THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Monday, November 28, 1994 TAG: 9411250394
SECTION: DAILY BREAK PAGE: E1 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Column
SOURCE: Larry Maddry
LENGTH: Medium: 82 lines
``WOOF!. . . woof!. . . woof!
Excuse me, I have been working on my maleness.
You can lose your maleness faster than your eyeglasses if you don't practice.
``WOOF! . . . WOOF! . . . WOOF!''
Not bad, huh? If you think that sounded great, you should have been at the male bonding session of the Dull Men's Club last week.
Yep, we rode out in Bernie Weems' station wagon to a patch of woods he owns in Chesapeake and woofed and chanted our brains out.
The male bonding session was Bernie's idea. When we got to the woods, Bernie handed out squares of potato sacking fitted with string to wear for loincloths. We all tossed our street clothes and underwear into the back of the station wagon and tied on loin cloths. Next thing you know, we were all sitting cross-legged in a pine straw clearing in the middle of the woods with our Alpha Male in the center.
Oh, I forgot to tell you that Bernie is our Alpha Male. He's like the leader of the woof pack.
Bernie held up a book called ``Finding the Male Inside.'' He said it would be a guidebook taking us back through our consciousness to the place where we had either lost our ``psychic spears'' or had damaged them so badly they would be red-tagged for a scratch-and-dent sale.
``Now are there any questions?'' he asked, looking over the circle of guys in loin cloths.
Fred Fluette raised his hand. Fred wanted to know ``What is it that has a green head, yellow eyes, antennae and is shorter than a grass blade?''
Bernie didn't know. Fred said the reason he had asked was because something like that had just crawled under his loin cloth and scared the hell out of him.
``Shape up, Fred!'' Bernie barked. ``Do you think that cave men worried about bugs and caterpillars and stuff?. No way.''
Fred pouted. He said he would never have come along if he'd known insects were going to crawl up his butt. He said he hoped
Bernie would hurry up with what he had to say so we could go home.
We did a series of wolf woofs. Then Bernie showed us the bongo drum he'd brought along for chants. He said the chants would raise our psychic spears from the lagoon of our subconsciousness.
Bernie led us in the chant, beating the drum with his fingers:
`` Oom Bah! . . . Oom Bah! . . . Oom Bah!''
Then he told Archie to sit in the middle, where Bernie had been standing, and lead the chant. Archie weighs about 200 pounds, so he lowered himself real slow with the drum cradled in his loin cloth and bounced right up again, rubbing his behind.
``What's wrong?'' Bernie asked.
``I just sat on a pine cone,'' Archie said, brushing tears of pain from his eyes. Archie said that if Bernie would give him the keys to the station wagon, he'd like to go back to it.
``No. You both have to tough it out,'' Bernie said. Archie said in that case, he'd like to have his copy of that book ``Finding the Male Inside.''
``You can read it later,'' Bernie growled.
``I don't want to read it,'' Archie replied. ``I want to sit on it. These pine cones are murder!''
We did the Om bah! chant about 20 times. On the 41st version, Winston Woolsey stood up complaining that he had a cramp in his leg.
That was the last straw for Bernie. He said we were never going to get in touch with our maleness the way things were going. Archie was seated cross-legged on the ground next to Winston, who was bent over his loin cloth, massaging the cramp from his leg. He told Bernie he was probably right, ``but I'm closer to Winston's maleness than I like to get. Can't you get him to move around or something?''
Bernie was so angry he canceled the naked dip in the pond behind his cabin. He drove us all home without speaking a word, teeth clinched, gripping the steering wheel so hard the whites of his knuckles showed.
Everybody phoned Bernie later to apologize. I told him a couple of us would like to do another search for our maleness in the woods next Thursday if that was OK.
But Bernie couldn't make it. Said that was the day his wife makes him do the laundry. by CNB