There are no written reports of Mr. Etheredge’s efforts to gain a Darwin Award. These stories are factual, as witnessed by numerous family members. They are not in chronological order, but are listed according to the intensity of Mr. Etheredge’s efforts to gain this prestigious award.

Though he denied it to his grave, Mr. Etheredge was a bigot. The language is Mr. Etheredge’s. Please forgive me for printing it. He would extol his un-bigot-ness to any and all; yet when given the opportunity to do so would loudly declare that he wasn’t about to sit down at the dinner table with no damn nigger. Mr. Etheredge pulled numerous stunts like the following which could have gotten him killed. This one illustrates better than most Mr. Etheredge’s belief that his truth was the only truth. He was in the meat market business several times. He packed his chickens in crushed ice. This added weight to the chickens and made him more profit. A customer of a different race came in and asked for a chicken. Mr. Etheredge weighed one. The customer wanted a larger one. Mr. Etheredge took the chicken back to his ice cabinet and found that that was his last chicken. He packed more ice into the body cavity and weighed it. The customer then stated that they wanted to purchase both chickens. Mr. Etheredge told the customer that they were too damned hard to please and to get their black ass out of his store. Some would have killed him for that.

Mr. Etheredge was in the cattle business. This avenue gave him numerous opportunities to get his reward (I mean award). A few of his many efforts follow: Mr. Etheredge was attempting to make his horse do things a horse isn’t designed to do. The horse fell on him, injuring him severely. He carried the results of these injuries the rest of his life but, alas no award.

Mr. Etheredge would feed his cattle by driving his truck, pulling his hay laden trailer, into the pasture. He would put his truck into low gear, jump out with the truck while moving, attempt to get upon the trailer, and unload the trailer while the rig was moving slowly across the pasture. Twice, some family members recall three times, he miss-stepped and fell. The trailer ran over him each time, with no permanent injuries and thus no award.

Mr. Etheredge had an orphaned calf that he planned to donate to a worthy cause (one that would garner him a future favor yet to be collected—he did not forget a favor given and he always expected a favor in return). His grandson was going to tie the calf onto the truck bed. Mr. Etheredge would not allow this and placed the baby bull in the cab of his truck. He drove off toward town with his truck windows down. After getting his truck up to speed the young bull calf decided to vacate the truck. In Mr. Etheredge’s efforts to prevent the animal from leaving the truck, he forgot to watch where the truck was going. The truck stopped abruptly when it hit a telephone pole, totaling the truck but no appreciable damage to man or beast. No award this time.

Perhaps I need to pause at this point and state the Mr. Etheredge had a wealthy family relative who tended to keep him in trucks.

Mr. Etheredge frequently could be found hitching truck to trailer. This would suggest that he should have been an expert at this procedure. During one of these efforts (on a hill) he walked between truck and trailer at which time the truck rolled back pinning him firmly between the two. As luck would have it, his son-in-law just happened to come to the farm, and discovered Mr. Etheredge in his predicament. The son-in-law started to climb into the truck to drive it forward freeing Mr. Etheredge. Remember that it was always Mr. Etheredge’s way or the highway. He did not trust his son-in-law to put the truck into the correct gear, forward instead of reverse; with a flurry of curse words he convinced the son-in-law to get a jack and jack the truck away from the trailer. The obedient son-in-law did as told and thus cheated God and Darwin. Not to much later on Mr. Etheredge put the truck into reverse instead of forward and again totaled his truck as it careened into a tree just short of the creek. The award was still just out of reach.

Mr. Etheredge liked to have well groomed property, usually with the efforts of a relative who owed him a favor. Not having a debtor readily available Mr. Etheredge decided to take down a very high large tree limb by himself. Now mind you he was well familiar with the cartoon. Yet he wanted the limb off very near the tree. His method was to place the ladder on his truck bed so it would reach the limb, and lean it against the tree. He tied a rope onto the tree limb. He intended to saw only part way through the tree limb and then pull the limb the rest of the way down with his truck. Misjudging the sharpness of his chain saw, he sawed all the way thru the limb. Surely there is no need to describe what happened next. By some fate he did not get Mr. Darwin’s award this time.

I will stop with this last story. I and other family members will attest to the validity of these stories. We certainly could go on.

Mr. Etheredge hated red wasps. He had moved his gas hot water heater out doors to allow room for a closet. It seemed to function just as well out doors as it did inside. While mowing his yard (he couldn’t locate a debtor) he was stung by wasps as he got near the hot water heater. He found the wasp nest behind the hot water heater. The only way to kill red wasps, according to Mr. Etheredge, without getting stung further is by showering them with gasoline thrown from a one half full coffee can. According to Mr. Etheredge’s personal account he did not know whether the gasoline, the resulting fire, or the sonic boom killed the wasps. Sans eyebrows, arm hair, and with singed head hair, he got rid of the wasps. As Mr. Etheredge’s luck ran, he did not need the fire department nor did he receive the coveted award.

God gave up at 96 years of age and took him home. Heaven help Him.

Submitted on 04/30/2010

Submitted by: Gerald P. Etheredge
Reference:

Copyright © 2010 DarwinAwards.com

Shadow said:
Definitely Keep: Personal Account
Personal account at its best, Thanks!

Candi said:
Definitely Keep: For Darwin's Eyes
I feel sorry for everyone he encountered...

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