By Allen Hamrick
Hey, it’s Lew comin’ back at ya’ with a Paw’s Day tale. Haven’t scratched the paper with my pen for a while now so I decided to kick the tires and refill the ink bowl. Here in the hills, June is Paw’s Week, otherwise known as Father’s Day or feel sorry for daddy week. We celebrate all week long, and it all comes to an end with the Paw Day parade. This year’s parade grand marshal is Rot Blocker. Been that way fer ten years now ‘cause everbody’s ‘fraid to tell him otherwise.
Through the week, the wives leave us alone to fish and have some fun without the constant nagging we hear the rest of the year to get stuff done. So, they give us a week off, and we appreciate it. But they always leave the hills, and we never see them again for that week. We still ain’t sure where they go or what they do. We sent out spies to follow them, but they never returned, so we stopped sending them as we need fellers for our events. Still, we have that week off to do their chores, as well as our own, and still find the time to celebrate our manhood. We are not sure who actually gets the week off – us or them.
Either way, we find the time for our backer spittin’ contest, baloney makin’ cook-off, horseshoein’ competition, nail drivin’ contest and mule diaperin’ contest. That last one is left to the youngest paws. Last year Honcho Hardenburner was kicked in the face and was out for a week till they could pick his eyeballs out of his ears. The mule laughed all the way to the barn with only half a diaper hanging off his leg.
The biggest event of all is the hog ridin’ contest. Twenty of the newest paws line up to ride the biggest hog in the area, and the winner gets the hog to feed his family. Nobody has won the event since the games began 50 years ago due to all the hogs that were donated ran for their lives knowing if they lost they would be bacon on the next day’s breakfast platter. That was all coming to an end though, and the hogs rule and paw’s drool phrase would soon be erased by Picker Cuffinaple. Picker is one of the newest paws and he would ride Razor, the 450 pound hog beast, into Paw’s Day history. Picker slowly got on the hog’s back on Wednesday and didn’t return ‘till Friday. For two days, he rode that hog through briar patches, up hills, down hills and finally through the river until they both collapsed at the finish line. Poor ol’ Picker was scratched and bruised all over but was one proud paw as this hog would feed his family for a whole year. That also ended when his eight younguns felt sorry for the hog and now keep it as the family pet weighing in at 600 pounds. Poor ol’ Picker licked his wounds as we all cheered him on.
It was a great Paw’s week, but we are all wore out from all the work we have had to do plus all the celebratin’. We was glad to see the wives back with smiles on their faces and lookin’ refreshed. We are startin’ to believe that Paw’s Day is really Maw’s Day, plus they have their own special day. So, it is what it is, but we had fun. So, on this Paw’s Day, remember Paws are people, too, not just an a*!. A paw’s love is as strong as a maw’s love; we just don’t get the pats on the back (sniff sniff). Somebody reach me a tissue. Happy Paw’s Day.
