These are the Daves I know, I know...

I have to take a moment here and acknowledge one of the great storytellers of our time that you’ve never heard of: Big-Dave Lewis. Now, I like to spin a yarn here and there as you know, but Big-Dave has years of experience on me. He’s my friends Josh and Jay’s father, and since the time that we’ve been old enough to drink (or maybe even "almost" old enough) we’ve gotten together around the kitchen table (site of many a Maritime party) drank beer mixed with tomato juice, and told stories. Whether it was Big-Dave’s use and abuse of dynamite when he worked for the phone company, or the girl of dubious repute in his hometown that they all called "Old Yeller," or even the "Winter of ‘39" when the Bay of Fundy froze solid (which of course was many years before he was born), Big-Dave’s stories have never failed to entertain me no matter how many times I’ve heard them.

Big-Dave recently retired after thirty some years of service as a school teacher, and we should all raise a glass in honour of that feat. Unfortunately, in my recent battles to check my hotmail account, I missed the invitation to write something to be read at his retirement party. It’s not quite the same, but I thought I’d pay this little tribute here on the blog. So Big Dave, whenever I get back to God’s country, have those beers chilled and the tomato juice ready (since you and I are the only fools that will drink it)(even if it makes your ankles swell). We’ve got some catchin’ up to do.

And here, as best as I can reproduce it, is my absolute favourite Big-Dave story:

"Back in the day, I had just started teaching at the old Deer Island School. I was doing noon-hour supervision, when this girl comes running up to me saying, "Oh Mr. Lewis! So and so’s written something terrible about me in the girls bathroom!" It didn’t seem like that big a deal to me, but the poor girl was almost in tears, so I cleared out the bathroom and went in with her to check. I didn’t see anything written on the walls so I asked her where this terrible slander was located. "It’s behind the stall," she sobbed. There was a small space between the last stall and the wall and apparently that was where I had to go. The thought crossed my mind that it was ridiculous to be checking graffiti that you had to crawl behind something to find, but I was already cramming myself in there. I was slimmer back then, but you know, I was still a big man, so it was a tight squeeze. I turned myself around in there, and had just spotted, "Laurie is a whore" written on the wall, when By Jeezus Boys, I felt a terrible burnin’ down below."

At this point I interrupted, "You felt what?"

"It was the most horrible burning sensation I’d ever experienced. It turns out I had wedged myself up against an old radiator and now I was scalding the bejeesus out of my hooty-pecker."

I almost choked on my beer, "Your what!"

"My ole hooty-pecker boys. The only thing between it and a chunk of cast-iron full of boiling water was the fabric of my pants. Of course, by this time, I’m hootin and hollerin, and just plain frantic to get the hell outta there. I manage to squeeze outta there, but now I’m in the girls bathroom, bent double and sobbing, and I gotta figure out how to tell my new boss that I gotta go home cause I burnt my hooty-pecker in the girls bathroom."

By this time, the rest of us were all losing it. I was wiping tears from my eyes. Big Dave, always one to see the line and cross right over it, finished off with: "But I’ll tell ya boys, it felt some good when the scab came off."


Here's to you big guy, take a break and relax a bit.