Our attorney lives on a small farm near here, and was doing some mowing
yesterday. As Bill returned home, he passed under the low limbs of a holly
tree and the roof of the partial cab of his tractor scooped off a swarm
(which he had not seen) from its branches, dropping the cluster directly onto
him and the hood of the tractor.

    He was stung about a hundred times on the face and arms. It could have
been a real horror story, but Bill kept his wits about him. He lost his
glasses, but got the tractor stopped and ran to his home, where his wife beat
him with a towel to remove clinging bees. He then took 50 mg of benadryl. All
the way to the hospital he was removing stingers.

    He said his head and shoulders were completely covered by the bees, and
he was impressed at how heavy they were. It's unusual to have a swarm this
late in the season, let along a big swarm.

    At the hospital, the emergency room was jammed up (holiday weekend), and
he had to wait quite a while for attention. After waiting quite awhile, he
was feeling better, so he came back home, took some more benadryl and went to
bed. This morning, he went to church. The Lord was good to him.

    This man is extraordinarily intelligent and gifted, but the thing that
impresses me even more is the way he handled this. I know some folks that
would be ready to exterminate every bee in the universe, after such an
incident. He has just accepted it as a freak accident, and lets it go at that.

    I told a tale on him at a meeting awhile back. I told how I had dreamed
that I died and went to the pearly gates. St. Peter was sitting there in a
folding chair, reading a newspaper.  He didn't even put the paper down, just
tilted it a bit so he could see me, and said, "Hi Dave. Come on in."

    Well I suppose I was glad about that, but the casualness kind of
irritated me, and I stood there, thinking this over. Suddenly St. Peter
jumped up and ran off. And a bunch of angels, in choir robes, with hymnals,
appeared and began to assemble. St. Peter came back with a long red carpet
and unrolled it. More angels joined up and began to play a fanfare with
trumpets. The angels began to sing, and, to my amazement, up the red carpet
comes Bill.

    After Bill had been welcomed like royalty and had gone on in, I was still
standing there, as St. Peter came back to his folding chair. I told him I
wasn't very happy about being almost ignored, while Bill got such a grand
reception.

    He put his hand on my shoulder and looked me into the eye. He said. "I'm
sorry, if it offended you, but face the facts. You've got to realize that
guys like you are a dime-a-dozen. But this is the first lawyer we've ever had
here!"

[log in to unmask]     Dave Green  Hemingway, SC  USA
The Pollination Scene:  http://users.aol.com/pollinator/polpage1.html
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