ONE TOUGH OL’ BUZZARD © by Rusty Mitchum Back when I was growin’ up, there was this man I knew who I considered the toughest man in the world. He was a big man, six foot tall and weighted about two hundred and twenty-five pounds. He was a hard worker and there wasn’t an ounce of fat on him. He had great big ol’ ham-sized hands with fingers that were the size of sausages. Now, I said he was a tough man, not a mean man. I don’t believe there was a mean bone in his body. There were tales about how tough this man was and they weren’t just tales, they were the truth. The job he did was pretty dirty work and when he got home he was covered with dirt & grease, but you didn’t notice it. What you noticed were his blue eyes, and a great big smile. He’d climb out of his ol’ truck and we kids would run up to see him. He’d go in and get cleaned up and then come out and hit us fly balls or fix somethin’ we had broken, or just hang out with us. He was one of our best friends. He taught us boys a lot of things, like never hit girls, or dogs, and stuff like that. He also taught us stuff that now-a-days they’d probably look down on. You know, stuff like never start a fight, but if somebody started one with you, do your best to finish it. He was a man’s man. Once, when he was workin’, he stopped in a café to get himself a hamburger. He sat up at the counter and started eatin’ when a fellow sat down beside him. “Man, you are dirty,” the man said. “He looked at the man and smiled. “Yeah,” he said. “I’ve got a dirty job.” “I don’t think I’ve ever seen anybody so dirty,” the man continued. “Probably haven’t,” he replied, as he tried to eat his hamburger. “Boy, you are the dirtiest S.O.B. I’ve ever seen,” the man said, only he didn’t use the initials. The big man laid down his hamburger and looked at the man. “Look,” he said, but didn’t finish the sentence when the man hit him upside his head. Big mistake. The big man let loose with one of those big hands and not only did he hit the man, but knocked him clean off the stool. About that time another fellow came up behind him and grabbed his arms. Big mistake. Thinkin’ this was the other fellow’s buddy, he raised his big old bear-like arms, turned, and then let him have it, too. That fellow went down like a sack of bricks. Both men were out cold and the rest of the café had cleared out. He looked at the waitress, and asked her to call the police, which she did. Then he sat down to finish his lunch, but his hands were shakin’ so bad he couldn’t hit his mouth with his hamburger. When the police arrived, the waitress explained what happened and they dragged the first guy out. The second guy, it just so happened, was just tryin’ to break up the fight. Somebody threw some water on him to bring him to. Well, a couple of weeks ago, this man who is seventy-nine years old now, walked out of his house, down to his shop, reached in to turn off somethin’ and when he turned around, he collapsed. He didn’t pass out, just collapsed. He banged his head on the outside wall of his shop, and landed on his back. He couldn’t move. He thought he had a stroke, but what he didn’t know, was that he had a couple of clots in his lungs, and they had made his blood pressure drop really fast. It was four o’clock in the afternoon, and over a hundred degrees and he was lyin’ outside on the concrete. After awhile, he could move his arms. He pulled himself back into his shop usin’ his elbows and tried to pick himself up off the floor enough to reach his phone, but he couldn’t. He laid there for a while and pulled himself back outside. He decided to see if he could crawl back to the house. He was still on his back and was tryin’ to pull with his elbows and push with his feet. He wasn’t gettin’ any traction with his shoes on, so he kicked them off. For the next three hours, he slowly inched his way back to the house which was only about twenty feet away. When he finally got to the back step, he had just enough strength to turn over. After awhile, and several attempts, he made it up the one step and was able to reach the door knob. He got the door open, but when he’d let go of the knob it would shut on him. He finally was able to shove the doormat in to block the door after he opened it. He pulled himself into the room and to the phone, which fortunately was on the floor. He called 911. After the ambulance arrived, his buddy, Arthur Baggett who lives across the street, came over to see what the commotion was. Then Mr. Baggett called me. When I got into the emergency room at the hospital, I was told where he was. I walked over and saw him lyin’ on the bed. I got a big lump in my throat. The coveralls he was wearin’ were soakin’ wet from sweat, and torn all over. His elbows looked like hamburger meat, and his head was skinned up somethin’ terrible. He had worn holes in his socks from pushin’ himself on the concrete. He was covered with dirt from head to toe. The blood pressure on the monitor above his head read 105 over 42. Not good. “How’s he doin’?” I asked a male nurse that had just left his bedside. “A lot better than I would have been in his shoes,” he said. I walked up beside the bed and looked down at him. His eyes were closed. I put my hand on his shoulder, and his eyes opened up, and he started to smile. “Hello Daddy,” I said. “Hello Son,” he said back. “Boy,” I said, “you are one dirty S.O.…….” “Watch it Boy,” he interrupted, and then smiled and raised his fist and shook it at me. It was then I knew, the tough ol’ buzzard was gonna be all right. I first wrote this story back in 2006. This man, my daddy Rayburn Mitchum, went to be with the Lord a year and a half ago. He is sorely missed. Happy Birthday Day. I love you Daddy. Give Momma a hug for me for me and tell Jesus I said Hey.
Posted on: Sun, 14 Sep 2014 13:20:29 +0000
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