My wife sometimes tells me she thinks my lack of anger is strange, but the way I figure it, there is more to life than being mad. I can even take a bad situation and find humor and happiness in it.

I’ve been that way since childhood. All through my school days I don’t recall anybody ever wanting to fight with me and I really cannot recall anyone being mad or upset at me for anything. That’s just the way I am.

My happiness has gotten me into a lot of trouble, however…if I got caught. Being a happy and humorous guy made me the class clown. I always felt it was my duty to make people laugh even at the risk of getting myself into trouble. I was always the guy in the forefront of a new daring idea and for some reason, people followed along.

My physical size made people seem to want to protect me. I was a skinny little runt as a kid in school simply because I was younger than most of my peers. I started school at the age of 5 when most were already 6. My antics, however, did cause my teachers to keep an eye on me, but I have a hunch that even some of them are laughing to themselves about some of the things I did in school.

I was always the first to jump into the mud puddle to get my feet wet. I always was the first one to pick up a stick and start a sword fight with someone. I was always the one who was daring enough to bring my very own fart machine to school and cause it to sound off during class.

Eraser fights when the teacher was out of the classroom were a pleasure. Hollering at cars as they traveled down the road and then running when they started to stop thinking somebody was dying in the ditch was a great joy. Picking, teasing and just aggravating my siblings was my pastime. I never did things to people that were meant to be harmful, but I just enjoyed the happy-go-lucky devilment of living just on the edge of staying out of trouble. Prankster, jokester, bull corn and just plain ol’ happy were my titles and I still proudly wear them to this day. I have just re-proven myself even as a middle-aged man nearer to 60 than to 50 years of age.

Yesterday, I was minding my own business in my backyard working on a gate. My back yard is fully enclosed with a wooden fence. As I was doing my own thing behind my own fence in my own yard someone who is my current main source of aggravation came out the door and started barking at me. His name is Copper. Copper is my brother and sister- in-law’s dog. Copper is one dog that I really, really love to harass.

For some reason over the years I have been able to make Copper bark simply my raising my hands into the air. The dog can be a hundred yards away from me, and if I raise my hands into the air, Copper will start barking at me. As we have both aged Copper has gotten more cantankerous and recently gotten so mad at me that he ran up behind me and bit my pants leg. I can’t be upset ’cause it’s all my own fault. I still think it’s funny and I still continue to harass Copper.

Well, yesterday my sister-in-law let Copper into their backyard from the house and Copper heard me milling around near the fence and began to bark. Bark, bark, bark, bark…this went on for about a minute. I peered through the cracks in the fence and I could tell the dog did not really know exactly where I was in the backyard, so I decided to give him something to bark about. I barked back!

I learned a great barking technique in high school. I would stand behind the curtain in math class and make animal noises simply to make one of my teachers think she was hearing things. I became a pretty good cow and chicken imitator and barking is something I have perfected over time, too.

Copper and I started this big barking ruckus in our backyard and suddenly, my sister-in-law stepped out her back door with a scowl on her face. She scanned her backyard and she immediately looked down at Copper and said roughly, “What in the world are you barking at?” like the dog was in big trouble for barking at nothing.

When I saw the scowl on her face as I peered through the crack of the fence I let out a very punctuated and perfect, big dog bark. She made a slight tensed movement and commented back to her own dog and said, “Oh…there must be a big dog out here, come on Copper, get back in this house!”

I was about to bust a gut with laughter! I was soooo proud of myself because I had not only harassed the dog, but now my own sister-in-law fell for my perfected dog barking act! I was so amused!

Next time you hear a dog bark, a chicken cluck or a cow moo, you better make sure Clifford’s not hiding behind the fence!

Clifford

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