December 23, 2003
SWEETGUM WARS
This is a picture of a sweetgum ball:
Reading Dax's reminescence of the Battle of Fort Alamo brought up old memories. Sweetgum memories. The one in the picture is green, as it should be, but its points are curling a bit. The proper sweetgum ball should be harvested fresh from the tree, firm and not yet ripe, like a Burmese prostitute good tomato. The spines will be like hypodermics. Now you are ready for war.
We called them sycamore balls as a kid. Why? Because we were ignorant little heathens, that's why. Regardless, they were the ultimate slingshot ammo. They were like MIRV multiple warhead projectiles, because they would skit across your face and leave 20 or so bleeding injection points, and a direct hit would leave five or six really deep punctures, with bruising welt.
The sweetgum ball and slingshot were the AK-47 of the day in my neighborhood. Ubiquitous and deadly. How did I learn this? Because I was younger than most of the boys in my neighborhood, and after the first impact on the back of my head by a 20MPH sweetgum sizzler I was, as they say, educated.
Not to worry. Sadism, like animal cruelty and masturbation, is a learned trait. I was soon passing the pain down to lesser folk. The only real problem was my old man's penchant for punishing anyone for involvement in an event including screaming, so I'd get it for infliction and receipt. To tell you the truth, though, after a sweetgum ball battle, an asswhipping was just an afterthought that toughened you up for the next Sweetgum War.