The Good Old Days

Up in Washington, last weekend, somehow I’m back on my rant against helmets and having another bit of nostalgia for the days of Lawn Darts and Slip and Slide (or, as I tell Mom, population control) and we start talking about the stories Papa tells about his childhood. Stuff like clearing fields on the farm with a little T’N’T or that time he took a chainless bike up to the barn as a kid and ended up propelled ‘bout half a mile down the hill off into the lagoon knocked unconscious and woulda died if they hadn’t found him before the tide came in.
You know, the good old days!
Then Mom tells me about some stories that came out last summer at her Cousin John’s wedding. Somehow, all the grandkids started exchanging stories of what a, well, bastard Papa’s dad was. How when the boys would visit him at the farm he’d send them out alone with a gun at night into the woods so they’d learn how to be men.
“Oh yeah,” Papa says. And he tells them about the time he and his dad came across a bear in the woods. His dad threw a hatchet and hit the bear between the eyes. Bear went crazy and ran off. Then his Dad gave Papa a gun and left him there in the woods, said not to come back ‘till he’d found the bear and finished the job.
You know, the good old days.