Wigglin' our Wieners in the Snow

 I was 14 and impatient, tired of hanging around a rural Iowa cemetery. All I could think was how much longer we would be standing in the cold wind waiting for the funeral people to finish with the old man's grave. My mother's family were early settlers of Iowa. Now we lived about 1500 miles away but made road trips ever so often when somebody died and Mom felt an obligation to attend the funeral and visit her relatives.

 The run-down old cemetery was located on land that our ancestors had farmed since the early 1800's. There was no town anywhere near the farm and and nothing but an unimproved rocky lane ending at the cemetery. The farmhouse collapsed years ago. Its ruins were about two city blocks from the graveyard. There had once been barns and other outbuildings on the property, but they had all fallen into piles of rotten lumber.
 
  A number of "cousins" hung around with the adults. Girls, boys, little toddlers of various sizes, even another boy possibly somewhere near my age. While I was thinking about getting in the car and starting the heater, a small guy who I would guess to be in second grade told his mother that he needed to go to the bathroom. The adults said there was an outhouse, but it had apparently decayed like the other structures. The little guy hopped around complaining "Gotta GO! Gotta GO!"

 My mother, always ready to do a good deed, instructed me, "Marty, walk Weldon behind the house so he can have a little privacy." The bigger boy, Donnie, said he would go along. I soon figured out that Weldon and Donnie were brothers and that there was a degree of friction between the eight-year-old and the twelve-year-old.

 We trudged through the snow and went behind the remains of the house where nobody could see us. All three of us pulled down our zippers and defiled the white snow with yellow scribbles. Being normal boys Donnie and I took sneaky glances at how each other was hung, although not much length poked out of anybody's fly due to the winter chill. Then, just when I figured the good deed was finished and we ought to start back to the cemetery, little Weldon piped up and told his brother that he believed my "wiener" was bigger than Donnie's. Donnie pretended he hadn't heard and despite Weldon's requests for a re-match between Donnie and me to settle the size question, we packed our peckers back into our zippers.


While that was going on Weldon gave his big brother a poke and asked, "Aren't you going to wiggle your wiener while we're alone? I'll be your look-out.


" Donnie yelled at his brother to hush, pointing to me and telling his brother that this wasn't a good time.

 Little Weldon didn't give up so easy. He turned to me and asked if I knew how to wiggle my wiener. I gave him sort of an evasive answer, which he took as Yes.

 Little Bro then told Donnie that he would act as look-out for both of us so we could wiggle our wieners together. "Just like you and Andy," he finished. I had no idea who "Andy" was, but that told me a little more about Donnie.

 While Donnie and I looked at each other Weldon went into cheer-leader mode, encouraging us to go on and get 'em out for a good wiggle.

The smaller dude then turned to me and said "You first. Get it on out. Donnie will if you will."

 We stood up against the old framework, trying to get out of the wind and settling into a somewhat hurried but definitely productive "wiggle." I'd been on the road with Mom for three days or more, so my system appreciated the unexpected opportunity .

 As you can imagine, we were longer getting back to the cemetery than we should have been. I was sure Weldon would tell the whole story, how the two big boys had wiggled their wieners while he stood guard, how we played with each other's things, and how both wieners had shot nice squirts of stuff into the snow. But the kid kept his mouth shut.

 I have never run into either of those guys again, not at a funeral, not at a reunion. But I have laughed a thousand laughs since then. As the brothers grew older Little Weldon would soon realize that what he knew about Donnie's "wiener-wiggling" habit was valuable information with which he could blackmail his big brother anytime he wanted to. The younger guy would have the upper hand for years to come.

Martin Davis