Always look on the brightside!

Well, I didn’t get to the “New Year’s Resolutions” today. I don’t have time right now, so I’ll try again tomorrow.

We got to visit for an hour or so with my grandparents on Christmas Eve. I know I mentioned it briefly yesterday, but there is more to share. As is always the case, the conversation turned to old stories about childhood. We started off talking about spoiled children. Specifically how the youngest is usually spoiled. That led to my grandmother talking about how spoiled my granddad, Papaw, was growing up. Somehow that discussion led to the following story told by my granddad.

When he was a boy, they used well water. The well was in their yard. It was the kind you see in cartoons. It consisted of a stone/brick cylinder coming out of the ground and a roof over it with a crank for lowering the bucket into the well. Of course, this sat on top of a deep hole with water at the bottom.

My granddad got a new puppy when he was a boy. Apparently the puppy was a little rambunctious. He needed someway to settle the puppy down. Someone told him that if you cut off the tip of a puppy’s tail, it will “not throw fits anymore.” He decided this was the best solution.

Papaw sat the puppy on the edge of the well and prepared for the Tailtipectomy. Unfortunately he was too young to have a knife. He used the next best substitute: a rubber hatchet.

Pap worked and worked. He chopped and chopped. The puppy squirmed and screamed. Finally persistence paid off and the puppy’s tail-tip was successfully removed. Having completed his procedure, Pap let go of his patient.

The puppy saw this opportunity and made a break for it. He took off like a shot. In the wrong direction. He ran right into the well. I don’t mean he hit it. I mean he fell into the dark hole filed with water.

My great-granddad dipped the bucket in and out of the well for 30 minutes or so. But the puppy was gone. Pap had to bring water from the neighbor’s well for the next 2 weeks as punishment.

On the bright side, that puppy never through another fit. Maybe there is some truth to that old wives-tale.