"COLUMN ONE"
By Mary Mayo, Editor

A couple of interns at Hillcrest out patient clinic got a big laugh out of the midnight dog-chasing story told by two young Jenks gals last Saturday night.

Bet they'd flip their crew-cuts if they knew the story of what really happened, especially when it came time to write up a medical report for the scrutiny of their superiors.

What really happened and what the hospital records will never divulge, began when the two local lassies who, for the sake of sweet anonymity shall be called "Lili Mae" and "Petunia", successfully wheedled Lili Mae's parents into letting the two of them stay home by themselves while the parents spent Saturday night at the lake. Considering the fact the parents have known both of them for a great many years now and so are well aware of Petunia's aptness for forfeiting out and falling headlong into hair-raising escapades and Lili Mae's penchant for following without question, this was like engaging Disaster itself as their babysitter. But in the way of parents who like to trust young people and mindful of the two husky, alert watch dogs and the presence of Lili Mae's aunt who lives next door, they reluctantly agreed and left with the girls' promise not to leave the place, not to have friends in, not to keep the telephone tied up in case they tried to call home, etc.

"This is going to be wild!" the girls exulted. "We'll have hamburgers and French fries and fudge and there's plenty of Pepsi's, we'll play records and stay up all night!"

Time sped for awhile but by 11:30 everything but staying up all night had been crossed off their program and the cold, greasy hamburger skillet and the whole disheveled look of the kitchen added nothing to the hilarity of the occasion.

"What can we do now?" asked Petunia differently.

"Want some more fudge?" Lili Mae offered the spattered fudge kettle.

"I couldn't hold another whiff," Petunia replied with a grimace.

Suddenly the atmosphere was once again vibrant with excitement and potential activity. "Look there!" squeeked Petunia, pointing out the window toward a car feeling its way along the levee.

"Smoochers! Let's bushwack 'em!"

Just in the event you, also, have associating "bushwacking" with something that came in and went out with the Confederate Army, perhaps I should say ere that in modern, teen-age terminology, "bushwacking" now labels a form of spying more loathsome to local lovers than anything the lowest Yankee squealer ever did to a Reb. Because victims of a bushwacker are prone to look upon the sport with this feeling of open hostility it has taken on the ear-marks of a dangerous pastime and this is the thought Lili Mae now voiced.

"It's kind of dangerous" she demurred, "especially if there's more than one couple."

"We'll sneak around where they can't see us," argued Petunia. "We'll take weapons -- and the dogs!"

Ten minuites later, a slight ripple thorugh the weeds between Lili Mae's house and the levee marked the advance of the two girls, armed with a baseball bat and a hammer, two Border Collies and a six-week-old kitten with full-grown curiosity.

And ten minutes after that, Petunia and Lili Mae were fleeing back across the field in wild panic, the dogs nipping at their heels and barking joyfully at the unexpected race as another car's lights threatened to pluck them from the darkness so that their presence would be exposed to the couples in both cars.

"Cut over to the left!" panted Lili Mae. "It's closer that way!"

But it wasn't because Lili Mae had forgotten a short expanse of rusty barbed wire fencing, and her directions ran right to it.

Soon Lili Mae was running to no avail without even sensing the barbed wire gouging into her legs and thighs. The hammer had flown from her hands when she ran into the fence and landed on the ground to her right just as Penunia, in her habitual manner of falling head-long into hair raising escapades, plunged over the fence on her head.

A few minutes later Lili Mae and Petunia limped into Hillcrest Hospital with gashes and gouges, bruises and scratches, a cracked collar bone and a sprained wrist.

And, incidentally, with a vow to give "bushwacking" back to the Confederates.