I have to admit

I have been trying to write the Papa book in my head. This is not the way to do it. I get sidetracked too damned easy. I will be driving down the road, thinking about what I want to write, think of something, or see something, and think, "Hey, that reminds me of ..................". Then I lose where I was and forget the new thing too. So from now on, I will only do it on paper, or on here. Otherwise, this will all be for nothing.

Story #1.

This may not be chapter #1, it may be 50 or 500, or 5000 or whatever. But, this is one I will never forget, and it really doesn't have a whole lot to do with Papa. Just the kicker.

I was about 16 or so. My best friend, Bill Boice and I were dispatched, by Papa, to go break ice on Wayne Rowan's water troughs. It was the dead of winter and all the water had froze. I don't just mean all the water in the troughs had froze, but ALL the water around had froze. I think the river may have frozen over, if it were running at the time, but it was too cold to go check. We were out for about 3 hours when we finally came to the last trough to break the ice off of.

Let me explain how damn cold it was. We were using a couple of pieces of 3/4" steel rod to beat the hell out of the ice until we finally got to water. At which point, we could break off chunks of ice and pull them out of the troughs. We were completely covered in winter gear. For instance, we both had on skiing overalls, coats, gloves, boots, balaclavas, and cowboy hats. A balaclava is a tobogan the goes all the way to your chest with only the eyes cut out. Bill also had on his Revo shades.

At this point, a man in a truck who, we both knew used to be a cop, pulled up. Neither of us knew what he was doing there, but we knew who he was. His name was Larry Dearing. Anyway, he was looking for Wayne, the guy we were breaking ice for. I told him that we hadn't seen Wayne all day, but I would look indoors. He turned to get back into his truck, turned back around, and asked, "Hey, you're Bill Boice, aren't you?"

Well, we turned and looked at each other, later we confirmed that we would have no idea who each other were in our current mode of dress, and just froze. Bill finally said, "Yes sir." At which point, Larry said, "I thought so", got back in his truck and left. How this guy knew who we were, I had no idea.

Unbeknownst to us, Larry had checked at Papa's house for Wayne first. Papa told him that he hadn't seen him, but maybe I had, since I was out breaking ice for him. Papa, also told him who was helping me with the ice breaking. This was a little fact that was dropped on me in a conversation with Larry, a year or so later, when I was dating his daughter. And, no, I don't remember her name.

Papa just smiled when I asked him about it.