PINCHIN' GRAPES
Posted: Fri Apr 22, 2011 8:01 pm
Reflecting on Dave's story about Tony the Wog.
I remember when I was about twelve or thirteen my mate and I planned on pinching a few bunches of grapes from the local saddlers trellis which acted as a shade area and carport behind his house.
What we had planned was to unbutton our shirts, then button them up again around a bunch of grapes each, cut the bunch from the vine with our 'pokkit nifes', and then cut another bunch or two each and then bolt.
I'd only just got my first bunch buttoned up when I thought I heard someone coming to the back door, and the old fellas terrier was going off his head in the back room.
In eagerness to cut myself loose and do my disappearing act, I panicked and dropped my pocket knife. When I bent down to retrieve it I was still part of the grapevine and couldn't reach my prized possession; so I decided to make a dash for it and forego my ownership of the best skinning knife I ever owned and make tracks for the front gate.
Needless to say, grape vines are pretty tough, and I was pretty scared, and pretty near tore down half the trellis as I made my escape around the corner of the house. At least ten or twelve feet of vine followed me as it strained against my body within my shirt until at last I went head over turkey as the grapes were squashed and withdrew from the front of my shirt.
I was a bit of a mess but managed to get out of sight without being caught. I'll bet the old saddler would have known it was me. I'd bought that knife from his shop only a few weeks earlier.
As for my mate, I never saw him again for the rest of that day.
He'd made it out over their back fence, tore the backside out of his pants and was hiding from his mother.
Joe
I remember when I was about twelve or thirteen my mate and I planned on pinching a few bunches of grapes from the local saddlers trellis which acted as a shade area and carport behind his house.
What we had planned was to unbutton our shirts, then button them up again around a bunch of grapes each, cut the bunch from the vine with our 'pokkit nifes', and then cut another bunch or two each and then bolt.
I'd only just got my first bunch buttoned up when I thought I heard someone coming to the back door, and the old fellas terrier was going off his head in the back room.
In eagerness to cut myself loose and do my disappearing act, I panicked and dropped my pocket knife. When I bent down to retrieve it I was still part of the grapevine and couldn't reach my prized possession; so I decided to make a dash for it and forego my ownership of the best skinning knife I ever owned and make tracks for the front gate.
Needless to say, grape vines are pretty tough, and I was pretty scared, and pretty near tore down half the trellis as I made my escape around the corner of the house. At least ten or twelve feet of vine followed me as it strained against my body within my shirt until at last I went head over turkey as the grapes were squashed and withdrew from the front of my shirt.
I was a bit of a mess but managed to get out of sight without being caught. I'll bet the old saddler would have known it was me. I'd bought that knife from his shop only a few weeks earlier.
As for my mate, I never saw him again for the rest of that day.
He'd made it out over their back fence, tore the backside out of his pants and was hiding from his mother.
Joe