BACKWOODS KNERDS (NERDS)

By Mike Colin
Everyone knows what a nerd is. In cities and towns nerds are those whiz kids that are great with math and science and often times go on to become engineers and teachers. I never worried about being called a nerd although once when I was in high school I did have to sit at the nerd table at lunch time. All the nerds seemed to want to talk about was how they had solved some math equation on a calculus quiz or about some chemistry lab stuff. I didn’t understand anything they were saying. After all, I took mostly physical education classes and the only class I took where I even had to count was marching band. It’s hard to make those formations if you don’t count the right number of steps you need to make. My brother Tim got kicked out of the band because he kept ending up in the stands instead of in formation on the football field.

Now because I couldn’t really contribute to the conversation at the nerd table, I tried to change the subject to sports by showing them the scar I had on my foot from playing lawn jarts. They just told me I was really gross although they did seem to admire the webbing I have between my toes. I also showed them the gills I have at the base of my neck and I heard one of the nerds actually say the word “awesome”. I still was not accepted as one of them but after that day the nerds all called me “Fish Boy”. “Hi Fish Boy,” they would say when they passed me in the halls. Even though I still didn’t understand what they were talking about when it came to their nerdy math and science classes, I kind of felt like an honorary member of their group.

Now out in the backwoods my family has their own version of nerds. They are kids born with special talents for handling backwoods engineering projects like making lean-to’s strong enough to survive the heavy snows or, building machines that will split a tree all the way up the trunk before you cut it down.

My backwoods family calls these really smart kids knerds with a silent “k”. I think that the old timers who came up with the spelling must have been thinking of words like “knight” or “knock” when they first wrote down the word “knerd” to describe my family’s wunderkind. Of course these kids have no formal education since they are deemed too valuable by the people living in the hills, hollers and, swamps to waste their time and talents learning in the public schools. After all, everything anyone needs to know to survive in the wilds they can learn best by staying home with their folks.

My cousin Deuce was perhaps the smartest of any knerds ever born in the backwoods. His engineering prowess was especially sought after by the backwoods people since he was an expert at building stills. He could take the parts of any kind of abandoned vehicle and use them to make stills that produced the most refined and potent whisky in just a few hours. Deuce even had several genuine legal distilleries trying to sign him up to build stills for commercial production.

My cousin Deuce even invented a combination wood chipper/still. It was a marvel for all to see. The first whiskey that Deuce produced in his new invention he decided to sample himself. Deuce took a big swig of his homemade brew and said with a big smile on his face “Wow! That’s the stuff,” then he then passed out.

Deuce just celebrated his third year after inventing his wood chipper/still machine. It’s just too bad that he is still in a comma after sampling his product. He still has a big smile on his face but the doctors say he has absolutely no higher level brain activity. Deuce has been diagnosed with BDD (Brain Dead Drunk). It’s really too bad that Deuce didn’t have a little more formal education in the field of chemistry. It seems wood chips do not make very good drinking whiskey but, they sure make a really clean burning fuel for gas burning combustion engines.

NORTHERN MICHIGAN INTERNATIONAL CRICKET CHAMPIONSHIP

By Ted Colin
Each year the Northern Michigan International Cricket Championship draws people from all over the world. We have people come from places as far away as Grawn, Fife Lake and, Mancelona. Many of the people who show up each year speak different languages and have very different customs. For instance, many people who attend these games can’t understand why we have pay toilets when the competition takes place in the woods. Personally, I really can’t understand the pay toilet deal myself. Especially, since the pay toilets only take $5.00 bills. I put in a $10.00 bill and I didn’t get any change back. I guess I won’t be buying any more pop from the concessions stands since it costs more for the pop going out than going in.

Well, although there are many differences between the teams and spectators at this year’s cricket event there is one overriding factor that brings everyone together: we all love watching those little critters duke it out in the ring. The main ring this year is an old hula hoop I found out behind one of the pay toilets. It looks like a car ran over it but, it is still holding together well enough to be used as the main ring. The other rings are just drawn in the sand.

Now before you can compete in a cricket match you have to find a cricket. The best way to find a cricket is to leave your front door wide open for a couple of days. Sooner or later out of all of the bugs, animals or looters that comes into your house there is bound to be at least one cricket. Of course getting a cricket into your house is just the first step in catching one.

In order to catch a cricket you have to stay up real late and get really, really tired. Then, when you turn off the lights and try to go to bed the cricket will start chirping so loud that you will rise up like a zombie from the dead but, instead of yearning to eat brains like a zombie the only thing you will yearn to do is get a hold of that cricket. Of course the cricket creature itself has the ability of a ventriloquist in that it can throw its voice to any place in the entire house. It is almost like the cricket just sits and watches you as you look all around under furniture and in closets, in the close hamper and behind the washer and dryer. Sometimes you just want to yank out the gas stove even though it has a gas line hooked to it. You are so tired and desperate for sleep you just don’t care anymore. After a while you can almost hear him laughing when he sees you about to find his hiding spot and then the cricket suddenly stops chirping. Then, you just stand there waiting for the creature to start chirping again hoping beyond all hope that you can find the little monster and get him to stop his hideous sounds so you can finally get some sleep. Of course he doesn’t start up again until you’ve turned off the lights and climbed back into bed.

Eventually, the cricket will make a mistake and you will catch him mulling around in the shower or just outside of the refrigerator. Now although the temptation to get revenge upon the cricket for keeping you up all night is strong, it is important that you keep a cool head about you and try to capture the little beast without harming it. After all, a squished bug is not going to win the cricket boxing tournament for you. And, if you accidentally rip off its forearms then he will be disqualified because the bug will no longer be able to wear the tiny boxing gloves that are mandatory in the sport of competitive cricket.

Now, once you have your cricket you have to put him through a vigorous training program which includes getting your bug to bulk up. Lots of sugar water is a good start to any weight gaining strategy whether it is for humans or bugs. Most people train their crickets to box by at first placing a tiny little mirror in front of the bug in order to get his competitive juices flowing. Then, placing live crickets with your potential champion in a confined area like a shoe box will be all you need to do to hone those talents that are the stuff that all champion bugs have pent up deep within their souls. By the time of the big match-up your bug will be in complete harmony with the universe and he will have the loving spirit of a dolly lamb. At that moment your cricket will be able to rip the exoskeleton off his competition and eat the blue-green guts out all the way up to the eyeballs.

This years champion was named “Killer Bug”. Now Killer B. was not the actual last bug left with its insides in tacked. The last bug left was Spider Snyder but Spider S. was disqualified when the officials realized the he really was a spider and therefore was not really eligible to compete against crickets. The rules might have been bent a little if Spider Snyder happened to be a grasshopper or even a fly but, spiders are not even insects; they are arachnids. The officials just decided that an arachnid fighting an insect just was not a fair fight so Killer B. won this years championship posthumously since Spider Snyder had already devoured all of Killer B’s soft tissues. Hopefully next year the officials will be more on the ball and disqualify non-species entries before they are allowed to compete in the cricket matches.

HUNTING MORNING DOVES OR, NAPALM SMELLS GOOD IN THE MORNING

By Mike Colin
The state of Michigan is a very pro-hunter state. You can hunt almost any creature imaginable and shoot them with any weapon you can find provided that you have the proper permits. Recently I decided to go hunting for morning doves. Now morning doves like to sit along gravel roads in small groups. Morning doves are a dangerous bird that attacks passersby’s with the voracity of a Big Foot monster. The only problem is that morning doves are not very big and are very hard to hit with even a shot gun shot. Of course another problem with morning doves is that because they are not so big you really need to get a mess of them at once if you are going to have them as a main course at dinner time.

I was able to solve my morning dove problems by visiting my grandpa. You see he is a collector of Viet Nam War era memorabilia. He has everything in his collection from machine guns to barrels of Agent Orange. Of course he can have all this neat stuff because he has the proper permits. My grandpa gets some of his stuff from other collectors but most of it he accumulated when he was in Viet Nam during the war. I guess he was one of those people you’d call a picker. You see he’d go around to military ammo dumps and pick out stuff he thought you could use back in the Michigan for hunting and fishing. He then sent the stuff back home through the mail. It cost my grandpa everything he earned just for postage. Just the cannon and rocket launcher he sent back was three months army pay.

Now when I went to see old grandpa he suggested that I use some land mines to hunt doves. He said the land mines he had were really sensitive. I told him that the only problem was that I intended to go hunting on state land and I wouldn’t want some hiker to get blown away. You see I was always taught to handle weapons in a responsible manner. My grandpa agreed and said that land mines might be overkill so he suggested that I use a mortar launcher. A mortar would be the perfect weapon to use against morning doves. You see not only would a mortar round eliminate several of the enemy doves at a time the doves would also be cleaned, feathers burned off and, cooked instantly. I’d have a meal ready to eat right there in the woods. My grandpa added that because doves had a reputation of being vicious if wounded the mortar would eliminate my trying to handle the nasty the little beasts up close.

Once I gout out in the woods on some state land I found a small opening in an old cedar swamp. There was an old partially graveled lumber trail road running through the center of the opening. I knew that was the perfect spot to hunt for morning doves. The next morning before daybreak I set up my mortar about 100 feet from the little opening. It wasn’t long before I spotted about a half dozen doves just sitting quietly out in the open. I dropped in my mortar round and fired. The only problem was I wasn’t use to setting the mortar cannons proper angle of projection so I overshot the morning doves by about 1000 feet.

Overshooting the doves would not have been much of a problem except that in Northern Michigan a lot of people don’t like to pay the liquor tax on whiskey so they set up their own still in the backwoods. Well, my mortar round happened to hit a still and suddenly there was a huge mushroom cloud rising up into the sky. I would have stood there looking at the mushroom cloud and all the trees that were vaporized but the shock wave knocked me to the ground and I laid there in a coma for three days.

After I got out of the hospital burn unit I decided I was not going to hunt morning doves anymore. Doves were just too difficult an animal to hunt especially when you consider the meager amount of meat on each morning dove. My soul is at peace with the nasty little dove. Instead, I can hardly wait to get some of my grandpa’s napalm to use when I go deer hunting next fall.