You can’t outrun a yellow jacket!

The first time I ever used a riding lawnmower, I ran over a yellow jacket nest!

Yellow jackets are wasps and fierce little things. They are easily maddened when disrupted from doing whatever it is they do in their underground nests.

They are social insects that live and work together in fairly large colonies; some having thousands of members in them. Piss off one and the band of brothers will come for you.

Their colonies reach their highest numbers in the late summer and it was such a day that we unfortunately encountered each other.

They don’t lose their stingers. I know that for a fact because one of the little buggers pursued me relentlessly.

I learned a valuable lesson. You can’t outrun a yellow jacket on a riding lawn mower.

That lesson translates into life and business as well. Now and then in the 72 years I have been here, I have run into a “yellow jacket” or two.

You must think ahead and consider alternatives when possible or at the least be prepared for quick, thoughtful action, not just a reaction while living life.

As my Aunt Anzie later would tell me in her dry humor way as she plied my stings with chewed Redman ‘baccer, “Son, instead of staying on that John Deere mower, you should have jumped off and ran to the pond! There would have been fewer stings I betcha.”