The coming of Autumn usually reminds me of one of the great military conflicts in history– the Great Battle of Brewer’s Cornfield.  No, neither Washington or Lee ever performed the amazing feat that two eleven-year-old boys did that fateful day in 1967.  Just behind the Sims house in Ashland stood a half-acre of corn owned by Thurmon Brewer– yes, the same Mr. Brewer that my blog readers met in a previous post (see “Speaking in Cursive,” May 2,2016).

The time was mid-November and the corn stalks were already brown and dry, waving in the fall wind like zombies arranged in neat death rows.  It didn’t take long for eleven-year-old imaginations to see the field as an entire legion of cruel Roman soldiers, marching shoulder to shoulder with plans to crush the women and children crouched within the walls of Fort Sims.  The only thing standing between the Legion of Death and victory was an alliance of two brave boys– Mark Sims and Walt Hill— protectors of all things good and decent.

My friend Walt and I armed ourselves with sticks and shielded ourselves with metal garbage can lids as we took on the dreaded Roman legion.  For at least an hour we battled the corn stalks one by one, chopping them down with ferocious blows, beheading them as we advanced.  (It was really a lot of work to wipe out a half-acre of hostile cornstalks, but our vivid imaginations made it well worth the effort.)  Even during the midst of the carnage we would say things to each other like,

“Hey Walt,  pretend like I’m about to be speared to death by this Roman guy, and at the last second I throw my sword at him and it goes right into his heart, and he falls over dead with his spear sticking into the ground right by my face.”

“Ok.  Cool.  And pretend like I see you over there about to be killed, and I have to chop down three Romans to get to you, and I slice each one of them in two with just one blow.”

“Yeah, that’s good.  And pretend like when you get here, you think I’m dead, but I’m just praying with my eyes closed, and you start crying and screaming saying, ‘No, no, not my friend Mark!’ and then you are so full of rage that you get up and start slaughtering even more Romans.”

“That’s really cool.  And pretend that I suddenly get superhuman strength from God and drop my sword on the ground, and start breaking their necks with karate chops.  And then suddenly I see you get up, and you aren’t dead after all, and I am even more juiced up to fight.”

“Yeah, and then pretend that I pick up your sword, and start killing them with both swords….”

It was about then that I heard Walt scream bloody murder.  It wasn’t imagination any more, it was for real.  He stood there holding both hands over his right eye.

“Oh God, Oh God, Oh God, Oh God, Oh God, ” he kept saying in rapid succession.

“What happened, Walt? I asked in a panic. Are you bleeding?”  (That’s always what you ask to determine the seriousness of an injury.)

Walt had skillfully karate-chopped a cornstalk that slammed the ground, and then bungeed right back up to smack him upside the face– where a sliver of corn shuck found a home in the corner of his right eye socket.

Absolute chaos ensued, but somehow I helped him get across the barbed wire fence, and led him back to my house where Mom was starting supper.  She flipped out at first but dutifully pulled things together, herded us into the car, and headed for the Ashland Clinic.  Walt’s mom met us there, and the remainder of the evening was rather routine.  It hadn’t actually damaged his eyeball, but it did leave him with a nasty black eye to show off at school the next morning.

We made up at least five stories that next day to our schoolmates about how it happened.  Then, finally Walt just admitted,

“I picked a fight with a cornstalk, and he hit me back.” 

I feel sorry for guys who’s imaginations cannot go beyond a programmed video game on a flat screen.  For sure the video animation is incredible, and the manual dexterity it requires to move one’s fingers  so quickly is remarkable.

But the real three-dimensional experience of defeating an army of cornstalks in the company of a best buddy is beyond comparison.  I wouldn’t trade my memory of the Great Battle of Brewer’s Cornfield for anything in the world.

Thanks Walt.  You deserve the Purple Heart.  

“One who has unreliable friends soon comes to ruin, but there is a friend who sticks closer than a brother.”   Proverbs 18:24