Wood, Would, Chucks, and Woodchucks — Stream of Consciousness Saturday

How much wood could a woodchuck chuck if a woodchuck could chuck wood.

That was the first thing I thought of when I saw the “wood/would” prompt for today’s Stream of Consciousness Saturday from Linda Hill.

I’ve always wondered WTH that tongue twister means — what is “chuck wood.” When I was a kid, I always thought of woodchucks as beavers, gnawing away. Sorta like coal miners, but in the forest. With wood. Well, so many not like coal miners at all.

I also had a image of woodchucks hurling wood through the air. A woodland version of the Scottish kaber toss. 

Chuck Taylors. Old school cool. I love my two pairs of Chucks I have — one high-end navy blue pair and the other a suede gray. Both low cut because I don’t like that feel of high tops around my ankles. I regret, to this day, not buying the pair of Chucks with Batman on one and the Joker on the other. They. Were. Awesome. C’est la vie.

My first, and still favorite, pair of Chucks was a green suede pair I bought in college. I wore them for at least four years. I finally had to get rid of them because I could smell my feet from the ground. This was not a good thing. As an aside, my then girlfriend owned a pair of shoes that smelled exactly — I shit you not — like stale popcorn. I believe we rid ourselves of our respective footwear as a mutual gift to the other.

Would that I could find another pair. I really did love those shoes.

Woodchuck cider is, after Strongbow, the second cider I ever tasted. I think it was one of the first ciders on the market here in the US. I still like it. Prefer Strongbow. The first time I ever went to England in the summer of 1990 for a study abroad program I was 19 and didn’t really drink a lot (I drink more now than I did in college, go figure. Though, my weed consumption was waaaay higher then given the cost/benefit analysis I did my freshman year — case of beer, shitty beer at that, was about 10 bucks and would last a weekend or maybe a week but a bag of weed could be stretched for a good couple of months. Excepting the cost of Cheetos, it just made financial sense. Anyway.).

So, I recall being in a pub and ordering a Coke on reflex.

It arrived.

Slightly cool.

One lonely ice cube rapidly melting.

In about a 10 ounce glass.

For just over a pound.

Refills?!?! Hahahahaha, stupid American.

What. The. Fuck.

I quickly noticed cider. 1 pint. 85 pence.

Any country where it’s cheaper to drink booze than Cokes and the like is good by me.

And, that’s my time.

One last thing, would that our country hadn’t lost it’s mind and elected this malignant failure of a businessman who cares only about himself as president of this I-hope-we’re-great-at-the-end-of-his-un-American-bullshit-and-obvious-corruption-country. If I were a religious man, I would pray.

I might anyway.