Davis Mitchell

I grew up with Lee Mitchell and Ward Wight.  I have known them both since we were little, and today our children attend school together, and play on many of the same sports teams.  All of our LW’s have become the best of friends.  I have a great deal of fun with both of these men and their families.  Ward and I share a lot of the same interests with hunting and fishing and the outdoors.   But, this story is not about Lee or Ward.  It is about Lee’s wife Davis.  

Davis is a wonderful person whom I thoroughly enjoy.  Davis did not grow up in the “great outdoors” per se, and did not have an older brother to harass her with various dead animals that he brought in from the field to provide for the family.  Lee is more of the sporting type, knowing anything and everything about all things sports related.  He is a veritable encyclopedia.  Ward and I consider ourselves to be outdoor enthusiasts and are therefore a bit of an anomaly to her.  She generally looks at us through a quizzical stare, thinking we are a little on the unusual side.  She is probably not that far off.  We get along well, because she likes to keep us at an arms length, and kindly tolerates a great deal of our shinanigans.  

Unfortunately, it has reached a crescendo with her of late, and I fear that we can no longer go on family vacations together.  Actually, that is not entirely true.  I am pretty sure she and her family will still travel for long weekend excursions with our tribe, and with the Wight family.  But, she will no longer travel with the Striblings AND the Wights together.  It turns out that Ward and I as a team are too much for her delicate constitution.  

The worst part of it is that I don’t know where it is all coming from.  I am a delightful person, easily liked and quite funny if I do say so myself.  I can probably point to a few instances that could potentially give one pause, but outside of that, I think her hesitation is completely unfounded.

The first thing that comes to mind occurred right after the best duck hunt ever in the great state of Georgia.  It was awesome.  We killed five mallards, one wood duck, and one goose.  I had taken the day off work, and was close enough to town that when we got done hunting, I could actually make it back to school in time to pick up the kids when they got out.  It was the perfect storm.  

I got to school in all my hunting regalia, guns in the back, and a cooler full of dead animals.  AND, I managed to pull in and park right behind Davis.  She had her son Bo in the car, who I think was the tender age of two.  What two year old boy would not want to see a cooler full of freshly killed waterfowl?  I jumped out of the car, very excited, to show the lad the spoils of the hunt.  I will admit that I had a little blood on me, but nothing terrible.  I grabbed Bo out of Davis’s reluctant grasp and brought him around the back of my vehicle.  He was excited and enjoyed looking at the variety of animals in the cooler.  I know what you are thinking, what a great opportunity for young Bo.  It was.  I got to show him the beauty of some of God’s creatures and how creative He is with the animals He made.

Davis played along, but was ready to swoop Bo up before I had the chance to show him any of the weapons I had in the back.  Apparently, that was plenty. 

The second instance occurred at the Mitchell family beach house.  They have a lovely home on Sea Island, which incidentally, is one of my favorite places to visit.  They have great fishing, and I spent a great deal of time fishing on the beach.  In fact, I spent so much time fishing on the beach that the other parents in attendance, whom I did not know, wound up giving me their kids so that I could “watch” them while I was on the beach.  By myself.  With no other adults.  That was the first in a string of bad ideas as I generally need another adult around to watch me.  The second bad idea was continuing to fish after I caught the first stingray.  The third bad idea was continuing to fish after the 20th stingray.  It was the last one that got me.   It turned around and zapped me in the hand, and all I can tell you is that it was the most physically painful thing I have ever experienced.  The LW roles her eyes when I say that because she gave birth to four children.  Puh-leeze.  I would rather you break each of my fingers one at a time before I go through that again.  

I had to get myself, about six screaming and terrified children, and all of our gear back to the house while my hand bled profusely, and I was trying not to pass out.  I came tearing into the house a few minutes later asking anyone who had the capacity to pee on my hand as I had heard that helps with this kind of thing.  It doesn’t.  The only person who stepped up to the plate was my faithful, eldest son Strib, but he could only go for so long, and it didn’t help.  Turns out you have to put the part of you that has been stung in the hottest water possible for an hour and a half for the pain to become manageable.  Otherwise, there is not much you can do.  

After the pain began to subside and I no longer felt like I would throw up, I managed to look up and see Davis look at me with that look that only comes from women who are not used to this type of situation and prefer not to be in it again.  That, incidentally, is the last time we went to their beach house.  They like to tell me it is because of some sort of rental policy down there, but I think it is personal, and because of me.

The third, and final, thing that happened actually occurred after a long weekend together.  All three families managed to go to Lake Rabun for Memorial Day.  It was great.  There were no issues.  All the kids got along well.  Ward and I managed to stay out of harm’s way the entire time, and all of the men managed to take enough of the load off the LW’s that they enjoyed the weekend and did not feel like they were working too hard.  It was what happened the following weekend that has the fences back up for Davis.

We had no sooner gotten to the lake house and unloaded the car than Strib managed to actually break his toe while playing tag in the house.  Then, the following day, the kids were on the dock fishing together when Josie managed to get a hook firmly embedded in her ear.  It actually went in deep enough for the barb to get her, and I had to perform minor surgery to get it out.  Fortunately, I had a father who managed to catch himself in the back of the ear more often than not so it was not unfamiliar territory for me.  Then, that night, the coup de grace happened.  We caught a snake in the kid’s bunkroom.  They had been asking all weekend, “Is there a snake under my bed?”  

Me- “Of course not.  Don’t be ridiculous.  Go to bed.”

Josie- “Are you sure Daddy?”

Me- “Would I lie to you Josie?  Don’t worry about it.  Just go to sleep.”

The LW- “Uh.  What the hang is that coming out from under her bed?”

That is when bedlam erupted and 7 very tired children were now up for an extra 2 hours.  I caught the offending snake, who it turns out cannot slither very well over a tile floor.  It did try to bite me, but I learned my lesson from the stingray and managed to stay away from it's offending parts.  We caught it, put it in a container so we could identify it later, and moved on.  

The LW is convinced that is was poisonous.  I am fairly confident it is just a regular snake.  Either way, we let it go on the other side of the lake so it wouldn’t come back over.  

All of that would have been fine if the kids had abided by the rule "what happens to the Striblings stays with the Striblings".  They started blabbing at swim team the next day in ear shot of Davis, whose antennae immediately went up, and she coerced the entire story out of our children one Skiddle at a time.  

And so, we find ourselves back in familiar territory with Davis.  Her fences have been refortified, and she is prowling her perimeter making sure that we cannot break back in.  But we will.  Oh yes.  We will.