First time I posted this, it went to the Littleton hub. I don't know why.

In my writing I strive to emulate that literary great of greats, Patrick F. McManus. With perhaps a touch (just a sledgehammer's worth) of W. Bruce Cameron sprayed in for flavor. But alas, strive as I might I cannot reach that pinnacle of greatness. I mean come on, Pat McManus has childhood friends like Retch Sweeny and Rancid Crabtree to write about. Who did I have? The dog, the cat and a couple of dumb brothers. It's just not fair.

Pat McManus also got out and did stuff during his childhood. I, on the other hand, spent my childhood trying to get out of doing stuff. Like shoveling manure (sort of like what I do here) and digging burdock and thistles for half a penny each.

Now, you may wonder why I'd want to get out of digging burdock and thistles when it was about the only way I had of earning any money. Well you see, there was a catch to it. We had to show six inches of root to get credit for each one. This proved somewhat difficult as we had a rather unusual type of soil. I think it's called Portland Cement. I had to literally jump on the shovel to get it into the ground. More often than not, the result was the shovel handle would smack me right in the nose right before I fell on my butt. The end result is that my childhood was one of abject poverty (not to mention injury), a condition which persists to this day.

My brothers and I had a special rule, "out of sight, out of sound" - if our parents couldn't see us, then we didn't hear them. Somehow I don't think we were unique in this, but anyway. What this meant was that as soon as we could escape, we did. Like Mom would send me out to burn a bag of trash in the incinerator, and I'd smuggle a few books out in the trash. Soon as I got the trash burning I'd take off somewhere and read my books. I lost some good books that way; sometimes I'd forget to take them out of the trash before setting it afire. Oops.

I had several places I'd sneak off to read my books. Grassy clearings here and there, slot caves there and here, and a number of treehouses scattered across the countryside. The treehouses were a really good bet because Mom didn't climb trees. What do kids do nowadays, with nowhere to build treehouses? One in particular I really liked; it was an elaborate three-story job - one story for each of us. I preferred the top story, as it was open on one end and provided an excellent view of the road. That way I could see if Mom left to go someplace and I could sneak back into the house. Only once I got so engrossed in my reading I rolled over, forgetting where I was. Fortunately my bones broke my fall.

So anyway I spent much time reading, and not much doing. Which is why Pat McManus has all sorts of books out like Real Ponies don't go Oink!, The Night the Bear ate Goombaw, They Shoot Canoes don't they? and of course Never Sniff a Gift Fish, and I don't. I guess I could try and make up for it by getting out and doing crazy stuff now, so that I had stuff to write about.

I'm taking off to go camping this weekend and half of next week with one sane person (even odds he cracks by day two) and three other maniacal nutbars. That should be a good start.