Paper Route

When I was in the eighth grade,I delivered papers for the Charleston Evening Post.  I would get up every morning around 5 am and ride my bike to the post office. There I would go inside and sit on the floor and proceed to roll roughly 100 papers. A rubber band was then placed around each paper, On rainy days you would also have to place the papers in a plastic bag. I enjoyed my paperboy role for about two months. I was bitten by dogs more than once. I was much better casting my flyrod than I was casting a paper. More than once did my customers newspapers wind up on their roof. Soon I began to beg my Mama to drive me in the car to my customers. That did not last long however. Then one Saturday morning the doctors fishing pond seemed to give me a beckon call. It was then I decided to do the unthinkable. There was a large concrete pipe that ran under the road near the beginning  of  my paper route. That is where all 100 papers were delivered that morning before I proceeded to go fishing. I did not catch anything that day until I got home; The meanest customer on my paper route was waiting in my yard for me. He was an addicted sports guru. Also waiting was my Mamma and the paper circulation manager. If that was not bad enough our home phone was ringing off the hook. We also had a milk home delivery man in our small town. Turns out someone who lived across from the paper dump site saw me and told the milk man what I had done. Then the milk man saw the sports guru who was up waiting for his paper. Then the sports guru called the paper who in turn called my Mama. I was fired on the spot and deserved to be. Our little town never needed a radio station as the news traveled fast enough.

Momma's Christmas Present

It is hard  to imagine but my best and worst Christmas days were rolled into one. My oldest sister had asked for a Barbie doll and my youngest wanted a Chatty Kathy. My brother wanted a record player and I  had a 410 shotgun on my wish list. Mama and Daddy would just surprise each other. Everyone had their spot picked out for santa to leave their gifts. Daddy brought in this huge gift wrapped box for mama  earlier in the week. We could tell he had wrapped it himself but he had tried and we were so proud of him. On Christmas morn my brother and sisters sneaked to the living room to see if our requests had been granted. Sure enough we all got what we wanted. Soon Mama and Daddy joined us to exchange their gifts. Mama gave Daddy a real nice new suit. Daddy taught sunday school and one of his obnoxious students poured glue in his chair. He sat in it and ruined his old one. He really needed it. Then we waited with baited breath while Mama opened  her big present from Daddy. Our mouths dropped as she ripped the paper from her box. Mama began to cry and we could not believe that Daddy had given her a 55 gallon trash can. Way to go Dad. I loved my new shotgun but remember wondering if my first target should have been a squirrel.

My Biggest Fishing Catch

A doctor in the small town where I grew up had a killer fishing pond. Me and my buddies would get permission and after school we would have a field day using rubber worms with a weedless hook.I would always use a Zebco push button reel as I would backlash or bird nest open face reels. Sometimes I would take along my flyrod and reel. I would wax the line and see how far I could throw a popping bug. One Saturday morning me and a buddy of mine arrived at the pond at daybreak. We decided to fish off the bank and not use the boat. My buddy started fishing on one side and me on the other. I was using the fly rod and was casting with all my might to get it as far off the bank as I could. I did not see my buddy, who had moved to my side of the pond, coming up behind me. It was when I made my forward cast that I heard him holler. When I turned around I thought at first I had hooked him in the eye. I dropped my rod in horror and ran over to him. Blood was pouring from the  the popping bug which was embedded in his eyelid. I cut the flyline and we rushed to the door of the doctor who lived behind the pond. It was still very early in the morning as we feverishly beat on the door. We finally woke everyone in the house. I  remember everyone watching as he cut the barb on the hook and backed it out of the eyelid. My buddy learned a valuable lesson. Never walk behind someone casting a flyrod. I think that was our last fishing trip together.

The County Fair

One of the highlights each year was going to to the county fair. Daddy would take off early on a Thursday and was home whenever we arrived from school that day. My brother, my two sisters, along with Mama and Daddy piled in the car and headed the eighteen miles to the county fair. This year was especially important to Mama as my brother had entered one of his paintings in the scholastic art contest. I did not think it was that great, just a wooden bowl with some fruit in it. Mama thought he was another Monet. When we arrived at the fair everyone was so excited with the sights of all the rides and the aroma of fair foods permeating the air. The deal was that we had to all go as a family to the art exhibit hall to see how my brothers painting did in the show and if he won a ribbon.

Daddy as usual walked a mile ahead of all of us. When we arrived at the exhibit hall we found Daddy standing in front of my brothers painting and pointing at a blue ribbon. We were all so jubilant. It was then that a security guard came up and tapped my Dad on the shoulder. He told my Dad he saw him pull that blue ribbon off someone else's painting and that he could be charged with stealing. That was all we saw of the fair that year. We all headed back to the car with my Mom crying and yelling and screaming at my Dad. She said he was a jackass and other nouns we had never heard of. I remember looking out the rear car window as we exited the fair parking lot. It was udder  devastation and the longest eighteen mile ride in my life. Way to go Dad.

Tragedy At The Underground Fort

Across from my house was a vacant lot we loved to play on. One weekend me and four of my buddies started digging a deep hole which we would later cover with a sheet of plywood. We left an opening so we could crawl down into the hole thus having our underground fort. One week it rained for several days in a row. When it finally stopped raining we returned to our fort. Much to our dismay we arrived to find that our fort was full of water. One of my buddies picked up an empty paint can and filled it full of muddy water from the fort hole. Then he poured it over my head thus soaking me. This kids mom was my fifth grade teacher. I picked up the rusty detached paint lid and threw it at my teachers son like a frisbee. It split the side of his head wide open and was bleeding profusely. He staggered to the nearest friends house and was rushed to the hospital. It took something like sixty four stitches to close the wound and the Doctor said if I had hit over another quarter of an inch that it would have killed him. Again I wanted to quit school especially since his mom taught me. I was forced back to school and his mom forgave me. I vividly remember several days later her son returning to school and getting out of the car. His  whole head was bandaged like a mummy except for mouth and eye holes. Naturally everyone wanted to know what  happened to him. I heard my name a lot that day and was very remorseful and sorry for what I had done. Glad he finally healed and fully recovered but bet he still has scars. If there could be a good side I do not ever remember the skinny kid being bullied again. Some actually moved to the other side of the hall.

The Dance

 I  will never forget the fourth grade maypole dance. It was held in the same packed gym that my Mom pulled my pants down for the Santa pageant. We had been practicing for weeks. My partner is still a dear friend and we worked hard to get the steps right for the maypole waltz. Our class started out the evenings performance with the maypole dance. About ten steps into the waltz, I stepped on my partners skirt thus causing her hoop to come loose. Our moves turned from grace to some sort of dyslectic shagging twist. We made it through the waltz thanks to my partners heroic efforts to keep the hoop from hitting the ground. We both however wished we could disappear .

Waited Too Late

  I had about thirty  students in my third grade class. We sat in this old metal desk in rows of six with five students in a row.There were no bathrooms in the classrooms as they were located down these long hallways. I took a pill every day to help control my wheezing from asthma. Whenever you had to relieve yourself, all you had to do was raise your hand. Still suffering from trauma from the Santa debacle, I hated standing out and would not raise my hand. The next thing i knew it was running down at the side of the desk and puddling in  the aisle. I just sat there until a bully across the aisle noticed and pointed and got the whole class laughing at me. It was then that i bolted out of the class and out of the school. Then I proceeded to run all the way home which was only a block away. I wanted to drop out of school.

The First Grade- Santa Claus

 
When I was in the first grade, I suffered from severe attacks of asthma.  I probably weighed 60 pounds soaking wet. I had to get a shot every week and was in and out of the hospital under oxygen tents. I was bullied a lot by a few jerk classmates about being so skinny. But by some cruel fate I was picked as the Santa Claus for the Christmas play in front of the whole grammar school. My mother came up on the stage before the play started and unzipped my pants and let them fall to the floor. She then proceeded to transform me from an anemic Santa by stuffing the pants with a pillow. She could have pulled me behind the curtains as the bleachers were already full of cackling students. Mama is dead now and I am fat. I never forgave her.

Birth Of Mayhem Sanders

I have been married to my high school sweetheart for the past thirty eight years. Last year we were attending a coworker of my wife's wedding at the Lace House at the Governors Mansion.  I was actually chauffeuring the newlyweds from the reception to the Hilton in my 1953 Bentley R type. While I was meandering through the food tables, a coworker of my wife whom I had never met, came up to me and asked, "Are you Mayhem Sanders?" I never knew that my wife of 38 years was relaying to others a lot of the Mr. bean fiascoes and antics which have happened to me since grade one. These mayhem episodes have continued and festered through midlife. I decided, now that I am a baby doomer, to share different episodes through my blog site. Some of these are funny and some are stupid and some are sad but they are all real mayhem.