Have you ever played King of th’ Mountain? Some call it King of th’ Hill, but my buddies and I called it King of th’ mountain. If you ask a kid that now-a-days, they won’t know what you’re talkin’ about. To play King of th’ Mountain you need a big pile of dirt. The object of the game is for you and your buddies to race up to the top of the pile of dirt and then, by any means possible, be the only one remainin’ at the top. Any means possible means, wrestling, fighting, thowin’ dirt clods, or any other thing you can think of. The reason I bring this up is that a buddy of mine told me about a great big pile of dirt he had seen when he was drivin’ through town the other day.

Well, my wife Janet and I were eatin’ supper the other night, and I remembered what my buddy said about that big pile of dirt.

“Hey,” I said to my wife Janet. “As soon as we get through here, I want to see somethin’.”

“What?” she asked.

“There’s somethin’ I want to see,” I answered. I knew if I told her it was a pile of dirt, she’d have some wisecrack.

Anywho, after supper we jumped into the jeep and took off. Man, my buddy was right. It was a pile of dirt; a great big pile of dirt.

“Wow!” I said. “Look at that pile of dirt. That’s nearly a mountain.”

“That’s what you wanted to see?” asked Janet.

“Yeah!” I said, “Ain’t it somethin’!”

“Oh it’s somethin’ all right,” she said sarcastically. “IT’S A PILE OF DIRT!”

“Yeah, but look at it. Ain’t it beautiful?”

“IT’S A PILE OF DIRT!”

“You just don’t get it, do you?

“No, I don’t get it,” she said. “Explain it to me.”

I looked at her, and shook my head. “Never mind; you wouldn’t understand anyway.”

When I looked at that pile of dirt the only thing I could think of was what a great game of King of th’ Mountain we could’ve played on that thing. I wanted to run up to the top right then. Of course, I would’ve never made it. Heck, I get winded just walkin’ up the two steps to get into my house. But back when I was a kid, I could’ve done it.

I remember once when Little Rusty had run up to my house to tell me about a pile of dirt he’d found. We were always lookin’ for piles of dirt to play King of th’ Mountain on, but most weren’t much bigger than a pitcher’s mound.  

“Man, I found a big pile of dirt,” said Little Rusty. “I done sent Wee Whoa to get Coy and Greg.”

“How big is it?” I asked.

“It’s as big as a house,” he replied.

“Awww, you’re lyin’.”

“No I ain’t. You’ll see.”

“Where is it?”

“On the other side of the woods, where they’re fixin’ to build all them new houses.”

About that time, Wee Whoa came runnin’ up. Wee Whoa was Little Rusty’s little brother. His real name was Randy Joe, but when he was little he tried to say his name and it came out Wee Whoa, so the nickname stuck. Little Rusty got his name because he was smaller than me and since we had the same first name, we called him Little Rusty, so we’d know the difference.

You could always tell when Wee Whoa was comin’ ‘cause you could smell his dog, Bones. Bones was the nastiest dog you’ve ever seen. He had never had a bath, but there was one thing you could say about Bones, he was loyal. Well, loyal to Wee Whoa.

“I told Coy and Greg,” said Wee Whoa. “They’s comin’.”

As soon as my cousin Coy and Greg Hunt arrived, we jumped on our bikes and headed out. Ridin’ a bike through the woods is not as hard as it sounds. Heck, we probably invented mountain bikin’ and didn’t even know it.  

It wasn’t long before we broke out of the woods, and there it was.  Little Rusty wasn’t lyin’. The pile of dirt was as big as a house.

“Wow!” we all said.

We dropped our bikes and ran the rest of the way. Why we didn’t ride the rest of the way, I couldn’t tell you. When you saw somethin’ cool, you always dropped your bike and ran to it. We didn’t stop runnin’ when we hit the mountain, we ran all the way to the top. It wasn’t easy runnin’ either. That dirt was soft and we sank up to our knees in a couple of places. But when we got to the top, we just stood there and look around.

“Wow,” said Little Rusty. “You can see for miles.” Which wasn’t really true because of all the trees, but you could see for a long ways. Then somebody yelled, “KING OF TH’ MOUNTAIN!” and the fightin’ began.

Greg Hunt was probably the best of our bunch at King of th’ Mountain, “cause he was built lower to the ground and stocky. He was also strong as a horse. So, the first thing we did was all jump on Greg ‘cause if he ended up on top first, it was goin’ to be hard to unseat him.

I hit him low. Coy, Little Rusty, and Wee Whoa hit him high, and down we all went. Then it was a mad scramble to get back to the top. Coy was in front of me, and I grabbed his T-shirt from the back and tried to pull my way past him.  The T-shirt ripped and I fell back and Coy fell forward face first into the dirt. I looked up and Wee Whoa had wrapped himself around Greg’s head and Greg was thrashin’ around tryin’ to get him off. I jumped up and headed for the top again, but Little Rusty beat me.

“KING OF TH’ MOUNTAIN!” yelled Little Rusty, but he didn’t reign long. I threw my shoulder into his stomach and down he went. Unfortunately, he grabbed my T-shirt and down I went with him. We cart wheeled all the way to the bottom.

“KING OF TH’ MOUNTAIN!” yelled Coy. Little Rusty picked up a dirt clod about the size of a base ball and chunked it at Coy.  

“IN COMIN’!” yelled Little Rusty. Coy turned to look just as the dirt clod hit him right between the eyes. Down the other side he went.  

“KIN OB DA MOUWTN!” yelled Greg. You couldn’t understand him ‘cause he still had Wee Whoa wrapped around his head. Finally he plucked Wee Whoa off. He raised him over his head and threw him down the mountain.  

Up until this time, Bones, the dog, was down at the bottom of the mountain watchin’ all of us. But when he saw Greg chunk Wee Whoa, he got mad. He growled, and like a rocket, he flew toward Greg. I was on the other side of the mountain and had almost made it to the top. Little Rusty was hot on my heels. I was goin’ to blind side Greg when I saw a brown furry streak hit him in the chest.  He fell back onto me. I fell back onto Little Rusty and we all rolled down the mountain. We went down hard, too.

“When I finally got my senses back, I looked around. Greg was layin’ spread eagle at the bottom and wasn’t movin’. Little Rusty looked like an ostrich with his head buried in the soft dirt. He had both hands on the ground beside his head tryin’ to pull it out. Coy was tryin’ to dig dirt out from under his eyelids. On top of the mountain sat Wee Whoa, and his dog Bones, grinnin’ from ear to ear. “KINGS OF TH’ MOUNTAIN!” he yelled proudly.

And they were.

 

 

All Rights reserved 3/13/05