Brother’s prank at city board meeting: Got me again

My brother Rupert Howell and Panolian sales representative Amy Geiger addressed Batesville’s mayor and aldermen Tuesday, requesting the city’s purchase of advertisement in the upcoming Batesville Magazine, scheduled for publication in late fall.

The mayor and aldermen quickly agreed. City officials as well local businesses and institutions recognize the value of the good public relations that comes from having an attractive, colorful venue in which to tell the story of Batesville and Panola County.

“This is not like the newspaper,” Rupert told the city officials. “We don’t have to report bad news in this, this is a feel-good thing, we can report fun features, we just try to make it as positive as we can.”

As Amy and Rupert ended their presentation, Rupert generously passed business cards to the city officials seated around the table, stating with curious exaggeration as he handed out each one: “If you have any problems, just call me, here’s my card.”

He had nearly finished handing them out when the mayor noticed, “This is John’s card!”

My brother got me again.

Afterwards Amy told me, “You should put that in the story.”

What Amy did not know is that, that is the story, going back to our childhood and growing up on Eureka Street. Born four years before Rupert, I was an obnoxious oaf of an older brother, using my size and age advantage to bully and pick on him, making him unhappy and he, in turn, making our mother unhappy and eventually coming to a reckoning at the evening meal as our family sat around the supper table with our dad.

Mother would warn me, “One of these days he’s going to get bigger and pay you back.”

Rupert didn’t wait that long. Instead of waiting to grow to size and weight that would put us on more equal footing for some distant future reckoning involving body blows, he soon discovered that he could take advantage of my oafishness. And so he began playing pranks on me that have continued over more than five decades. A lifetime of payback.

One of the early pranks now retold to grandchildren centers on a spoon that then resided in our mother’s kitchen drawer. With rounded bowls on each end — one large and one small — it was used for cutting melon balls. Naturally, we called it the watermelon spoon, and whenever we ate watermelon, it was a special privilege to be able to eat the melon with that spoon, carving out melon balls large and small.

The watermelon spoon would almost never be remembered until we were seated at the table and the melon was served. Then there would be a footrace — normal tableside decorum having been thrust aside in spite of the vigorous objections of our parents — to the kitchen drawer where it was kept. If I couldn’t outrace Rupert to the drawer, I could usually push him aside if he reached it ahead of me.

Then came another day when melon was served at supper. Rupert, probably not more than six years old, and I were seated across the table from each other. (The seating arrangement was fixed and purposed. In the interest of family peace weren’t allowed to sit together.)

Ever so slyly — in the same tone of voice I’m sure that I heard again on Tuesday as Rupert was handing out my business cards to the aldermen — he mentioned the watermelon spoon. Maybe he said, “What about the watermelon spoon?” or, “Who’s going to get the watermelon spoon?”

For me it was like the starting gun at a foot race. I jumped from my chair, knocking it over with much commotion, streaked into the kitchen and yanked open the utensil drawer. While I pawed through spatulas, forks and other cooking utensils, searching unsuccessfully for that watermelon spoon I heard laughter coming from the around the table I’d left. When I looked back, I saw that Rupert had never joined that foot race.

Instead, he sat in his seat holding the watermelon spoon in his hand and wearing a grin on his face.