At Fort Benning, my off-duty time did not always consist of hanging out with friends and merely drinking and clubbing. Sometimes, hanging out with my friends meant driving around exploring the city of Columbus. We would usually do this on nice sunny weekend afternoons. For example, if we were in Columbus for a Saturday night concert at the Civic Auditorium, we would go early and cruise around town exploring the sites. One area of town that we always like to visit was the Historic District of Columbus, which coincidentally is also listed in the National Register. The Historic District of Columbus consisted of a 26-block area of historic homes, many old brick buildings, and cobblestone brick streets. I especially liked driving on the cobblestone brick streets because that was my first experience driving on that type of street structure. I had seen cobblestone streets in movies, but I had never experienced such streets first hand until I drove the cobblestone streets of Columbus. I have since been on other cobblestone brick streets in other cities. But the cobblestone brick streets of Columbus were the first that I experienced. Another reason I liked to cruise the Historic District of Columbus was because the National Civil War Naval Museum was located in that area. The National Civil War naval museum housed a unique Confederate Naval Museum, which was interesting to visit. Cruising around on cobblestone streets on warm summer days had its benefits. But it was not without disadvantages. Especially if you tended to use 2-60 air-conditioning or 4-60 air-conditioning. You may ask, what is 2-60 or 4-60 air-conditioning? It is simply this: two windows rolled down and driving 60 miles an hour or four windows rolled down and driving 60 miles an hour. The point being that the cooling is provided by a combination of the number of windows rolled down and the speed of the car. So, what is the natural tendency of a person when a window is rolled down? Besides doing stupid things like pretending their arms can fly and dipping their hands up and down in the breeze. Not what I was thinking. Not for throwing trash out the window either. Also, not what I was thinking. Not for spitting in the wind. Besides being a really stupid idea, it’s just not what I was thinking. Ready to give up? Okay. Here it is. The natural tendency of most guys is to hang their arms out the window at a 45-degree angle. Why? Probably because they grew up watching their folks do it before cars had air-conditioning. Just a guess, but that’s where I learned it. Anyway, why is that a perceived disadvantage? Well, suppose, and this is pure speculation, that a bird (say a pigeon or 10 or 12) is flying overhead. Now, further suppose said bird or pigeon decides to take a shit the exact same moment that your car passes beneath said bird or pigeon or flock of pigeons. Now, let’s extend that supposition a little bit further. Why not? What the hell? It can’t hurt. The worst that can happen is that some shit splatters when it hits the wrong place and it stinks really bad. That’s probably the worst that can happen. So, now that we have painted the picture all nice and rosy like. Let’s finish the supposition. Now, suppose that there are four hapless soldiers riding in said conveyance that happens beneath said flock of shitting pigeons when they open their bomb bays and shit away. Further suppose that all four hapless soldiers happen to have their arms extended from the windows of said moving conveyance out of the open windows at a 45-degree angle. Finally, suppose that those shitting pigeons manage to nail all four of those exposed arms exactly in the crooks of the bent elbows when they shit. What are the odds? Could such a thing ever be repeated? Would the Las Vegas oddsmakers even take such a bet? We will never know because the Guinness book of records was not on hand to record the event. However, as I am living and breathing, I swear to you that such an event did occur because I was one of those hapless soldiers. And the funny thing is, those sorry ass bastard pigeons didn’t just manage to do it once. Oh no. That we could have written off as pure dumb rotten luck or bad luck. But twice in one day. No. Twice in one day is bad pigeon karma. It’s as if those pigeons had it in for us. But why? The thing is, only two of us in the car were technically Yankees. The other two were decidedly Rebels. One of the Rebels was from Phoenix City, Alabama. The other Rebel was from Macon, Georgia. So, you can’t say it was a case of Rebel pigeons shitting on Yankee soldiers. Although, the stupid dumbass pigeons may have thought that. But those damn pigeons were deadly accurate. Even if they couldn’t pick their enemy correctly. At least their asses sure as hell had no problem picking an enemy. Those pigeons could fly fast and shit straight. Sorry bastards. I don’t want you to think that the pigeons flew over and shit on us, then circled around and shit on us again. That ain’t the way it happened. What happened was that they shit on us. Just us mind you. The bastard’s didn’t hit the car. Then, they flew off into the wild blue yonder. We stopped at a public park and cleaned up. We also took a few minutes to drink a few cool beverages out of the cooler in the trunk. Then, we got back in the car and took off. We had been driving for 10 minutes when we ran into the flock of shitting pigeons again. I’m pretty damn sure it was the same flock of shitting pigeons. I’m also pretty damn sure that those sorry ass pigeons recognized our car. I thought I overheard one of them say to the others, “Check it out. It’s the same black car that we shit on before. Let’s get them, boys.” I tried to tell my buddies to pull their arms in from out of the windows quickly. But I was too late. The flying bombardier’s had already dropped their load. The shit had fallen. And they had nailed every damn one of us. Every damn one of us got shit on a second time. Sonofabitch. What were the odds? I told my buddy Bob to just drive to the park and we would hang out there for the rest of the afternoon. And that was how shitting pigeons managed to change a fine Saturday afternoon into just another shitty exercise in futility.
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