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Clipped from a publication and sent in by Floyd Viers, for dedication to the boys of Pocahontas County
Published Thursday, November 16, 1950
After a male has grown out of long dresses and triangles, and has acquired pants, freckles and so much dirt that relatives don’t care to kiss it between meals, it becomes a boy.
A boy is Nature’s answer to the false belief that there is no such thing as perpetual motion. A boy can run like a deer, swim like a fish, climb like a squirrel, balk like a mule, bellow like a bull, eat like a pig, or act like a jackass, according to climatic conditions.
The world is so full of boys that it’s impossible to touch off a fire cracker, strike up a band, or pitch a ball without collecting a thousand of them. Boys are not ornamental; they’re useful. If it were not for boys, the newspaper would go undelivered and a hundred thousand picture shows would go bankrupt.
The boy is a natural spectator; he watches parades, fires, fights, football games, automobiles and planes with equal fervor. However, he will not watch a clock.
A boy is a piece of skin stretched over an appetite. However, he eats only when he’s awake. Boys imitate their dads in spite of all efforts to teach them good manners.
Boys are very durable.
A boy, if not washed too often and if kept in a cool, quiet place after each accident, will survive broken bones, hornets nests, swimming holes and five helpings of pie.
Boys love to trade things. They’ll trade fish hooks, marbles, broken knives and snakes for anything that is priceless or worthless.
When he grows up, he’ll trade puppy love, energy, warts, bashfulness and a cast-iron stomach for a bay window, pride, ambition, pretense and a bald head and will immediately begin to say that “boys aren’t what they used to be in the good old days.”
