a rope.
He towed us for half an hour. Just ahead was a multi-sectioned dock with thirty or more boats moored. We tied up my canoe and headed up a set of stairs. At the top was Pennyrile shopping mall and a gas’s station.
We went in the mall and looked for a payphone. We couldn’t find one. Randy and Hamburger needed the restroom. I was thirsty. Near the restroom was an Orange Julius drink concession. We’d left our wallets locked in my car. I did have a dollar. Paying for the drink, would leave me a dime. That’s all I need when we found a payphone, so I ordered the drink and asked about a phone. When Randy and
Hamberger joined me, I shared my drink and told them the serving girl said we’d need to go out to the gas station and use theirs.
Inside the gas station there was a payphone. I held the receiver and held my dime up to the slot. A recorded voice on the phone said, “Please insert 25 cents.
“What?” I questioned and then read a sign above the phone. ‘Local Calls 25¢. “Somebody give me a quarter.” I said and held out my hand.
“I don’t have any money,” Randy said. “Me neither,” Hamburger added. “I didn’t bring any money in the canoe. Wait, how’d you pay for the drink?”
“I was thirsty,” I said. “I thought the call would be a dime.”
“Way to go,” Blumer randy said and went over to the gas station attendant. “Can we borrow a quarter so he can call somebody to rescue us?”
“Sure, the attendant said. “But I’ll need something as collateral. What have you got?
“For a quarter.” I said. “Okay, here.” I gave him my wristwatch.
I took the quarter and called my wife at home in our trailer house. She talked a neighbor into driving to the Pennyrile Mall. We began our adventure in Kentucky. The mall was in Tennessee.
