You’re going to blow up what?!?!?

The answer: EVERYTHING! My dad, oh my dad, is a welder by trade. Pops and grandpa owned the local welding shop in our tiny little town. He worked on everything from weird off the wall art projects to combines for the neighbors corn field. They would often take most any form of payment (cash, trade, beer) just to help the locals. Yet another reason why I loved living in the country; everyone helped everyone and a mans word is a binding contract.
Well, in case you don’t know, one of the gasses needed for welding oxygen-acetylene. This gas is highly explosive and my dad took full advantage of it. Our Fourth of July festivities were usually heard 5-10 miles away. Pops liked to blow shit up just for kicks but the 4th was an excuse to get crazy. He would fill balloons with oxygen acetylene and tie a piece of LONG toilet paper to the end (fuses are far to fancy). We’d set that puppy on fire and run…fricken fast. The intense explosion that came forth rocked my chest and I’m pretty sure can be accredited for the damage to my right ear drum.
Of course, it didn’t stop there. Pops built a cannon. Yup, a cannon. This is one of the many toys/projects he welded at the above stated welding shop. He fashioned it just perfectly to stick in the ground and yet still allow the gas to fill the “cannon”. He’d shoot anything that would fit out of that thing, from crab apples to baby dolls. They’d go so high up, we’d never see them again. I liked to imagine my baby dolls were being shot to a little girl that had to go live in the sky. In reality I’m sure they were landing in neighbors yards and scaring the shit out of the dog.

I wouldn’t trade my childhood for anything. I was definitely raised unconventionally (I mean how many people can say they spent quality time with dad while standing around blowing shit up?) but I’m a better person for it.

Purple Chickens

As I was writing this blog, it occurred to me that I need to explain a bit about my dad before you can truly appreciate the gloriousness of his wisdom. My dad grew up very poor (as did we) and in turn became very resourceful and incredibly creative about it. His artistic mind is what kept my family sustained and laughing for my entire childhood.

I grew up on a tiny farm that was grown and maintained to feed only my family. We had a vegetable garden, small orchard and some animals. (The animals varied depending on what deal dad found. Yes, we had discount live stock. Blog post: “Tripod, the three legged cow” coming soon). No matter what we always seemed to have chickens.

They were our staple for eggs and meat. Therefore, keeping them healthy and alive was our main concern. So as you can imagine when one got hurt my dad was on top of getting it healed. Let me stop for a second to tell you a little known fact. Chickens are cannibalistic animals. Seriously! When they see another chicken that looks different for any reason, they peck at the spot until they have eventually eaten the chicken…alive. Horrifying isn’t it?!?!? This is how chicken glasses got invented. No, I’m not lying (see below picture) they really make tiny little glasses to go on chickens so they can’t see the blood. It’s close to one of the funniest fucking things I’ve ever seen.

When one of our chickens scraped its back trying to escape its version of Auschwitz, my dad had to heal the poor thing with good ol’ purple iodine. This stuff will stain your skin by looking at it but it works well for it’s intended purpose. (As long as that purpose is for healing farm life and entertaining the Jurdan family for one summer.) What dad didn’t realize is that chickens will still see that purple spot as different and peck at it. Unfortunately, (or not, depending on how you view the world) we couldn’t afford such a luxury as tiny little glasses for our cocks. So dad, in his creative wisdom, decided to “paint” the whole lot of them purple to fix the problem. I understand that quarantining this chicken would have probably made more sense but there is no fun in that. There’s no entertainment. So one summer day, I watched and helped my dad catch every last chicken and “paint” it purple. At the end of that day we had an entire mess of purple chickens. Close your eyes for a second and imagine a grown man and his children running after and painting chickens. Now, imagine driving by and seeing said chickens. You know you’d giggle.

This subsequently is how I learned to put a chicken to sleep. I’m no talking about killing them…I actually rock them to sleep. I believe I win the award for the oddest talent.
So next time you are driving past a family farm or eating a juicy chicken breast, I hope you appreciate the hard work and hilarity that went into raising your dinner.

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