TheBanyanTree: Worm Moon 2016 – Spider webs in my beard

[Dale Parish]

I used to skip shaving on weekends in which I just stayed around the house or shop working.  Only once did I ever grow much of a beard—about 20 years ago when we took a three weeks vacation and my beard was a lot less gray.  After three weeks, it looked at a distance as if I’d not washed my face after working under the tractor.

Since retiring almost four weeks ago, I’ve not shaved.  It’s still in the ‘itchy’ stage now.  While what little hair left on my head is straight, it’s surprising me how much of my beard wants to curl back around and return to its roots.  I hear from my bearded brother than it gets long enough that it stops doing that, but apparently I’m not past that stage yet.

One thing I’m starting to notice is what all gets caught it in it.  A smooth face sheds all kinds of crumbs and makes wiping your chin with a napkin non-chalant; this brush seems to capture a lot that would have formerly gone south.  Maybe I’m just more self-conscious about it.  More studies are needed.

One thing that it doesn’t shed well are spider webs.  Especially the sticky-yellow homes of the golden orb weaver, commonly known in southeast Texas as Banana Spiders, but then, those webs are known for sticking to almost everything.

The bane of southeast Texas brush poppers—cowboys who work cattle in the woods—the banana spider likes to weave large webs across any trail in the woods, and chasing a cow down a wooded trail is sure to get you a web in the face if your horse doesn’t catch it for you.  I’ve had horses chasing a cow at a dead run throw on the skids and come to a dead stop because they’ve caught so many banana spider webs that their eyes have been glued shut.  They’ll stand stock still waiting for you to dismount and carefully peel the mat of web from over their eyes so they can see again.  Makes you wonder sometimes if the cows don’t know that, being shorter than the horse and rider, that’s a sure-fire escape method to stick to those trails.  Ducking your head as you go under the webs you can see loping down a trail in the woods gets your hat coated with the yellow netting—one develops a not-too-graceful swipe just below the brim of the hat to clear the majority of the spider webs out of your eyes.  In the case of those of us who wear glasses, our eyes aren’t likely to get glued shut, but it’s awfully hard to see through the mess.

Many years ago, we helped a cousin gather his cattle out of Gum Gully, which had some pretty dense brush on both sides.  The banana spiders were thick on the many trails through the gully, and after we penned, we loaded the horses and stopped by the Texaco—a small truck stop that had a café—for coffee before going home to clean up.  Four of us went in and sat on the last table—the one closest to the kitchen and coffee pot, and the knowing waitress called out, “Ya’ll all want coffee?” and got an affirmative.  I sat on the left-handed corner near the aisle and Bill sat to my right next to the window. 

The waitress came out with three coffees on saucers balanced up her left arm and the fourth in her right hand, and she reached across me to set the right hand coffee in front of Bill.  We were all talking about something—probably who had brought in the worst cow and why—when the waitress screamed and launched three coffees toward the top of the window—scared the hell out of us.  I became the pariah, with her running backwards into a barstool, screaming and pointing at me.  What had I done?

Under my web-covered hat, no one had noticed the big banana spider trapped in its own—and probably many other—webs.  She had leaned down to put the coffee across the table and the spider had been only inches from her face when she saw it.  The window didn’t break, but several saucers and one cup did, and we all went home wet.

Hugs,
Dale
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Dale M. Parish
628 Parish RD
Orange TX 77632-0264