Huaco Kid

[Huaco Kid]

David gave me chickenpox when I was 29 years old.

Almost killed me.

[Huaco Kid]

Sitting in the living-room, watching tv,  I heard the dog fuss, in the backyard.

David had left his football in our backyard.  They wanted it.  But the dog fussed too much.

By the time I opened the shades,  to look out,  David had made all the other kids (which liked to beat him up) hunker down and hide in the back of the pickup truck.

He climbed over the fence,  petted Sensei,  got his ball,  and climbed back out.

Then all the kids jumped out of the truck,  and made the dog go gonzo.

[Huaco Kid]

Jagr was the fastest dog in the world.  Really.  Rocket fast.  We never let him out (we had a fenced backyard).

The one day,  it snowed 2' in Raleigh, overnight.

I let Jagr out.  Where's he gonna go?  He had never seen snow before.  2' deep.  Serves him right!

****** took off like a nuclear missile  Schwing!  Gone!

There was a party,  leftover from last night's snowstorm, up the road.  He bolted that way.

He was a very friendly dog.

At first,  I head people scream,  because a boxer was running right at them,  and the they just all yelled, "Yay!" when they realized he was just a wiggly goofball!

But he kept going,  over the hill,  like a bullet!

And then,  in some party on the road behind us,  I heard people go "Yay!"

And further down the road,  behind us, "Yay!"

And some more at the bottom.

Then he rounded,  at 100mph, and I heard "Yay!" "Yay!" "Yay!" "Yay!",  all up our street.

Sucker went around three times.  The party-people loved it.

Later,  walking him on a leash,  people would go, is that your JAGR!??

(I don't know how they knew his name)

But they loved him,  and just yelling his name wanted to make him go berserk-crazy.

[Huaco Kid]

One day,  the neighbors pounded on our door.  The kids left the gate open, Jagr got out and got hit by a car.

I ran out,  and he was laying there,  one one elbow,  bleeding from his eyes and nose,  teeth knocked out. 

The driver was profusely apologizing,  but it wasn't his fault that Jagr was a spazmoron.

I scooped him up.  Not really scooped.  He was a big thick dog.

The NC State veterinarian-department ran him for free.  MRI's, xrays, surgery,  and stuff.  They kept him for two weeks.  He was study-worthy for the students.  Whatever they did to him.

When we got him back,  his ass-end was three feet thick in bandages,  and he had a suitcase-handle duct-taped to his ass.  They said he would never walk again.

We had to keep him in a cage,  for the rest of his life,  and take him out a couple times each day,  holding his ass-handle,  with his dead back legs dragging around.

So we did.

For, like, two days.

After the second day,  he got out of the cage (he knows how to open car doors),  dragged himself through the kitchen and living room,  and got on the couch.

After three days,  he was, kind of, walking.

After four days,  he was taking his business to the backyard, by himself.

After a couple weeks,  you couldn't really tell. 

We took him back to the school,  which was part of the deal,  and they couldn't understand it.  It wasn't in the books.

He was always pretty crookedy after that,  and never ran like a rocket again,  but as far as dogs go,  he kept up just fine.

[Huaco Kid]

After that,  he could never just jump-up and run,  whenever someone knocked at the door.

He would jump up and stick all crookedy, sideways, in the middle, for a little bit.  Then he had to walk-it-off.  and then could run and catch a frisbee.

[Huaco Kid]

And then he could get deerlegs, from somewhere.

[Huaco Kid]

His game was,  throw the tennis ball. Once.

That wasn't the game.

The game was "get the tennis ball back".

He was wicked-good at this game.

[Huaco Kid]

If you ignored him too long,  in a big backyard party,  after doing all the "you can't get it!" things...

He would walk around,  and put the ball on someone's knee,  sitting in a lawnchair.  And just stand there.

If you thought you were fast enough to grab the ball off your knee,  before he got it,  you were wrong.

And we all gave up after a little,  but he never did.  He'd put it in your lap.  Loser!  Haha!

[Hook]

I read this whole thread and must say you are an interesting cat Huaco.

[Huaco Kid]

Once,  for I don't know, Tim was with me (he lost his finger in the kawasaki-chain thing,  from that other thread).  Delivering papers in a blizzard at -10°.  We had 25 papers in my Radio-Flyer stake wagon.  And the wind was blowing way wicked.  And one paper cut loose and blew all over.

I yelled at Tim to cover the wagon,  while I chased.  Mr. Miner is not gonna get a paper today.

Tim's a dolt,  so instantly,  25 papers whipped out,  all into each page,  and blew off through the woods.  When the blizzard abated,  Mr. (Kozak?)  (Kozniak?) (Kozinsky?), Mr.  K,  who was nine feet tall, skinny, 120 years old,  and Polish or German or something,  was standing there.  All he ever said was,  "Here. Tim."

Him and Mrs. K helped us (they never said another word,  they didn't speak english) gather most nine-billion individual paper-pages, all whipped up in the phone lines and stuff,  in the early dusk, in a blizzard,  and helped us reassemble them all into today's newspaper,  on their kitchen table.

I never even talked to them,  before or after.

[Huaco Kid]

I never charged them for a newspaper again.  Never even knocked on their door.

[Huaco Kid]

And then,  before The Newspaper Incident,  I don't know,  me and Tim had the wagon on our street.  The stake sides weren't on it.  And this part of the street was very long and steep.

So we decided to ride the wagon down.

Ever try to steer a FF,  with the handle back?  Good luck.

But I was pulling it off! (Tim behind me).  100mph.  A perfect trajectory,  right down the middle!

But right in the middle,  at the bottom, was a sunken manhole cover. 

Nailed it.

The wagon went from 100mph to zero.

We didn't.

If you take the stakes off a FF,  there are several steel metal brackets still on the outside rails.

Each of those brackets ripped the inside of our thighs out,  in the most gory fashion,  before we ate asphalt.

I don't think we ever rode the wagon again.

[Huaco Kid]

So now,  I'm going to take the Moosehead Fern outside,  for it's annual outside thing.

I bought if for $1, in a 3" pot.  Like, 15 years ago.

Now it's in a two-gallon clay pot,  that I got years ago,  to hold it.

It fits in the pot.  It doesn't seem to care.  But it weighs 35lbs now.  And it's 5' tall and 5' wide.  It's too big.  I'll break some leaves,  getting it out the door.

It's putting up (ten of them) those weird 13" plate-looking weird root-things. 

Because it's summer now.

The plant likes it.

[Huaco Kid]

I've got it in a big dish.  I can dump one gallon of water in the dish and the dirt / roots (I don't think there's any dirt in left there.  It's an air plant) sucks it dry in 1 minute.

(the basement is very dry these days)

[Huaco Kid]

It's a 5' plant in a 1' x 1' pot.

It's pretty frustrated.

[Huaco Kid]

But now he's out.

I'll see him next fall,  when the weather goes freezing.  They don't like that.

His name is Plant.

[Huaco Kid]

The other one,  that I put out last week,  Is Mom's Christmas Cactus.

It's, like, at least, 50 years old now. 

In a five gallon clay pot.  It doesn't look too robust.

The Outside will whip it into shape.

I keep both of them under the hemlocks,  where they always stay, mostly, moist,  and they get the full mottled afternoon sun.

[Huaco Kid]

I'm going to try to cut some root-lings from the cactus this year,  grows them,  and give them to my kids.

[Huaco Kid]

At one time,  the cactus,  in the same pot, was 2' high and 3' wide.

It kind of looks like a sickly bonsai now.  It's trunk is 2" wide,  but not much plant left.  I should repot it every 20 years.

It's name is Plant.

It'll do a frenzied flowering,  in the dry basement window,  in late winter.

[Huaco Kid]

15 minutes ago, Huaco Kid said:

I'm going to try to cut some root-lings from the cactus this year,  grows them,  and give them to my kids.

They're not roots.  Each plant-joint grows air-roots,  reaching for the ground.

Pieces of them will break off,  and land on the basement floor,  and will grow there all winter long.  No dirt.  No water.

So,  if you put them in dirt,  they can't hardly die.

[Huaco Kid]

So, if they grow,  they could be 100 year old plants.

And Huaco GrandKid will post about it.

[Huaco Kid]

And these weird,  ferny-plant-things that I dug up in Georgia (bama?).

They've been growing in mcdonalds cups,  since last year.  I put them outside weeks ago.  Whatever they do.

[Huaco Kid]

I came home with a bunch of Spanish Moss.  They like it in the pittsburgh-basement shower.  Where they get steamy,  and all day fluorescent lights,  every day.

They actually thrived and grew.

Then my wife hateds them,  because you can't have globs of moss all hanging down all over the bathroom.

So now they're gone.

Not sure where they went.

[Huaco Kid]

I once brought home a bunch of spanish moss,  and put them in the hemlocks,  where they could have a proper life.

I wasn't even to the door yet,  before all the squirrels ran down and scooped them all into their nests.

Squirrels all running around,  with way-too-big face-fulls of the stuff.

So they don't work here.

[Huaco Kid]

And then the hotel yelled at me in Bama,  for wrecking the blinds at the end of the hall at 4am.  Which I told them to watch the video,  and whatever they did.

So,  I was walking towards the exit,  and I noticed one of those (gecko?) white /brown, sticky-finger,  lizards stuck to the inside window.  It was a really big one.

I went back to the room and got a really big mcdonalds cup and caught it.  Pretty easy.  But the blinds got all jacked up.

If you ever had a lizard-in-a-cup,  you know,  it's way more crazy, and wild,  and muscular,  than you would expect.  You don't want a lizard-in-a-cup.

So I put him outside. 

The next morning:

"Are you OK?"

"I think so."

"What were you doing to the window last night?"