Live Oak Blues What happens.

I put the boat in the water yesterday, a suitable paddle down part of the Lower Withlacoochee decked wall-to-wall with houses, docks, motor boats, and those blackfaced fishing statues I didn’t even know they made anymore. To get in the water, I had to pull my boat through a healthy forest of poison ivy, which still scares me even though I haven’t had poison ivy since I was 18. I guess the reason I haven’t had it since 18 was that I got it so bad at 18.

That summer, I was attending the Orientation at my college and did what folks did there during Orientation: get rip-roaring drunk at the local bar. I didn’t need a way back to the dorm, because at JMU the railroad tracks led conveniently from the bar to all relevant campus ports of call. All you had to do was walk the tracks and remember when to stop walking the tracks, which in places were banked by 10-foot cliffs. For whatever beer-addled reason, I decided that scaling these cliffs would be a cool idea–and, hey, how about these cool vines I can pull myself up with!

This ain't me, babe. Mine was much worse.

The vines were, of course, poison ivy, which I didn’t realize until the next morning when I was red all over (and I do mean all over). By the time I got in the car to drive back to Virginia Beach, I was slathered in Lanacane (useless), with all four windows down, and crying, yes, crying. The sight I greeted my family with was enough to make my mother scream (picture the head of Conan O’Brien at 100psi). It was in my eyes, ears, down my throat, throughout my crotch, and all points in between. Later that day I was horrified to discover that my little brother had been bringing all his friends over to “look” at me (cue the line everyone knows from Elephant Man, a profane version of which I actually said).

A couple of cortizone shots and too many days later, I recovered, never to be so cursed again. I’d also like to say this was the last alcohol-related bad decision I made, but too many of the folks reading this know that just wasn’t true. So kids, “Leaflets three, let it be. Berries white, poisonous sight!”