DUNCAN — One of the constants of fall seemed to come a bit late in Oklahoma this year. I mean, here it is, the first week of January and people are still out raking leaves.

Perhaps the late leaf fall was something caused by the drought and those miserable 100 degree, dry days back in July, August and September. Not being a leaf, I couldn’t say for sure, but it seemed trees throughout this region held on to their leaves until after Thanksgiving.

Clinging leaves finally started to fall as December approached, which meant a change in the cycle of raking or mulching. Heck, on Christmas Day, I saw some cat out in the front yard, scooping maple leaves and bagging them up.

Late leaf dropping has also denied men one of the great joys of being a male — pulling out the leaf blower. By my way of thinking, leaf blowers are one of the all-time great male inventions, and I reaffirmed that notion a couple weeks ago. I pulled into The Banner parking lot and there was ace yardman Brian Wolff cleaning the sidewalks around the building with a leaf blower.

Waaaay cooool!

I’ve never owned one, but leaf blowers are the ideal guy tool. Nothing says testosterone better than a tool that has an engine, is very loud and enables you to blast debris, death raygun-style, without having to actually pick it up.

The possibilities for leaf blower use are endless and men are inventive enough to find good ways to employ them.

Rest assured somewhere in America there’s a guy who cleans up his living room by firing up the ol’ leaf blower and blasting everything — stale chips, beer cans, a box with a half-eaten pizza purchased 2-1/2 months before, underwear, dead crickets — into a less-traveled room, such as the spare bedroom. (This guy, of course, ain’t married.)

Anyway, seeing Brian swirling up leaf tornados reminded me of a story I cut out of a newspaper a couple years ago and tucked away in one of the 56,329 manilla folders I like to call my “Files of Important Stuff.” (Karen refers to these invaluable files as “I’m tossing that junk the minute you die.” Ha, ha! She’s such a kidder!)

The story concerned two fellows in Greenville, S.C., who we’ll call Guy A and Guy B.

Seems Guy A had leaves accumulating in the yard. So, he grabbed a leaf blower and began to whisk the foliage off his property.

Problem was: Guy A’s leaves ended up in the yard of Guy B.

Guy B noticed there were suddenly leaves in HIS yard and faced this dilemma: Should he ask Guy A, politely but firmly, to remove the leaves? Should he avoid a potential confrontation by picking them up himself? Or should he decide that life is too short to be bothered by this kind of petty annoyance and simply ignore the leaves?

If you answered “yes” to any of these solutions, you are, with all due respect, a woman.

According to the police report, what Guy B did was the same thing 99.9999 percent of the guys reading this column wound have done: He fired up HIS leaf blower and blew the leaves back into Guy A’s yard.

This was a crucial moment. Some people might have just said to heck with it, but these were not some people, these were men. And when guys start a job, guys want to finish it. That’s the logic that gave us the Coliseum, the split atom and World Wars I and II.

Seeing what Guy B had done, Guy A retaliated by blowing the leaves back into the yard of Guy B, and for several minutes they played leaf-blower tennis.

Realizing this was a stupid solution, the guys did what you would expect — they forgot about the leaves and started blowing air in each other’s face.

From there, things hurtled downhill. In the police report, Guy B claimed that Guy A head-butted him. Guy A claimed that Guy B hit his leaf blower with a hammer AND knocked his dust mask off, scratching his nose. Guy B claimed Guy A then busted him in the jaw.

Finally, somebody called a sheriff’s deputy, and after listening to the two sides, the officer shot both guys in the head, thus improving the gene pool.

No, actually, the deputy couldn’t determine who was at fault, so he decided not to charge either guy. The deputy did, though, confiscate both leaf blowers.

Apparently, he needed to clean up his living room.



jeff.kaley@duncanbanner.com

580-255-5354, Ext. 172