A Rude Awakening

A Rude Awakening

From what everyone, including my father, tell me Dad was a pistol growing up.  He seemingly was scared of nothing, and loved a practical joke.  This story takes place when he was about thirteen.

In rural Kentucky, during the early fifties, funerals at home weren't uncommon.  At this time home air-conditioning was unheard of.  Funerals were held quickly and in the summer all of the windows were left open, for obvious reasons.

During this time an elderly gentleman passed and his family held the service at home.  The box was placed next to a window, with flowers surrounding it.

Before the service started the Dad and a friend ducked outside, waiting for the funeral to progress.  Many of the local people stood up to give eulogies to the kindness and love of the fallen gentleman, who they claimed was always good to everyone.

The eulogies and the short sermon ended.  The prayers for the old man began.  This is what the boys had waited for.  As the prayers were said the boys went to work. 

The deceased gentleman suffered from a severe curvature of the spine.  In order for him to fit into the coffin, a leather strap had been used to hold him down.  The boys reached through the window, with their knives, and went to work on the strap.  They were making good time, when the prayers came to an end.  They quickly ducked down, mad that they had been unable to finish.

The boys went back into the home for the final moments of the service, hoping no one would notice that the straps had been bothered.  As the pall bearers were called to come forward and pick up the box, there was a loud SNAP.

All eyes turned to the coffin as the old man, slowly sat up in his box.  There was a shocked silence, followed by screams.  Suddenly everyone wanted to be somewhere else.

No matter how good that old man was alive, no one wanted to be with him now.  They ran through doors and dived through windows.  Everyone moving as quickly as possible.  The way Dad tells it, some are probably running still. 

I still laugh whenever I remember him telling that story.  I like fiction, but the best stories are the true ones.