Bees!!!!

One summer that we spent in Memphis, we spent time also at my maternal grandmother's house with the cousins on that side of the family.  One of the things the six of us that were old enough at the time would do for entertainment while there was to walk down the street and around the corner to a small church that was located set back from the road and at the top of a hill there.  We would take cardboard boxes, unfold them, and slide down the hill on the cardboard, which kept us busy and out of our mothers' hair for awhile.

At the bottom of the hill was a small patch of trees that we called the forest, as that's what it looked like to us as kids at the time.  There was a lot of undergrowth around the bottom of the trees, and the trees were thick and green.  When we tired of sliding, we'd explore in the trees a bit.

There we found a huge wasps' next hanging from one of the trees, with the wasps buzzing around it, and didn't dare get too close, knowing enough to not want to rile them up, but it was fascinating to watch them go in and out of the basketball-sized nest.

My cousin Randy, who was just a few months younger than me, was more fascinated than the rest of us, and couldn't stop talking about that nest.  Being a bit of a trouble-maker, Randy came up with the idea that he wanted to throw a rock at the nest just to see what would happen.  The rest of us, tried to talk him out of it, but once Randy got an idea into his head, he was going to follow through with it, and to heck with the consequences.  Yet, of course, we all watched to see if he would really do it, and if he could actually hit it from a distance.

It took about three or four tries, and we were all laughing at Randy and teasing him, saying he'd never hit it, and were just about to go back to grass sledding, when suddenly, we hear this very loud "thunk!" as the rock he threw hit the next, knocking a hole in it, and turned to see the sudden swarm of extremely angry wasps coming out of the nest and towards us!

We all scrambled, screaming, "BEEEEEEESS!!!!" and running as fast as we could back to our grandmother's house.  All of us but one, that is.  Our cousin Alan.  For some reason, Alan just froze when he saw the wasps swirling out of the nest, and they seemed to head right for him, landing and beginning to sting as we were yelling at him to run.  He finally did, screaming and flailing his arms to try to get them off him, and the rest of us ran ahead and down to our grandmother's house, running in and talking all at once to our mothers and grandmother, trying to tell them what was happening and not making any sense at all, until Alan came crying to the door.

The wasps had gone, but the poor kid was covered in stings.  My aunts and my mother set him on a high stool, all three working on putting baking soda paste on the stings, as we all stood around watching, and Alan sniffled every so often.  We all felt sorry for him.  Thank goodness he wasn't allergic!

Meanwhile, our mothers kept asking what had happened, and we kept looking at each other but not saying anything, until we were threatened with a day of sitting on the couch without being allowed to talk or move until somebody confessed.  A fate worse than death, I tell you!

After this threat, and knowing full well that they'd follow through on it, all at the same time, the rest of us pointed at Randy and told on him, completely ratting him out for throwing the rock.  Needless to say, Randy was punished to the extreme.

Randy passed away a few years ago, and I hadn't seen him for many years before.  Hard to believe I'll never see him again.  But you can bet I'll never forget him.

Or the day of the bees.