Couldn’t Hit Water if She Jumped Out of a Boat

     Your compiler’s college buddy, Earl, who grew up on a farm in east central Georgia, is one of the world’s great storytellers.  Earl’s tale of his aunt Macie and a rabid dog is among the most memorable your compiler has ever heard, and contained one of the best Southern phrases he’s ever come across.  Allow Earl to narrate the story:

       “Daddy’s sister Macie and her husband, Uncle Hap, lived in a house that sat perpendicular to Main Street on its east end, and which thus faced directly down the main drag through downtown Wrayton.   One day Daddy was in the hardware store on Main Street, not long after Uncle Hap had died, when a warning came about a rabid dog spotted wobbling through town.   Daddy grabbed up the phone and called Aint Macie to tell her what was happening and to warn her to stay inside.

      “Everybody was ducking for cover and trying to figure out where the benighted beast was, when somebody hollered out, ‘HIT THE G.D. DECK!  MISS MACIE’S STANDIN’ ON HER PORCH  WITH A RIFLE POINTED RIGHT DOWN THE G.D. MIDDLE OF MAIN STREET.’  About that time, the rabid dog staggered out from between a couple of buildings and stood trembling in front of the hardware store.  The men in the store were cracking the front door in order to try to get a clear shot at the dog without shattering plate glass windows, when the boom of a gun thundered down Main Street and the dog fell dead from a bullet that hit him between the eyes. 

      “The shot came from Aint Macie’s gun.  After seeing the dog drop, she lowered the weapon and stood surveying downtown with a satisfied look on her face.  All the men rushed up to her end of the street to congratulate and thank her for such a great shot, although every one of them – even my daddy, her own brother – would have thought before that day that Aunt Macie couldn’t have hit water if she’d jumped out of a boat.  I’m not sure anywhere else in the world has anybody, much less an eighty-some-year-old widow woman, fired a rifle down the length of a town’s main street, nor done so more effectively and heroically than Aunt Macie did that day with the rabid dog.  Uncle Hap would have been proud.”

      “Couldn’t have hit water if she’d jumped out of a boat” – what a wonderful, information-packed expression!  And how totally Southern it sounds – can you imagine anyone from Newark or Minneapolis saying it?

      Your compiler, as it happens, can apply it personally.   You see, in the spring of 1970, when he was finishing First Grade, he signed up with excitement to play Little League baseball. One hot, sunny day when he was manning center field, an opposing batter hit a high ball that got over the infield group, which your compiler ran to catch.   However, the sun’s angle and brightness kept him from seeing the ball, and rather than landing in his glove, it landed right in the middle of his face – which folks who know him well say explains a lot, both appearance-wise and intelligence-wise.

     The result of that face-smash (at least the only one he is willing to admit) was that from that day forward to this very minute, your compiler can’t catch when it comes to balls of any sort; he’s never been able to overcome that fear of the ball which was born that day in 1970.  And hit?   He couldn’t hit water if he jumped out of a boat.