Lost Cause

There was this guy I grew up with - I'll call him Cloyce just to give him a name - who was in his youth a Boy Scout. He actually made Eagle Scout. Well, bald eagle scout. Premature hair loss.

One day he got separated from his troop while on a nature hike, and it took several hours for his companions to find him. "Why didn't you use your compass to find the camp?" his exasperated scoutmaster demanded upon discovery.

"I tried!" Cloyce answered. "But all I could tell was that I was as far from the east as I was from the west!"

Hey, I just said he was a scout. I didn't say he was a good one.

Lost Youth

One of the stories which me Pops liked to tell on himself involved me Grandpa Joe's, his dad's, flatbed trucks which were used for delivery in his welder rental business. These flatbeds were typically about four foot high. When he was a teenager and even into his twenties Dad used to take a run at the back of the trucks and leap onto the bed, ending up in a crouch and rising to full height upon sticking the landing. He did it for kicks, as young'uns do.

One day when he was around 30 the old man found himself eying the back of a truck. Wondering whether he could still make that leap, Pops began a trot towards the open end of the vehicle and jumped as hard and as high as he could. Yet rather than landing as he once could he cracked his shins across the steel beams which surrounded the truck bed and fell into a painful heap upon it.

"I never did that again," he would end the tale ruefully.