Harold and Dr. Wetbrain play darts for drinks…. a lot. Usually when the useless cards are soaking wet with booze and always in Harold’s back yard, early in the morning. 7:15 am and the sun just started to lap up most of the hidden darkness of the summer morning.
Three empty bottles of cheap wine were lying on the crisp, morning dew which blanketed the un-mowed lawn. Half-closed dandelion blooms strewed everywhere.
The dart board is made from a 20-inch-thick, carefully chain-sawed old pine log. Throughout out summer as the pine slab got dry in the heat, the inner age rings started to crack. After some time, the old drunk cracks (Harold and Wetbrain) started using the aged wooden cracks as a scoring grid. Playing darts on this wooden slab worked out great. Harold and the doctor once used the back side of this pine slab. Unfortunately, Billy came over one day. The mooching little punk from next door came over to bum beer and practice his axe throwing skills.
Throwing his axe onto our carefully dried dart board. With deep gashes everywhere on the board, except in the middle, Billy wrecked one side of our precious dart board rendering it useless.
Once again, Billy was banned from Harold’s yard.
Now Harold and Dr. Wetbrain use the other (un-slashed) side of the dart board.
Harold kept losing at darts and taking his respective drinks. The doctor just kept taking drinks. Because he is…. Dr. Wetbrain, and he hates winning all the time. To him, winning at any drinking game is…. losing. “You don’t get to drink!”, he would yell out to anyone listening. Sometimes nobody was there.
Dr. Wetbrain pulled another bottle of wine out of the ice filled, galvanized wash tub. Filled both of their glasses and sat back down onto his old lawn chair. Eyes half-shut, the doctor looks at Harold who is sitting on his rickety wooden lawn chair next to him.
“You know, Harold?”, Doctor begins to speak.
Ten minutes later.
“You know, Harold?”, Dr. Wetbrain decided to continue.
“Darts started somewhere like (pauses) medieval times. During the time of kings, knights and Robin Hood. When these knights in tights became teachers of archery to their young soldiers, they would shorten some arrows and have the students throw them at the bottom of an empty wine barrel. Apparently, the soldiers took their shortened arrows with them to the local pub to show off their new skills. Also, to have fun with the newly found drinking game to be played with all the friends and wenches found at this pub. Serious darts never came into view until the end of the 1800s.”
“Harold…. did you know?”
“Harold?”
In the 60s and 70s technology was very limited. Cellphone!? What the hell is that?! For communication in those days, we only had one house rotary dial phone with a short cord and at least 5 other households on the same party line. If your neighbor was on their phone you had to wait until they were60s and 70s tv shows, done to use yours. It was a guessing game. Each time you pick up the receiver to see if the phone line is open, you mostly hear, “Line busy!”
