Christmas in the South

By Cactus Jack

Have you ever seen dogs fight over a bone? 

Well just the other day Ol Cactus feeling a bit old figured an all natural tan would help rejuvenate my look. Well here ya go; I’m lying out in the backyard getting some sun on my private parts when out of no ware, my neighbor fires up the old John Deer to cut his lawn and to make things worse my dogs get in a fight over a bone.  So here I am naked as a child chasing my coon dogs around the yard, trying to break them up, and all the while my neighbor being able to see over my fence from atop his tractor is laughing his Asso-ff.

Figuring he was just jealous of my manly appearance, I ignored him and after breaking up the dogs, I returned to my lounge chair, to enjoy cold Budweiser, and finish reading this month’s issue of Florida Outdoors Magazine.  Just as I’m starting to relax ya would know it, my girlfriend opens the backdoor and haulers at me it’s time to cook dinner, and slings a slab of baby back ribs on the table.

Well folk I’m as progressive as the next guy, but when it comes to cooking on the grill, Ol Cactus has to put his pants on. After all who wants a burn down there, if ya know what I mean.    But my girlfriend does not see it that way, so trying to be “the man” I go about preparing the charcoal grill, and the ribs.

I dust the ribs with my old family secret dry rub, roll them up in tin foil and while wait for the charcoal to get ready, I once again return to my lounge chair, pop open another cold one, and go back to read Bassin Bubba’ column.  Hardly through the first sentence when a swarm of mosquito’s so thick it looks like a black cloud dive bombed me. Now folks I’m not talking about those little frilly mosquitos’s y’ll have over in the big city, I’m talking about Mosquito’s spelled with a capital “M”.   Those suckers drained me so much so fast, I felt light headed, and while trying to swat them, I fell out of my chair.  Lying there on the ground I see a mosquito walk by and the sucker was so big he has a tick on his back.  I started laughing thinking it served him right, when it dawned on me just how much my private areas where being ate on.   Grabbing my towel, I run for the house, only to have my girlfriend remind me I still need to cook those ribs.

Well folk, that’ the way it is here in the south; we don’t have much of a winter, and I for one am pretty glad of it, and if I could change anything I don’t think I would.  Well on second thought, I think I’ll ask Santa for one of those power bug foggers, and declare chemical warfare on those mosquito’s’ before I try getting a tan again.    

Until next month have a Merry Christmas