Sunday, Jun. 14, 2009

Machetes aren't just for bad guys: A slice of life in the backyard

The first time I ever saw a machete was in a Tarzan movie. Not one of those with Ron Ely or Christopher Lambert as the ape man. No, sir, it was Johnny Weissmuller. THE Tarzan.

Johnny didn't need a machete. He could slip through the thick jungle like a comb through Brylcreem. But the bad guys he was chasing always used a machete to hack down weeds and brush -- and the occasional deadly python.

It was a big knife with a thick, long blade, usually with a little curve in it.

It was nothing Tarzan couldn't handle when the bad guys tried to use it on him. He'd wrestle it away from them, fling it far into the jungle and kangaroo-kick them into submission.

For a guy who didn't get using verbs or wearing shirts, he was really clever.

But machetes aren't just for bad guys.

Pop must have seen those movies, too, because he got hold of a machete. An electrical lineman, he kept it on the back of his big red truck to hack through weeds and brush when he had to climb a telephone pole way out in the country.

Pop's machete got a lot of hard use. Every once in a while, he brought it home to sharpen on a grindstone he hooked up to an old washing machine motor. Standing far back, I watched the sparks fly as Pop got his edge back. I rounded up the neighborhood kids so they could watch the fireworks, too.

Somewhere along the line, the wooden handle cracked. So, Pop pulled a role of slick, black electrical tape out of his pocket and wrapped it tightly around the handle.

Pop was big on electrical tape. The cracked handle of the Nelson Fox baseball bat I found in the trash at the VFW, got two small nails and the electrical tape wrap. Good as new.

So was the machete.

They must have issued Pop a new machete because he brought the taped one home. He hung it on a nail in the garage and took it out whenever we went fishing at Shoal Creek.

We never fished close to the road. ("Cars scare fish," Pop said, and I believed him.) With me hanging back a ways, Pop would hack a path to just the right spot on the bank. I even saw him take a swing at a snake that crossed his path once. He missed.

"When Pop got too old to wield the machete, he gave it to me. I keep it on a shelf in the garage. The blade of the 21 1/4 -inch long machete is rusty and dull. The handle looks pretty chewed up but the electrical tape still keeps it together.

Every spring, I use it to cut down mulberry tree branches that sprout up around the chain-link fence in my backyard.

Half-inch thick branches are no match for the machete. And, I must confess, it feels good to wield it. (Guys, especially those who like power tools, know the feeling.)

Well, last Saturday was branch-cutting day 2009. I took my trusty machete and -- hack, hack, hack -- the job was done in no time.

I thought about Pop. And fireworks. And fishing.

When I went inside, my wife was on the phone to the cable company. The Internet, the phones and the cable TV were all out.

Hours later, the cable guy came.

"Looks like somebody cut through the cable," he said, placing two short lengths of orange-covered wire on the kitchen table.

Oops.

It could have been a deadly python.