Sharing a Need

Normality, or a close facsimile thereof, has returned to Eegeebeegee, capital of the Tallahatchie Free State, a virtual republic at the northern end of southern nowhere. For the past three weeks, the comely and kind-hearted Miss Brenda and I have shared the grounds, gardens, and guest rooms of the Big House with a procession of friends and family, and, while we thoroughly enjoyed the company, it is good to just have each other around. Particularly for me, the attention and affections of the comely and kind-hearted Miss Brenda are indulgences I care not to share with others. In fact, as childish as it is, I don't like sharing my best friend with others at all--never have, probably never will.

My unwillingness to share the comely and kind-hearted Miss Brenda runs diametrically counter to her psychological make-up and God-given gifts. I've mentioned before in previous posts to this wordy wasteland that she has earned the nick-name "Twelve" for her propensity to "tend to" (ten-two) others--often others she doesn't even know but who have given off some signal inaudible and indistinguishable to the Colonel. She tends to people who otherwise would be, in this curmudgeon's not so humble opinion, perfectly able to fend for themselves. Not only is the attention wasted on those not-needy persons, but that attention is effort diverted from the really needy person in her life--ME.

So, having the comely and kind-hearted Miss Brenda all to myself this week has put me in one of those rare moods the Colonel gets into where no matter what goes wrong with whatever project I happen to be enmeshed in, the smile (another rarity not often found on the Colonel's visage) never leaves my mug. She's there when I need her. I needed her this morning.

The Colonel was taking advantage of the rainfall respite--it is June after all; the skies will scarcely yield a drop of precipitation for another couple of months, barring remnants of some tropical system sloshing up from the coast--and Semper Field (my trusty red tractor; not to be confused with Semper Fillit, my rusty red truck) and I were moving pine logs down from a ridge on which the tornado dropped them last year. After several round-about trips, Semper Field's ease of traverse across what a week ago had been boggy bottom caused the Colonel to significantly underestimate the drying capability of an even boggier shortcut. The shortcut turned out to be the Mississippi version of the La Brea Tar Pits, threatening to suck the Colonel's steed from beneath him and dragging it downward into a viscous ooze which eons from this epoch would turn to Confederate Concrete and yield fossilized tractor remains to some off-planet archeologist's pick and shovel. When the Colonel sticks something, it is stuck good.

The hike back up to the Big House gave me time to come up with a really witty way of explaining to the comely and kind-hearted Miss Brenda why, while I had left the immediate environs of the Eegeebeegee Man Toy Storage and Sawdust Production Facility mounted, I was returning afoot. As I approached, Miss Brenda looked up from one of her flowery projects aimed at softening the rough edges of Eegeebeegee and asked, "You okay?"

"Sure, never better. Why do you ask?"

"Where's the tractor?"

"Tractor? What tractor? Oh, my trusty red tractor Semper Field--it's stuck. I need you to pull it out with the truck."

Yep, a fifteen minute walk and that was as much wit as I could come up. Dang it, Jim, I'm a Marine, not a stand-up comedian!

But, the smile never left my face, because I knew that having to stop the flowery project aimed at putting a softer edge on Eegeebeegee to help someone really in need was just what Miss Brenda needed. I'm just too good to her.