Those Crazy Humpy-Mouth Days

Being born in a rural area with little excitement might have had a lot to do with my friends and I being entertained with things that others might find trivial and other things that might seem odd.

Swinging on an aged willow branch over a stagnant pool of water was one our favorites because we all hoped that the next one to give it a try would have the branch break and they would plummett face first into the stagnant water. That only happened one time when I was at the willow tree and the victim it claimed was me. It was embarrassing, but it also entertained the others and I liked that.

Another of our entertainments was hunting birds and rats with bb guns and pellett pistols.

But I suppose the most curious of our fascinations came when we ran across dogs who did “that crazy, funny thing” that male dogs do. We would see them at various times and sometimes they came around to where we were and they would almost always make some attempt to humpy-dance our legs.

We had no idea why they did that because we were completely clueless that the world of sex even existed. It wasn’t as if that world was invisibile to us; it was more that we had absolutely no awareness of it whatsoever. It might as well have been in a different universe. So when the dogs did their humpy thing, we just thought it was funny and weird and crazy and entertaining and amusing.

Usually, someone in our group would be daring enough to let one of them mount their leg and humpy-dance at least for awhile. That person was like a mini hero for being bold enough to volunteer so that all of us could laugh. We found it funny because the male dogs were so easy to dupe into such a thing. I can’t remember a single time when one of those humpy dogs didn’t mount a leg that was offered. We also were humored by the vigor and froth with which they did their thing and because their eyes became more and more hazy the longer they went.

I was particularly fascinated with it. I didn’t know why, but I always wanted to see it and I always encouraged someone in our group to offer their leg. If none did, I felt almost compelled to put my leg out there. But I seemed different from the others when I did it because while the others only did it for a brief time, I let the dog do it til he was through, which never took very long. At first that made me a hero for daring to go so long and also because I was the first to come away with “sticky leg”, an event that became a premier marvel and wonderment for us for days.

I enjoyed the recognition of my daring and how it seemed to set me apart from the others, but after a while, I began to hear comments that I was weird or strange because I did it more than all of the others put together. To them, I seemed less normal than before and I must admit, I seemed that way to myself as well. I couldn’t understand why I loved doing it so much. If no one was around, I would do it over and over again. I found it humorous because of how rabid the dogs seemed as they went at it and I found it amazing how eager they were to do it and I found it crazy how their eyes hazed over when they did it like they were in a distant world. And–over all–it just was endlessly amusing to me.

But, I didn’t want to be labelled a weirdo or thought of as a not-normal person. I wanted to keep my friends and fit in with them and have things go back to the way they were before. So, I stopped doing it when they were around. Instead, I waited until I was alone and then I went to one of the few haunts the dogs tended to inhabit. I usually found them across the culvert behind the turn-of-the-century boot store on Old Cannon Road. I would sneak around the building and slip through holes in the wire fence and go down into the culvert, up the other side, and into the wooded brush. It wasn’t the only place to find those humpy dogs, but it was the most common place.

The area was concealed enough that I could do what I wanted without the fear of being seen. I could do it as often as I wanted and as much as I wanted. I was free to just be amused and not have others judge me. I could indulge and over-indulge and not feel like an outcast.

I went there often, sometimes 4-5 times a week and I always came away so fascinated. Why did they do that humpy thing? Why were they so eager? Why did they do it like rabid animals? I had no idea what motivated them but in a small rural area with not much else to do, it had surely become my favorite thing.

It was common for me to have four dogs at once and some often did it more than one time. I recall a time when I had seven which I think was the most ever at one time. I was especially fascinated when I tried two at a time, one on each leg, and my head shook and my face smiled big with how crazy it all seemed. Two of them humping my legs like satanic whirling dervishes. After those seven, I left feeling a little guilty but not because of letting them hump my leg because that was just fun and games. Rather, guilt came when I estimated how many times I had done it with those seven dogs, because some went more than one time.