I already told y’all about Shady who lives with us. He might as well be my real baby brother, since he is about the closest thing I will ever get to one, that is. He has a real strange imagination, and anything can set him off on another adventure, for real!

I try to guide him a little bit, but he still goes off and does some silly, and fun things (at least in his eyes). I try hard to keep him out of the weeds, but he kind of does his own thing, at least when it comes to imagining stuff to stay busy playing with.

The other day he was doing the funniest thing I ever saw. He was playing out by the side of the road, dressed in an old blue coat, with his favorite hat on. That’s his small stovepipe hat he got once at a thrift store for a quarter, and he would wear it all the time if Mamaw would let him. When he wears it he looks like a miniature circus performer.

Anyway, he was right at the edge of the driveway, with a colander in one hand, and Mamaw’s broken hair dryer in the other. He also had a little flip notebook and a pencil. He would stand out there in the driveway with the hat on, and suddenly he would set his hat on the ground, put the colander on his head, and aim that busted hair dryer (Uncle Muddy cut the cord off for him) at a passing car. Then he would write something down in the notebook, and run around in a circle hollering “whoo whoo whoo” for a minute.

I will admit he looked mighty strange, because once he got done running around, he would drop the colander, and put the stovepipe hat back on, and start aiming the hair dryer all over again. All the while he was talking to somebody we could not see. He did this for about an hour until Mamaw looked out the kitchen window and saw him.

She hollered to me standing in the doorway from the kitchen, “Pete, come here a minute and look what that silly child is carrying on with at the end of the driveway.” I answered her “Yes ma’am” and came over to the kitchen window. “Look out yonder, what in the blue blaze heaven’s glory is that little one a-doing, running around in circles with a colander on his head? And what’s that in his hand?” I replied, “I don’t know what he is up to Mamaw, let me go ask him.”

So I ran out to ask him, talked to him for a few minutes and let him explain, then I ran back up the driveway into the house to tell Mamaw what he said.

“Mamaw, this is exactly what he told me. He is playing Robot Detective Cop; he is clocking speeding cars that go by with that busted hair dryer Uncle Muddy gave him, and writing down a quick description of what each car is. He catches them speeding, then he runs around in circles pretending to be a cop car. That colander is his robot helmet, and his normal hat is when he becomes the detective.” that’s what I told Mamaw.

“I follow what he is on about, I reckon.” said Mamaw.

I went on, “When he puts his normal hat back on that is him being the detective back at the station, getting his information from the robot, so they can tell who keeps speeding. The robot has special cameras that can see X-ray through the car, if somebody is a bona-fide criminal too.”

Mamaw let out a big laugh and told me to run back out and tell him, “When you through with all them cop a-goings on, you need to come in and wash up for lunch. Let the robot stay outside, he don’t get hungry but I know that detective feller is probably grumbling in his belly for some cornbread and peas and pork chops.” She walked off laughing hard, and muttering to herself, “Boy the things them children get up to, Lord Jaysus have mercy, have mercy!”

I thought it was the funniest thing ever. The last time he did something like this, he got a shovel and threw a bunch of dirt on himself, and held a pine cone over his head, pretending to be a pine tree. He wanted me to do it, but I said “No way Jack.”

I did get him some branches and a few sticks to surround him with though. Mamaw told him that time “You better pack that dirt back in that hole, or somebody might twist an ankle. We don’t need anymore armadillo holes on this land boy. And we don’t need no Shady-sized varmint holes to fall in neither!”