Book Board Chat

Hello all !!!

I figure that I have to make a post about once per year, because you are all wonderful people whom I still to this day think about. So how about a Mrs Briguy story?

Many remember me as the weirdo stamp collector, but I have other hobbies too. I hunt, metal detect, fish, etc (you know -- guy stuff). In my 15+ years of serious metal detecting I've learned a few tricks that have led me to hundreds and hundreds of old silver coins. Pretty much impossible today to head to the city park and find one of those anymore, because....well.....people like me have been there already. Old silver coins aren't like mushrooms -- they don't grow back next year. So serious "detectorists" have had to adapt. One way is to spend the cold unhospitable winter months researching. That involves pulling up online the old 1870 plot maps of your county and transposing them over a current one. AH HA!!!......in the back of this old field there was once two homesteads and a barn! Given that sort of heads up its usually not very hard....utter silence as you wander the area, then suddenly buzzes, grumbles, and static pops. Human created metallic debris, usually rusting iron bits left from long ago forgotten lives, perhaps a foot down in what is now a cut flat soybean field. Time to make bigger and bigger circles slowly, adjusting your gain way up to hear any specific squeak of what you're looking for.

What we're after is that silver thimble a little girl lost under a long gone apple tree, trying to repair a hole in her sock (sometimes engraved with her name!). Perhaps it'll be an old Indian head penny that bounced out of a workers pocket back in 1862, ....you get it. This works in water too, as modern (well, the expensive ones) detectors are water proofed. Late last year, I found a small creek, surrounded by expensive modern homes. The homes are worthless to detect.....they've been there only 10 years. However the old creek....oh my goodness that creek, has been flowing through the area since before white men arrived.

My first efforts of dabbling there resulted in a 1915 silver dime! Second target turned out to be a 1855 large cent, one of the original copper pennies the size of a modern quarter. Oh yeah, I'm hooked now. I also don't do this alone. My detecting buddy is a fellow church member and the two of us being kind honorable Christians (ssshhh, don't mention to him what you know of me) we have a pact. We share together the secret spots we find. So back we came together, to shuffle slowly through that fetid swampy water waist deep. Both of us old grey men, with $1000+ in electronics strapped to us, looking like crazy 2024 versions of Robo Cop.

It......uuuuhm....well...it didn't end well. Ever see the movie "Stand By Me"? Oh yeah, two old guys screaming in terror, stripping off our clothes, as we yanked dozens of hungry leeches off each other. Must have been quite the sight for anyone passing by.

[Act 2]
Fast forward to the first week of May 2025. The two leech victims are now sitting next to the Fox river in Wisconsin, trying to catch walleyes. Enter a third character to the story, a local we fish with who is very much an interesting fellow. By that I mean SCARY....but interesting. He's 78 years old now, but remains one of those no nonsense type guys that people just look at quickly and say -- lets not mess with him. He did THREE combat tours in Viet Nam as a door gunner in a chopper, and still to this day he has utterly no problem with being right in the middle of a bar fight. As we sipped our chilled brandy (never did get a walleye) he got drunk enough to start telling us war stories. One doozy was about his buddy, only two days in country, being beaten unconscious in the bathroom of a Saigon bar. Why you ask? He laughed at the guy next to him at the urinal, a hard azz special forces soldier who dropped his pants and revealed he was wearing........pantyhose.

Why pantyhose you ask? Apparently ALL the tough as nails special forces guys wore them over there. The reason is simple. As you slowly creeped through swamps and flooded rice paddies, the pantyhose prevented leeches from being able to latch onto you. I looked at my detecting buddy. He was looking at me. in unison we both blurted out -- "Does your wife still have any pantyhose?!?"

Act 3, back in Illinois.
[Briguy] Honey, do you still have any old pantyhose?
[MrsBriguy] Are you saying its time for me to shave my legs?
[Briguy] Oh, of course not.....I want them for me.
[Mrs B] Whaa..uuuh....whatever for??
[Briguy] To wear, of course.
[Mrs B] *long pause* Did you not see the result of the last election?.....the woke transgender stuff isn't in vouge anymore.
[Briguy] I'm not going to a gay bar to dance.....I'm going to wade into a swamp wearing them.
[Mrs B] WHAT?!!.....(looks at me, puzzled)
[Briguy] In fact....Ken is going with me...so I need two pairs :o).
[Mrs B] Dare I ask?
[Briguy] Probably best if you don't....(but I filled her in)

End result is I now have FIVE pairs of crumpled old "Leggs" pantyhose, from way back in the day, when they used to sell them in plastic eggs at the grocery store. At one point she even commented "Oh wait,... this one has a big run in them, ...still want it?". I laughed and said, I doubt the leeches care.

Her final comment was that if we get picked up by the cops.....don't call me for bail.

I'd love to post to the BB chat what the results of Act 4 is/will be, but the two of us are still waiting for the water to get warm enough again. Final result will have to wait until my next unexpected appearance here. I'm only certain that NOBODY here saw this one coming. :o)

-- Brian