Atrazine – now I know I got the right one

In case some of you are not aware what Atrazine is, you can check out this link – http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atrazine. Basically it will kill nearly any type of plant for a long time. Normally this stuff is diluted with large amounts of water before being sprayed on the field. Dad must have had it sitting by the garage either about to use it or it was what was left over from the last season of farming. Now what happened next is something that I never let Dad forget.

CJ was probably 6 at the time which would make me 4. CJ dumped the atrazine out at the top of the side yard. There was also a spring towards the top of the hill so the water carried the herbicide all the way down. It was probably 10 years before you could get the grass to grow there 100%.

Needless to say when Dad found out he was pissed and someone was going to get the belt. CJ and all of his personal sense of responsibility immediately pointed the finger at me. Of course I denied it because I had in fact not been involved at all. This back and forth was not something that Dad tolerated, especially not when he was pissed off.

To this day I remember getting a few licks from the belt in the hallway because CJ was blaming me. I would bring this up to Dad several times a year to make sure he knew he was wrong and maybe, just maybe, he should have spent a little more time investigating and he would have found out that it was CJ. When this story was brought up even 20 years later, he knew he was very much over the top, but his comeback would always be, “Well, that ass whipping was for one of those other times you got away with something.”

Ok, I cannot argue with that; there were plenty of things I would most certainly have gotten the belt for but was able to hide it.

Shawn