Front Porch: Of Bands, Explosions, and Cattle Auctions—Laughter with Jay Schryer

[Photo courtesy Ciamabue]

As you all know, I host a weekend series here at Jane Be Nimble called Front Porch with a focus on people’s stories (spanning comedy to tragedy)—to steep us in the human experience. Many of life’s best stories are told on front porches, in break rooms, and in back yards; that’s what Front Porch is all about.

The people on my Front Porch aren’t necessarily bloggers—anyone can be featured on the Front Porch. If you want to join me on the Front Porch, drop me a line (Contact Me) and let’s talk! Read the introductory post about this series here. Make sure you don’t miss the next installment of Front Porch—sign up for the free issue delivered via RSS or email.

Today, it’s my honor to welcome a dear friend to my Front Porch, Jay Schryer. Jay also runs a rocking blog, Porsidan. Go there and subscribe, right now. I’m serious. Just do it. I promise you’ll love him and his blog immediately.

Three things that I really love about Jay:

1. His writing prowess (read this)
2. His huge heart (read his guest post)
3. His stories (read this)

Also, here’s a fair warning that I’m a bit over in length today—I usually try to keep  my  posts under 1,000 words and I’m a bit over today. You may want to come back when you have more time to laugh out loud and partake of this special time with Jay.

It’s time to plop down on the porch swing with Jay and me, sway back and forth, and sink into the rhythm of the music that flows from Master Jay.

Jay started swinging…

…and tapping a rhythm with his fingers on the porch swing—head nodding to the beat—as I poured us a tall glasses of good ‘ole southern-style sweet tea (just like he likes it). During mid-afternoon on a warm, sunny autumn day, a couple of interested ravens hung out on a nearby tree. It’s really true—everyone likes Jay, even the birds.

If you know Jay, you know that his soul is deeply rooted in music.

Big time.

In fact, he has used music lyrics to rescue me from very gloomy days from my uninvited guest, Ms. MS. When I mention to Jay how much I appreciate his ability to infuse music into his social interactions—to brighten people’s moods, he brings up this story…

Glam Jay!

“One time, when I was playing in a band…

…this one girl was having a bad night. (The girls were our biggest fans!) So to cheer her up, we let her put make-up on us and we practiced like we were a glam band. That story was funny when it happened, but I think it would work better if I shared a picture…”

Let me stop you there. Hey, no thanks, Jay, really, you might want to keep that one to yourself. (ha ha ha)

But, speaking of that, were these girls your groupies? Or were they people you already knew or were friends with?

“The girl having the bad night was a very close friend of mine. Almost like my baby sister. I had been friends with her older brother, and when he died (my junior year in high school), I looked after her like she was my own sister. Her older sister is my very best friend in the world. This was when I was in the band, so after high school but before my daughter, Kyrie, was born, so I was maybe 19 or 20 years old.”

“All of the guys in the band really liked her, mainly because she liked us, and liked to hang out and listen to us play. So when she had the bad night, we all felt bad for her, and wanted to cheer her up. I can’t remember what had happened now…maybe her boyfriend had broken up with her or something. She was seven years younger than me, so barely a teenager when this all happened.”

OK, I just have to ask, did you use her makeup or yours?

“Ha ha ha ha…good one, we used her makeup (goofball!).”

Speaking of me being goofball (you pretty much got that right, Jay!), you mentioned to me recently you did something really goofy in high school once, something about a tire and scaring the crap out of your buddies? Lay that one on me, Jay.

“Oh yeah, that’s right. The tire story!”

“At my high school graduation party, we built a fire out in the woods—we were far, far out in the woods, all by ourselves. It was burning low, and so I got the bright idea to put my spare tire from my car on it.”

Bright idea???

“It exploded.”

“This scared the crap out of all of us!”

“And it temporarily deafened all of us, which scared us even more. We didn’t hear ringing, just all the sounds were severely muffled.”

Ha ha ha ha! You know, Jay, when I was about eight-years old one summer on the farm, my brother soldered together a make-shift gun in the shop, put a firecracker in it, pointed it at me, and lit it.

That sucker blew like crazy and my left ear started ringing—this awful a high-pitched hiss—and I couldn’t hear out of it for a week. Never mind the fact that it singed off a huge patch of my hair! My brothers were jerks when we were kids! But, I sure have a lot of funny stories about the goofy stuff we did.

Back to your story, what happened after the explosion and you realized you couldn’t hear very well?

“We decided to go to sleep after that… even we felt like we had had too much to drink after that!”

Nice, Jay, why do I have a feeling that you were just trying to get attention? I mean, c’mon, throwing a tire on a fire??? What a goofball (but effin funny, I might add!!!). Did you have pay-attention-to-me issues from growing up? I know I sure did, being the youngest of us four kids.

“Well, this doesn’t affect me now as a grown-up, the attention thing, but my older brother, Michael, who is eight years older than me, tended to ignore me. Well, that and taunt me. He was significantly taller than me, and much more athletic, so he could climb trees easily, and roofs, and other places that I couldn’t.”

“So one of his favorite games was to take some acorns, climb a tree, and then pelt me with them as I walked underneath. Another thing he liked to do was to hit the back of my head, and then run away, since I couldn’t catch him. He also liked to take my books and toys and things and hide them up in trees or on the roof so I couldn’t get them.”

(I’m laughing my ass off…!)

Young Jay - Awww!

“When I was about seven or eight years old, I went to the cattle auction with my dad…”

“It dawned on me that this (meaning the cattle auction) was how our farm made money.”

“We had cows, and the cows had babies. We kept some of the babies, and sold the rest to make money. We sold the cows we didn’t want….we sold the cows we didn’t want….we sold…what…we…didn’t want…hmmm. A light bulb went off: Hey Dad! Can we sell Michael?”

“Still, Michael wasn’t all bad. He taught me how to fish, how to hunt, and a lot about wilderness survival. Once when I was 4 or 5, I fell through some ice on our lake, and he fished me out and ran me back up to the house. He also saved me from a fire-ant bed one time.”

And that, my friends, is the common element uniting bands, explosions, and cattle auctions—the talented and hilarious Jay Schryer!

Thanks for joining us on the Front Porch, everyone! Stick around, pour yourself a glass of love, and join the conversation in the comments.

What’s the funniest or most shocking thing you did as a kid or a teenager?

Create a great day!

[bon fire photo credit, Photo of Glam Jay & Young Jay courtesy Jay Schryer]

Previous Front Porch Posts:
Front Porch – The Series
Front Porch – Tim’s Story (With Tim Piotrowski)
Front Porch – Pearl’s Wisdom (A conversation with Lori’s first pet)
Front Porch – An F22 Jet and a Costa Rican Chica (With Lisis Blackston)
Front Porch – George and the Power of the Human Spirit (With George Angus)

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