Ryan The Hurricane Hunter

by Cletus Cowpie


Well siree and mamiree and all you fine folk reading this here letter, we had us a plum fine time at the 2009 Capernaum Discipleship Camp at Rockbridge.

Just take a look at that there photo and you can maybe get a taste of the beautiful people that were there. Over 400 able and disabled God-made folks all together in one place, with enough love to bout fill up the Good Year Blimp and one a them aircraft carriers bigger'n a small city. They was all just finer than Caroliner and better lookin' than movie stars and rock stars as play up in front of folks just to make them happier than pigs in a mud hole.

By the end of the week our speakers, Mr. Chris Buda (he ain't that happy fat Chinese feller you heard about though he is pretty happy and well he might be a big feller too) and Mr. Ty Saltzgiver (he ain't nearly as big as the Buda cept maybe fer his heart and I have no idea why he likes to give away salt), why they had everyone convinced that we was all God's favorite. One at a time. No matter how messed up or caught up or how good lookin or ugly we was or if we could walk or not or talk or not or really when you come right on down to it God don't care what we can or can't do cause he's the one who canned us, if you follow my meaning.

Now how exactly do you suppose God can make each and every one of us his most very favorite child? Sounds pretty complicated but I reckon old God can handle it just fine. Shoot, last I checked he INVENTED complicated, which makes it pretty simple for him, right?

So there we was on Tuesday night, Day Four and a whole lot more. We was all outside havin' fun on the basketball court whilst them leaders was inside not havin' so much fun doin all that big brain stuff while we got to do the big heart stuff outside. Dear Lord, thankee kindly fer makin' me smart with my heart and a tad slow with my head. Cause that way I gets to be outside with my Capernaum friends.

We had us a regular three ring circus that night, we did. Ben and Kirk and my cousin John was all there standing high in the sky on that pagoda contraption, jabberin' away like jay birds on moonshine. To their left was basketball and slam dunk contests. To their right was wheelchair soccer or really more like Wheelchair Rugby on account them pretty people was usin' their hands and heads and wheelchairs in addition to their legs and feet. Cheatin' is all part of Capernaum games, which really just means everythin' is fair, long as you don't hurt no one.

And then there was Smack Down 2009. Oh howdy doo and Lord save us, please pass the chair!

Smack Down is basically wrestlin' fer boys and girls. They all wear helmets and are shown how to do it proper so they can't hurt themselves...... much. Now you take an average able-bodied kid and let him wrestle and it ain't all that. But you take a kid with disabilities and it sure IS all that and a whole lot more, I'm here to tell you. Many had never been allowed to do it their entire lives, especially the ones with physical disabilities. For them Smack Down was just something for others, never for them. Just a dream that would never come true.

But lucky for them, that ain't the way Young Life Capernaum rolls. Capernaum is all about makin' dreams come true.

After quite a few matches, with bodies flyin' every which a way, one young feller came up and said, "I'd like to wrestle that Hurricane! I'll tear him up!" Now Hurricane was a kinda dried up wrestler that kept threatening to take over Gary's Show during Club, and all the Capernaum fellas did not like that idea and a bunch of 'em wanted to bust that boy upside the head or maybe even worst. And that's why that boy wanted to wrestle Mr. Hurricane outside in front of the entire camp so as he could teach old Hurricane a lesson about why you don't mess with our friends Gary and Kenny.

So Ben and Kirk and John said, "Hmmm, that there is a fine idea, it is." So they called up Hurricane himself on the radio and asked if he would come on down and wrestle and he said, "Oh yes I will," along with some insults and such that I can't rightly share in this here story. That boy got some issues.

So by and by Hurricane came storming on over, makin' insults and such. And some of them boys right near about attacked that boy and here's the thing. That there Hurricane was right scared a some of them boys, and if I'm lyin' I'm dyin.' He looked scared when our boys chest bumped him and shouted insults at HIM. But then he got his composure screwed back on and broke through the crowd and set to hollerin' and carryin' on in the ring and we 'bout had us a riot. It was Panda Modium, or Grizzly Modium or one a them modiums, cause Hurricane bout got himself kilt. And he ain't even Scottish.

Then John announced that Hurricane was gonna have to wrestle Mr. Ryan the Redeemer and the place went kinda crazy. Cause Ryan is the dude in the wheelchair you can see with the circle round him. He ain't all that to look at, kinda got scrawny little legs that don't do him much good and not too much go power in his engine. But here's the thing, that boy can swing his arms and he's got the gumption and get up and go of a man twice Hurricane's size. His heart's got enough go power to out power any Hurricane and he knew it, did young Mr. Ryan. Soon as he was called out to wrestle the 'Cane, Ryan started waving and pumping his bean pole arms and the rest is history for the books.

Course to be fair, Hurricane didn't know his doom right then and just laughed as Ben Hourigan and Ben Mortensen lifted Ryan up out of his chair and over to the ring. Fact is Hurricane kept on slingin' garbage about how he was gonna tear old Ryan down to size and send him back to his Momma, put him back in his wheelchair and stuff like that. Poor old Hurricane did not know what old God had in store for him, to teach him a lesson and bring him down to size.

Pretty soon the bell rang and Hurricane went down in a wrestler's crouch. But not Ryan, oh no. He had his pretty boys, the two Bens, carry him right over and he WHACKED the tar out of Hurricane just as sure as a logger fells a tree. That boy ripped Hurricane's mustache and helmet right off his punkin' head and he fell backwards in a faint. Then Ryan finished him off with a flyin' body slam and before you could say, "Skip to my Lou my darlin'," the Hurricane was pinned and he was the one in pain.

He limped off the court pretty fast as we took the WWE championship belt made of gold and put it on Ryan's skinny little body and his two boys held him up and spun him around like God's favorite whilst the crowd about died and went to heaven and maybe it WAS heaven come right down to earth, cause didn't Jesus say, "the kingdom of heaven is at hand?". If only you'd been there you'd a seen it fer yourself, just as plain as day and honest injun true, cause everybody knows them Native Americans is right honest people, now ain't they?

So Ryan from Baltimore got to wear the golden belt and Hurricane, well sir. We ain't positive what happened to that boy. Last I heard he was gonna take up cat herding up in Wyoming. And we wish him luck too. As for Ryan, good on ya boy! Ya done tamed a Hurricane, and that ain't easy, son.

This is Cletus Cowpie sayin' so long. Snip snap snout, this tale's told out!