TheBanyanTree: Worm Moon 2016 – Spider webs in my beard

[Kitty Park]

Love your storytelling, Dale!  My husband was an Okie, and y'all have a
special ability to bring your tales to life!  I miss those days, sitting
with the family at gatherings, listening as their shared experiences were
recalled.

I remember the heat and humidity of my in-laws 60th wedding anniversary one
summer day.  You're planning to keep your beard through that?????????

Kitty
<mzzkitty at gmail.com>kcp-parkplace.blogspot.com
<http://parkplaceohio.com>


On Wed, Mar 30, 2016 at 11:49 PM, Dale Parish <dale.m.parish at gmail.com>
wrote:

> 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
> --
> Dale M. Parish
> 628 Parish RD
> Orange TX 77632-0264
>
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