This week’s prompt for Mindlovemosery’s Menagerie First Line Friday is:
They congregated up in the hills, far away from judging eyes.
They congregated up in the hills, far away from judging eyes.
Who could blame them? Had the narrow-minded townsfolk gotten wind of what those boys (who are now men) were up to, well, they probably would have ended up in a mental health facility. Or at least grounded.
It all started with Show & Tell Day in the third grade. One of their classmates, a cute girl named Farrah, (not Fawcett) brought her Suzy Homemaker ironing board and iron.
The girls in the class appeared perplexed over Farrah’s demonstration, while most of the boys yawned and kept glancing at the clock. The three boys who didn’t yawn are the heroes of this story.
Gary, Don and Jim were intrigued. Of course they’d seen their mothers iron, but certainly not like Farrah. Not even close. Farrah’s innovative technique was to prop the ironing board against the wall and iron vertically rather than the usual horizontal way. It was a little dangerous, for sure, but that was the attraction.
The boys made plans for the coming weekend: Gary would swipe his dad’s generator while Don offered to dig out his mother’s old ironing board from the basement. Jim promised to bring an iron and some old rags on which to practice.
Early that Saturday morning, the trio met at McTucker Hill which no one frequented since it was rumored to be haunted. They started out slow, taking turns ironing against tree trunks and boulders. As the weeks passed and they became more adept, the boys tried more dangerous ironing positions: hanging upside down from tree limbs, ironing in a pond on an inflatable raft, and one time (and one time only) on the roof of a decrepit outhouse.
Today, some 40 years later, Gary, Don and Jim are still into Extreme Ironing (EI), which has become one of the latest danger sports. According to the Extreme Ironing Bureau it “…combines the thrills of an extreme outdoor activity with the satisfaction of a well-pressed shirt.”
Wow, huh?
Ergo, the Ogre 
Tell it like it is