More Baggage

It is about 10:30Pm and I just got off the treadmill completing my four mile run for the day. I slept in this morning and felt a little guilty as I sat lazily around this evening, so I thought that I would ease my conscience. While I was running another terrible memory from my childhood pulled at the depths of my bowels and I do not think that I can go to bed until I get this off of my chest.

As a boy growing up I was blessed with a wonderful family. My father and mother were more than perfect. Every memorial day we would travel to a town called Antimony, Utah to pay our respects to previously fallen members of the Riddle family. Antimony was where my Father grew up, and about 20 miles away from where my mother grew up. It was and is a place where we all love to get away from the buzz of life. We would fish, hunt and just enjoy each others company. In the early years we would pull a camp trailer over and park at a camp that we called "The willows". It earned it's name because of the large willow trees that created a protective canopy over the camp. We loved the willows. My brothers and I would shoot Magpies from the trees, and climb the trees. We even hung a rope from the top of one of the trees and made a swing. This is where this small piece of baggage was born. One late morning, after riding my Honda Mini trail around (I was ten years old)I decided to jump in the two foot by two foot by five foot shower that the old yellow Prowler trailer was equipped with. It wasn't a fancy shower but it did the job. I think it was customary for my brothers and I to come out of the shower saying "I feel like a new man" because we did. Well, I came out of the shower feeling like a new man. As I got dressed I put on a pair of Rustler jeans and yellow shirt with red lettering that said "Color Country Wrestling" I loved that shirt, and I knew that I looked good, and I felt like a new man. As I exited the trailer I noticed that nobody was around so I decided to take a ride on the willow swing. It wasn't much but it did its job to pass the time and I was too clean for a motorcycle ride. As I began to swing up and down, every time I passed perpendicular to the ground I felt something hit me, it was water, I think it was water. It wasn't rain, there wasn't a cloud in the sky and this was yellow. I remember saying out loud "what the heck" and as I looked up I was horrified to see my older brother Dan urinating and laughing. Urinating all over me, all over my Color Country Wrestling shirt. I was in shock. I think that the shock kept me under the steady stream of yellow death for at least 20 more seconds. The grin on his face was unforgettable. I am sure that the look on my face was even more unforgettable. I think that he stayed up in the tree until my dad got back. I wasn't a tattle tail but this was worthy of it. I told my dad the best that I could and he just laughed. What devastation.

I don't think that my emotions will allow me to write anymore but I think that you get the point to my story.

I need to get this off of my chest:

Dan, I forgive you for being the dirty rotten tree piddler that you were. I forgive you for spraying my favorite shirt with a stinky-yellow-damning mist of urine. I forgive you for sneakily waiting patiently to find the right moment to pee on your little brother. Please forgive me for the last twenty years of me planning my revenge. I love ya bro.


"I the Lord will forgive whom I will forgive but of you it is required to forgive every one"