As long as I knew Rex, he was always looking for some new idea to make money. Having failed at the egg farm, he went off to the library in search of inspiration. It was on an obscure shelf at the downtown library that he found a book of grasshopper recipes. Rex decided then and there that his fortune was to be found raising grasshoppers. I saw him the next day at school.

                “Rex, do you know anybody that actually EATS grasshoppers?” I was laughing so hard I could barely get the words out.

                Rex was incredulous. “Well, stupid, why do you think they would have a book of grasshopper recipes at the library if nobody eats them?” I knew there was no use arguing with him. Besides, if he gave this idea up, he would just go find another, even weirder idea.

                The Texas Panhandle has never had a shortage of grasshoppers. Rex figured all he would need to do is catch them and figure out a way to keep them captive until he had time to fatten them up to sell. Rex decided the best place to keep control over his inventory would be in the garage. He originally wanted to move his operation into his room but after the egg farm fiasco he thought he had better keep his work away from his Mom.

                Well, Rex got himself a couple of cardboard boxes and installed them in an obscure corner of the garage behind the freezer. Then he filled them part way with and twigs and I don’t know what all. Anything he figured a grasshopper would eat.

                The next morning was Saturday. He left the house early with a couple of glass jars and spent all morning and a good chunk of the afternoon collecting grasshoppers of all sizes and shapes. Once he was done with that, he put them in the two boxes behind the freezer. The day was, in his mind, a highly successful one. As the fellas sat around the far corner of the field that evening, he told us about his plan and further added that he would be needing people to work for him as his operation grew. We all agreed that we would be glad to help him out as long as it paid enough.

                While Rex was out planning his (and our) future in the grasshopper industry, a career ending disaster awaited him at home. It seems his sister (it was always a girl that ruined everything for us) was sent out to the garage to get something out of the freezer. She spotted the two boxes behind the freezer and decided to investigate. It did not take long for the grasshoppers to make a leap for freedom in the closed garage. Rex’s sister ran out in a crying panic straight to Mom and Dad.

                We did not see Rex for three weeks after that episode. When he did turn up, he said it took him most of the three weeks to get all of the grasshoppers out of the garage and attic. Rex being Rex, though, he was unfettered from finding another “project.”

                Well, it has been one of those days. I had just written one of my most brilliant pieces for this paper. I wasn’t feeling all that great so I sprawled all over the couch for an hour or so. When I came back to edit what was to be a minor literary classic, it was gone. It will remain a mystery as to the manner of its loss and now I am left to recreate something in a short time. I have now stared at my computer screen for what seems an eternity in increasing desperation to create something useful.

                I remember I had written about my second grade teacher at Western Plateau Elementary School in Amarillo, Texas. In great eloquence, I told the story that Mrs. Weding (not her real name) was very aggressive in rooting out what she called “the bad mouth” from all of the junior rednecks she had charge over. I explained that she defined the bad mouth as any and all swear words and any name calling against other people. Were she to catch one of us in the act, it resulted in a violent shaking for the boys or a hard swat on the back of the knees for the girls. I retold the story of my own punishment at Mrs. Weding’s hands as a result of me calling Rex a _______. She drug me out into the hall by the ear and shook me until my brain came loose (explains a lot, doesn’t it?).   I told the story, in the most violent terms, of her having my ear in one hand and my forearm in another and shaking me until I couldn’t see straight.  When she was done with my torture, I penned, she told me she would be calling my father and she was sure he would have some additional input for me. In terms of lofty anguish, I recollected my meeting with my father later that night.  In the now lost masterpiece, I wrote to you, my hopefully sympathetic audience, that my father and my mother had a lot of painful (for me) input that evening.

                Yes, the piece that was lost to eternity also spoke about the need for more Mrs. Wedings in the world today. I had written that Mrs. Weding would be busy night and day trying her best to rid the world of the bad mouth. I concluded by letting you, my dear reader, know of my affection for Mrs. Weding after all these years and wishing she were among us now.

                The piece is lost for all time I’m afraid. Maybe someday I can re-create it.

Scott Emmett is a retired American soldier who makes his home in Greenwood with his wife, Karen, and one ornery old cat named Toby. Email him at scott@scottemmett.com

                One time, Rex got the idea that he was going to be an egg farmer. Being as how Rex was only ten years old at the time, he did not have a lot of resources and no money. That did not deter ole Rex, no sirree.

                Rex knew enough to know that he had to have some chickens if he wanted to have any eggs to sell. Back in those days on the Texas Panhandle, a body just couldn’t wander over to the nearest farm store and buy a bunch of chicks. First of all, none of us had cars and, even if we did, we’d never find a farm store. Rex decided that he was just going to hatch his own chickens.

                First, he got a couple of quart milk cartons and cut them in half. He filled them with grass from the lawn he had just mowed and set them by the window in his room. Rex figured he would start with four chickens and go from there. With that in mind, he went to his Mom’s kitchen and swiped four eggs. Up to his room he went and nestled his soon to be chicks into their warm nest boxes by the window.  He was so proud of himself. He went to bed that night with dreams of a huge egg operation and all the money he would make.

                Well, Texas in the summer is real hot and his house did not have air conditioning. By the time he got home from school the next day, things did not smell so good in his room. He figured it was just part of the process of hatching chicks and left to go find the fellows.

                By the time he got home for supper, the smell from the eggs had gotten stronger and made its way downstairs. His Mama had thrown the now rotten eggs out and had every window in the house open trying to get rid of the stench.

                We did not see Rex for a week. When he did surface, he was not very willing to talk about the egg project or where he had been the previous seven days. He didn’t like sitting down much either come to think of it. He did have a new project though and this one was (according to him) a surefire hit.

                That is a story for next week.

                You know what a food baby is, don’t you? It is the result of a month and a half of vast amounts of food and drink consumed by just about everybody. Now, there are differences between a food baby and those regular babies and that’s what I will write about.

                For starters, food babies can be produced by a man or woman. In fact, some of the really large food babies are made with great pride by the men folk. They develop very quickly in the male of the species. The only action required to gain a food baby is eat. Men are good at that.

                The gestation period for a food baby can be anywhere from a couple of months to infinity. Some folks get so fond of their food babies that they carry them their entire lives. Those that do choose a lifelong relationship with their food babies tend to enlarge them at a frightening pace. There are folks out there that like to get rid of their food babies very January or so only to produce another one the following year.

                Unlike regular babies, food babies don’t require anything other than food. They are not picky about their diet either. They’ll take pretty much anything a body might want to shove done there. Regular babies are, at times, real picky as to what they will eat. They also have to be burped and cleaned up at regular intervals. Food babies only require the occasional burp and frequent ingestions of food.  Like real babies, food babies enjoy frequent naps. In fact, food babies do their best growing when napping.

                Food babies do not grow up to go to college or anything like that. The ones that do grow up tend to do things like mess with the owner’s cholesterol and blood pressure and require ever larger clothes to keep it warm and comfy. Gee, that sounds just like a regular baby. Girl babies are particularly adept at increasing blood pressure.

                You know, there really are not too many differences between regular babies and food babies. Neither of them tends to go away, they mess with one’s health, and cost a lot of money.

                I will not do that here. Instead, I seek, in this short treatise, to equip those of you who chose to participate in activities such as “Black Friday” or any other shopping day that lies between Thanksgiving Day and Christmas Day.   Herewith are the tools and strategies you, dear reader, will need to successfully survive those days.

• A GAS MASK. These can be obtained from any Army surplus store or an industrial supply company. This is an absolute necessity in those cases when your target item is a video game or perhaps the latest version of a game console. Do ensure that the filters are current and work against pepper spray and/or tear gas, these being the weapon of choice among “competitive shoppers.”
• STEEL TOED BOOTS will protect your feet in the initial onslaught into a big box store. They should be 15” boots at the minimum for the added protection of one’s shins. Competitive shoppers use these in an offensive mode. Personally, I do not recommend using these as a weapon of attack unless, of course, the target item is the last one on the shelf.
• A DOWN FILLED COAT is the perfect thing to add padding to your upper torso when jostling in a crowd. It does limit your ability to throw a timely punch but, then again, the padding will limit, if not eliminate, any bruising you may incur from one or more competitive shopper. It also helps you conceal the next tool.
• FLAK JACKETS should only be worn when going to a really large, ultra gigantic big box store located near certain rough parts of town and all prisons. The competitive shoppers in these areas are tough; battle hardened, and they play for keeps. They have been known, on a few very isolated occasions, to carry multiple weapons to include pepper spray, lead pipes, and expired make-up.
• A BODY GUARD is a great additional tool to escort you from and to your car. There are competitive shoppers out there who, having failed to gain their targets, will stalk and rob successful shoppers in the parking lot. Walking to your car with a large, angry man will, in most cases, guarantee a safe escape.

I hope you find this advice of great use while you seek to make this Christmas the best your family has ever had. I remain, respectfully yours.

S. Emmett

                I had a 7:30 AM meeting on the other side of town (albeit, I do live in a smallish town). I leave the house at 7:10 with the intention of stopping off at the donut shop and getting a cup of coffee to go. Plenty of time, I thought to myself. When I got to the coffee shop, there were two people in front of me and one of them wanted just a cup of coffee. Piece of cake, I thought to myself. In and out with plenty of time. That’s when the older gentleman in front of me placed his order:

                “Ummm…Let’s see. I would like a dozen donuts and a cup of coffee. Can I have a mixed dozen?” The server indicated that he could.

                “Great. Let me see. Hmmm (he ponders here for at least a full minute). I would like one buttermilk cake, one glazed, one plain cake and, hmmm, let me see.”(another full minute spent pondering the vast donut selection.). “Oh gosh. I don’t know. How about a chocolate glazed and a chocolate cake donut. Make that two chocolate cake donuts but leave the chocolate icing off one. How many is that?  Six? Maybe I should call my wife and see what she wants.” (He does – and spent at least forty-five minutes on the phone (or so it seemed) while he recited the entire donut menu to her).

                 “OK, she wants one original, one apple crumb, one Boston crème, one pumpkin donut, a French cruller, a cinnamon cake, and one vanilla cream filled.” The server politely informs him that he now has thirteen donuts. “Oh, I only want twelve. So I have to take one out, don’t I?” (He agonizes for another  two minutes). “Ok, take out the second chocolate cake donut. The one without the frosting.”

                The server, who has visibly aged by now, boxes everything up and hands it to the gentleman along with the bill (I think it was nine dollars and change).  In keeping with his character, he counts out the money in one dollar bills and pocket change to the server who is now considering retirement. I was glad that he stayed long enough to give me my coffee.

                I wound up fifteen minutes late to my own meeting. I am glad that he got a French cruller though.

            Hmmm. Somebody got shot over on the east end of town. The culprit is still loose too. Say! That’s not very far from me. Think I’d better make sure the doors are locked and my “little friend” is ready….  Glad I got that done. Think I’ll grab a drink on the way back to watch the news.

            Now what? The weather forecaster on the television is telling me there is a storm heading my way and it will be here in sixteen minutes. How do they know the exact time? O well. Better go make sure all the windows are shut and get the cars in the garage. Is the mail in yet? Now that the house is ready for a storm, I can get back to the news.

            Whaddya mean there’s been a yogurt recall? I’ve got three half eaten yogurt containers in the refrigerator! Sheesh, now I have to go check those. Won’t do us much good if they’re bad ones! We’ve already eaten from all three. The wife is looking a might poorly though. Better go check. They’re not part of the recall. Good. Back to the couch. My drink has gotten warm. Need more ice.

            A peanut butter shortage!! Really!! You know, you’d think in a country as great as ours, we’d have figured out how to keep the peanut butter coming. I’ll have to make a note to have the wife stock up on my favorite food. Now, where is my to-do list? Wait! I need the wife’s to-do list. It’s in the office.

            Good grief! Will this never end?! Now the newsman says there is a food poisoning outbreak right here in our neck of the woods and it is all caused by somebody selling bad soy sauce! Now I have to go check and make sure our soy sauce (do we even HAVE any?) is not tainted. Well, can’t seem to see any in the frig so I’m not going to worry about it. Back to the couch.

Less than five minutes later the wife comes downstairs and asks if I heard about the soy sauce recall. I had, I said, and I had already checked and we don’t have any soy sauce. With that, she goes right to the frig and pulls out a full bottle from the door shelf. Luckily, it is not tainted.

            Finally! Back to the couch. Maybe I can catch the last five minutes of the news. Now they remind me that I had better check and make sure the windows on my car are closed as the storm is only four minutes away. I rush to do that only to find that I had already put them in the garage. Back to the couch and what’s left of the news and my, yet again, warm drink. The news is over! Thank goodness. I’m exhausted.   

Memories like the time I got hold of some cheap wine. That story is a might too embarassing to tell except to say that I have not like wine much since then.

My sister reminded me of the A&W Root Beer stand that Dad would take us to on the occasional Sunday afternoon. He would get us small root beer floats while he got one the size of a wash bucket. I remember thinking there was no justice in the world.

My wife, sister, and I drove by the old neighborhood. The fields of my youth are long gone, replaced by houses. The neighborhood known then as Chateau Village, now some fifty years old, has seen better days. The old house on Hall is run down now and in sad shape. The grass that my mother worked so hard on is dead after the drought that Texas has suffered for so long took its toll. The rest of the houses are in various states of age.

The schools we went to are still there. Remodeling has kept them up but they are essentially what they were in the 1960′s. I reckon you really can’t go back home.

What the trip has done is bring back a lot of memories that might eventually be stories. Like the time I took the Vice Principal’s bbq set home from school and it caught fire while in the truck of my car.

Then there was the time I got caught late one evening on Soncy Road visiting with a girl in my car. The police just did not understand that we were just talking about “different things.” That’s my story and I’m sticking to it.

Oh! I attempted to drag race (if you want to call it that) in my 58 Chevrolet Biscayne (a.k.a. land yacht) against a 66 Mustang. That went real well.

(I did not do this – I swear) Some bozo poured a bunch of gasoline in the high school parking lot and threw a match to it. Really. Right after school too. Really, I DID NOT do it!!

I’ve lost count the number of times I got caught smoking in the bathroom or on the corner. Some of the circumstances behind those time are funny now. They weren’t back then.

More to come.

                We generally did not have store bought costumes back then. My usual attire involved one of my Dad’s shirts. I would stick a pillow under it and go as The Hunchback of Notre Dame or, as was most often the case, I would wedge a kitchen knife in the back of the shirt and pour ketchup on it. I don’t know what I was supposed to be other than a guy with a knife in his back. I don’t recall scaring anybody.

                There was always a rumor that some mean neighbor was handing out poison candy or apples with razor blades inserted within. I remember one year one of the neighborhood girls ate some poisoned chocolate and wound up in the insane asylum.  Not a Halloween passed without some “news” of some kid getting poisoned or otherwise maimed by a malevolent resident.

                There was one year a new family  moved into our neighborhood. They had a little boy that went trick or treating and made the mistake of knocking on the door of the haunted house that was behind our street. He had been in town only a week so we had not had time to brief him on all of the resident dangers. You know, stuff like who were the meanest girls, the best times to swipe candy from the local store, and, of course, the locations of the two haunted houses in our area. We did not get a chance to either. He went to the haunted house to trick or treat and was never seen again. So far as I know some forty five years after that night, he is still missing.

                Back then, there were no appointed times that one could go trick or treating. Anytime after dinner and before bedtime was perfectly fine. The first year the city came out with established hours (I think it was 5:30-8:30 or something like that). We went crazy. Everybody knew that the best time to be out trick or treating was after 9:00. It was darkest then and we could hit the same house more than once and not be recognized. We were madder than a striped snake and ready to fight city hall. That is, until one of the neighborhood dads explained that there had been increasing sightings of werewolves in our area and the city did not want anybody to get eaten. We accepted that explanation without comment. The last thing any of us wanted was to be eaten by a werewolf.

                Dad took us to some small town somewhere for a chili festival. Chili festivals in Texas are a big deal. People come from all around and bring their recipes with them. Some of those recipes are downright lethal and a few have been known to drive the average man or woman to incurable madness. Anyway, it is a big contest and the winner of the best chili is a revered title in the Texas Panhandle.

                Well, we went to this festival on the town square in, I want to say Umbarger (pop.327 people and four rattlesnakes). I may be wrong though. This was, as far as I can recall, my first chili festival and I was bound and determined to taste every pot of chili I could get to. I remember Dad telling me to just try one at a time with the added warning that not all of the chili there was just plan beef. Some of it might be just pinto beans or maybe even a little snake here and there. He volunteered to pick out just the right chili for my young palate (I was 8 or 9 at the time- I think ) so that I would not do myself an injury.

                We walked up and down the line of chili pots looking for the right one for me. Dad tried a few and thought they were too hot for me. By and by, he found a sample that I could have. My brother also agreed and volunteered to get it for me as he wanted some as well. Big mistake.

                My brother brought two big steaming bowls of chili back and set one in front of me. I, of course, wanted to prove that I was, by golly, a real man and could hold my chili. I grabbed my spoon and got the biggest helping I could and thrust it into my mouth.           

                It took about two seconds until I realized that fire was exploding out of my mouth, ears, nose, and eyeballs. My lips were burned completely off and my tongue developed the consistency of lava. This is what it feels like to die, I thought to myself. Through the waves of tears in my eyes, I could see my brother laughing himself silly. I always knew he and my sister had an ongoing plot to hasten my demise and now I knew this was the method they had decided on. I swore to him that I would come back and get him but he just continued to laugh. Meanwhile, my Dad, was chewing my bother out for getting the wrong chili while trying to calm me down (my howling had become a public embarrassment). After what seemed an eternity, the fire ebbed and I calmed down. That lasted only a short time until the chili reached my stomach. THAT is the part of the story that is far too gruesome to tell.  Please don’t ask.