Harrison Winkle lives on the corner, in the house with the wrap around front porch — the type of porch where summer afternoons are meant to be enjoyed by men of leisure (think: retired, opinionated, and having nothing better to do with their time). It is on this porch where most of the great and well-seasoned minds of Harry’s neighborhood gather to share their wit, wisdom, and general observations (think: brilliance brought on by Budweiser).

“Did I ever tell you about my aunt with a dog that had two different sized ears?” asked Jimmy. He and Mort had joined Harry on the porch about two hours earlier, and had spent most of that time discussing which television station had the most accurate weather forecast (men of leisure have a lot of important things to discuss — and a complete inability to come to a consensus on most of those things).

“Your aunt had two different sized ears?” asked Mort, sounding less interested than usual — and usually he isn’t interested at all.

“She had two dogs,” continued Jimmy. “The other one had a bad eye.”

“Why did it have a bad eye?” asked Harry, with no more interest than Mort had shown.

“Probably too much lemonade,” mumbled Mort with a grin and a nod toward Harry’s freshly filled glass.

“I never asked,” said Jimmy, “But those two dogs saved my life, once.”

Usually, a comment like that would stir one’s curiosity enough to ask, “Tell me, how did her dogs save your life?” But, Harry and Mort knew Jimmy was going to tell the story, with or without prompting from either of them.

“When I was a kid, my uncle had an obnoxious boar running loose in the back woods.” Jimmy began. “None of us kids were allowed to go into that woods because he had a nasty disposition and could run faster than all of us.”

“An obnoxious boar with a disposition nastier than yours?” asked Harry.

“He may not have had a nasty disposition when he was a kid,” defended Mort, in his least helpful way.

“My disposition is no nastier now, than when I was a kid,” corrected Jimmy. “And I have never been an obnoxious boar.”

Harry and Mort just looked at each other and shrugged.

“One day, while visiting my aunt and uncle, I went out into the woods to play. I didn’t visit very often and had forgotten about the boar.”

“Bad thing to forget about,” laughed Mort.

“One thing lead to another, and I ended up in a tree, screaming for help. My uncle came to the back door, peered through the screen, and shouted to my aunt, ‘June, the funny looking kid’s gone and messed with the boar, again.’”

“Again?” asked Harry. He almost wanted to know how Jimmy could forget about such a thing – almost.

“My uncle opened the screen door and turned the two dogs loose. They came tearing out of the house, jumped off the back porch, and raced into the woods faster than Harry can mix one of his lemonades. One dog kept tripping over his one long ear and the other kept running into small trees, due to his poor depth perception.”

“Ssssoooo…pretty slow dogs, then?” Harry casually observed as he swirled the ice cubes around in his glass.

“Those dogs caught up with that mean, old boar and latched on to his ears like a fat guy with a big bowl of butter pecan ice cream. He started running around in circles trying to get those dogs to turn loose. Just then, the dog with the bad eye looked up at me and winked, as if to say, ‘Get your scrawny behind out of here,’ which is exactly what I did.”

“That story was so bad that, if I had something better to do, I’d leave right now,” grumbled Mort.

“If I had something better to do, I wouldn’t have had to hear it in the first place,” growled Harry.

 

Larry Wilson is a mostly lifelong resident of Niles. His optimistic “glass full to overflowing” view of life shapes his writing. His essays stem from experiences, compilations and recollections from friends and family. Wilson touts himself as “a dubiously licensed teller of tall tales, sworn to uphold the precept of ‘It’s my story; that’s the way I’m telling it.’” He can be reached at wflw@hotmail.com.