This Weekends Showdown in Florida

While the Miami Superbowl is garnering great hype, this weekend in Florida there will be yet another spectacle to behold.  My brother and I working together on his property's privacy fence. Siblings working on a project, especially THESE siblings, always proves interesting.  As children Peter and I were given axes and ordered to chop wood.  Pete would get the big splitter and I was the hatchet master chipping kindling away from the bigger blocks.  As romantic and Little House on the Prairie as that sounds, it is indeed frightening that we were handed sharp striking tools and put out in the snow.  Most of the damage was self-inflicted as I have always had a hard time concentrating.  Nothing brings one back to earth like driving a metal wedge into one’s hand.  But blocks of wood did fly at one another.  One time, unintentionally, I swear, I nailed Pete in the head.  It wasn’t so much the chunk of wood itself or the weight of it and not even the speed, but all of it together adding velocity to a sharp protrusion left behind by a broken branch.  I remember throwing the piece. As soon I let it go my brother’s large head eclipsed my view of the wood pile and I knew I was screwed.  In slow motion I watched the wood spin (good spiral, all in the wrist) and I thought better of warning him since that would mean he’d turn around and get popped in the face or, even worse, see me full of wide-eyed excitement.  So the missile twirled towards its unintended target.  I saw the knot turn to striking position and I couldn’t believe how this moment was so perfectly choreographed for maximum pain.  If I wanted to injure my nemesis I could not have better launched this weapon.  To add to the drama Peter had just taken flight from the tailgate of the pick up.  The log that was about to strike him was the last one off the truck.  So not only was he to feel the acute pain of a sharpened limb jabbed into his skull, but it would happen while his head was filled with the euphoria of soaring to away from a chore well done.  All of this would come crashing down with what he thought was a giant and very angry insect mauling him.  Deflecting off his granite noggin the wood caromed onto the front porch.  Peter grabbed his head and performed the amazing physical feat of crumpling, then springing forth, leaping and spinning all accompanied by a wild arm flailing typically reserved for Southern baptisms.  I ran away.  My younger sibling instincts kicked in and I found myself screaming in the opposite direction through a nearby meadow and towards some willows that would have provided protection had I not been pursued by the pubescent human equivalent of the Tasmanian Devil.  Peter was still very confused as to what had really happened but my fleeing seemed evidence enough that I was responsible for releasing the rare and painful Elephant Hornet.  My hatchet firmly planted in a block some hundred yards away I was left with my only means of defense; running until he’d nearly caught me and then falling so he’d trip over me.  If this move does not kill or severely maim your assailant you’re screwed because then you’re just lying on the ground awaiting your beating.  Peter survived the trip move.  I barely did his wrath.

Tickets are on sale now at all participating Panhandle Husqvarna dealers.  Halftime entertainment provided by 25 bags of Sakrete.