The Tale of the White Faced Hornet

OK. I admit it (and, if you guys out there are honest you'll admit it, too): One of country living's greatest pleasures is the ability to piss outside. I don't have to drop 'em. No need to squat. Just unzip, shake loose, let go. Pure, unadulterated anarchy. It helps that there are trees that whisper, and, I am lucky, to have a brook that whispers back. Sound like heaven? It is, a little piece of it, anyway. Surrounded by two hundred and fifty thousand acres more. Of course, that's all relative. When we lived in Montana we had two and a half million acres as our backyard. 

And speaking of Montana as well as peeing outside...

The Tale Of The White Faced hornet

Lenny Bruce said that if you live in Montana you can't be Jewish. Not true. I lived in Montana as did a smattering of other apostates throughout the territory. However, when a friend of mine was killed, we scoured the state looking for a rabbi and couldn't find one. We did locate a 90 year old orthodox man in Helena who consented to officiate at the funeral. He was a dapper fellow, very sharp and affable, lively, and he knew his stuff. "Yis gadal..." You know the one. So did he, and whatever other prayers were appropriate. As far as I can remember, the only Jews there were the dead man, the rebbe, and myself. Get this. When the old man learned I worked as a screenwriter in Hollywood, he got extremely animated and asked if I could get him an agent. He himself had a screenplay. And what a screenplay! Oy. Such a wonderful screenplay! A hit! A blockbuster. A ganze megillah. Could I find him an agent? He told me he'd send me his screenplay the minute he got home. Like a shmuck I said I'd be looking forward to it (after all, he did travel a long way to do me a favor), although his chances of getting an agent were slim and none. I never did get the screenplay, so that was a problem solved all by itself.

The deceased had been a dear friend - the dearest of same. Jamie and I had just gotten married, and his present was to be a float trip down the north fork of the Clark Fork river. His truck (We warned him his front end needed work) rolled and killed him the day before we were supposed to take off. He had a habit of not paying his bills, so one wondered? Nah. What'm I thinking?

What's this got to do with peeing outside? Nothing. But, it came to me, so I wrote it. 

Peeing outside in Montana was an exquisite experience especially in the morning when the fog lifted off the mountains and the nocturnal animals were scurrying back to their daytime lairs. You might see bear, a porcupine, coyote, cougar, mule deer, a herd of elk...We actually had a herd living on the property, although, big as they are, we rarely saw them. One day we saddled up for a trail ride up Ward Mountain. A good piece up the mountain I saw a cow way up ahead and said to Jamie we'd best tell our neighbor her cow had got out. However, the closer we got we saw it was a female elk and that we had ridden directly into the center of a herd of wild elk. The fact that we were on four legged, dark skinned animals allowed this, however, once they got wind of humans on horseback, they melted back into the forest as if they'd never been there at all. Eight hundred pound animals. The magician waved his wand, and they disappeared.

So, morning in Montana. Time to go. The sun is rising. The earth is warming. Apples from the front yard tree are falling. Like a dummy I choose this very tree under which to tap my bladder. Why a dummy? Apples were rotting on the ground thus attracting insects among which were white faced hornets, like little death heads. I didn't see them, but they saw me, at least, one did, and zeroed in on a drone attack. Now, let me tell you I've been stung before, even by a jellyfish, but nothing so excruciating as a rat trap snapping shut on the head of one's shvanz. Jamie heard me scream and rushed outside to see me grabbing my crotch and hopping around the yard in pain. "A hornet stung me on the head of my dick," I hollered. Her response? "A shame about the pain but the swelling is wonderful." 

A sense of humor is necessary for a long marriage. Forty three years this year. We're still laughing. Maybe not as much as we used to, but a daily chortle never hurts.