Funny Messy Life

   I got a chance to talk my cousin the other day - the one who was always right there beside me as we did stupidly stupid things. We don’t get the chance to talk much anymore, so it never fails that, upon hearing his voice, I’m struck with memories of our childhood. Those memories usually involve something we did that would have made our mothers cringe. I know most young boys, when they get together, are apt to find themselves in situations a grown person would call, Up To No Good, but the issue was heightened with me and my cousin because we’re both primarily creative people. And other times, we were just rotten and ought to have had our hides tanned with a hickory if we’d have been caught. Hickory is southern for: An implement of discipline, typically a small branch harvested from a tree grown in the fires of hell. Also reference, “I’Mone take a hick’ry to yeh!” or “Go on git me a switch!”    I recall a couple of interesting stories where fate took the preverbal hickory to us after a bout of rottenness and