The Slice: Ticked off: When parasites get up close and personal

Len Ward recalled that it was back around 1962 or 1963.

Spokane Boy Scout Troop 61, sponsored by St. Joseph’s parish on West Dean, was on a weekend camp out.

“About six of us were bunking in a large tent and had been advised to check ourselves for ticks.”

Len remembers that Dan Groh, a constant “cut up,” kept saying he found a tick here, then there, trying to get laughs. Finally, in an alarmed tone, Dan declared that he had discovered a tick attached to a delicate spot on his male anatomy.

“We’d had enough and told him to shut up, turn off his flashlight and go to sleep. Dan’s insistence that we see for ourselves was the last straw and his older brother Tim told him if he was lying he was going to punch him.”

But there it was. Big as life.

“Dan, barefoot and wearing only his undershorts, hobbled a few feet to where the adult leaders were standing around a campfire.”

The adults decided the best course of action would be to compel the tick to detach by placing a burning cigarette close to it.

When informed of this, Dan expressed his disbelief at the top of his lungs: “A cigarette!”

But the delicate procedure worked, Len said.

“For the rest of his life, if one wanted to tease Dan, all one had to do was say, ‘A cigarette!’ ”

Read all about it: A gentleman I know found a note tucked into his newspaper one morning last week. It was an introduction from his new delivery person.

That’s nice. “But I think spell check completely changed the meaning of what he was trying to say.”

The note promised that the carrier would strive to deliver the paper in a timely manner. At least that’s what my friend assumes it was supposed to say.

Instead, it declared an intention to get the paper to the subscriber’s doorstep in “timely manure.”

My friend knows a set-up line when he sees one.

“If I wanted timely manure I would read some of the letters to the editor.”

A little while after our initial conversation, my friend called back. He was concerned that printing this story might get the carrier in hot water. He did not want that.

So I’m leaving my friend’s name out of this.

But I assured him that he need not worry. If we fired everyone at this company who misspelled a word, a lot of us would be out of a job.

Today’s Slice question: How would things be different if the Founding Fathers had been Founding Mothers?

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