(from my forthcoming book: Cactus Pete Tells Tall Tales)

Every summer we have to clean out the barn and the hay loft. We have to scrape all the old hay out of the top, and help Uncle Mudwink put new boards in to fix the rotten ones. Then we have to stack up hay for winter but we don’t have cows so we sell it. And every summer we end up in a war with wast nests. Guinea wasts, hornets, dirt daubers and bees of every kind. They all sting and they hurt. I hate them a lot.

I like to call them wasts but Mamaw says that is not the right way to say it. She says its wasps, (was-puh with a p) but I will say wasts forever I think. Some of the older folks say wawsts, and I even heard some of the little kids say they are wast-ezz. City people and old people can say what they want, my words taste better when I say them to fit my mouth and tongue. Wasts wasts wasts. See?

Mamaw don’t like to use poison spray on any of “God’s feeble creatures” so we end up using long fishing poles to knock them down out of their nests. When we knock down the wast nests, it usually involves a lot of running and Uncle Mudwink cusses a lot. We hardly ever get stung but my favorite part is raiding the nests for fish bait.

Baby larva wasts make good bream bait. For dang sure they do. I go fishing every evening after we knock down a nest. That’s the best time because the larva is fresh and we usually catch a long string of them. “When breams is bitin’” says Uncle Muddy, “they will hit a stick or even your shadow.” He is right about that too.

Uncle Muddy swears to God he can scoop a fish up just with his hat but I think he is lying. We never saw him do that. I tried to scoop one up with my hat but my head was just wet later. That felt good in August too. So maybe Uncle Muddy knows something we don’t. By the way if you ever get hit by a wast or dirt dauber you won’t think they are feeble at all!