I never knew why but Mr. and Mrs. Fulsom seemed to really like me and insisted on hiring me to do any job they needed at their house. When you are kid, folks always seemed old, and Mr. and Mrs. Fulsom were always old. They lived in Grainola just east of Aunt Gladys (Mrs. Snyder) in a wonderful house with a giant wrap around porch and a detached garage with living quarters above the garage. They had a crawl space under the house bigger than I have ever seen. I could actually stand up in it. Also, I should mention it was a rock house and, in my mind, the prettiest house in Grainola. One last note before I get back to the story. One of their daughters married Jack Heath (brother to my uncle Bill who married Aunt Peggy-mom's sister), father of Jim and Clarissa, and she could play basketball with the best of them. In fact, she could play tennis as well. Deanie was her name, and I have no idea if that is how you spell it. Her sister was also on the team, and I hear she was a great player as well. I believe Mildred Kelly was on this team as well. They were the 1950 state champion girl basketball team. OK, back to the story.
Honeybees: Mr. Fulsom asked me to repair the roof on his house and it was two stories tall, so we had to set up some scaffolds (dad, me and my brother Larry). I know Mr. Fulsom knew that I would need dad, but he always asked me, and I never knew why. So here we are on top of the scaffolds repairing the roof and some honeybees start coming out of the attic of the two-story house. The more we hammered those nails the more bees came out until there were literally thousands. Larry jumped down and ran to the pickup as he did not want to be stung. Dad just said ignore them and keep on putting up shingles and hammering those nails. I could see the bees were landing all over him and crawling in his hair and across his face. There were hundreds landing on me as well and finally they were walking across my face. I drew a steady hand until one of them walked across my eyelid. I looked at dad and said I am done. I slapped that bee and jumped down about 10 feet to the ground and took off running. The bees were chasing me, and dad was just laughing at me. I ran to get in the pickup with Larry, but he LOCKED the door. I have no idea how far or how long I ran but I was stung at least 9 times! I guess I was just too sweet to resist. Finally, they stopped, and I rolled in the grass to keep them off until they were gone.
The cool thing was we finally completed the roof, and dad knew how to smoke out the bees so they would not swarm, and we could get the honey. I really do not remember how much honey there was, but it was huge, and I would bet it was at least 10 lbs. of honey.
So, what do you learn in the Osage?
- When there is something sweet, there is always a bite to it, especially with girls.
- Every job has its challenges, but some have a sweet ending.
- You do not need to lock the pickup to keep out the bees.
Thanks for listening,
gary
gary.olson@finaciti.com
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