The Legend of Tom's Leg (Brian Katcher)
When I was a teenager, my father used to take my friends and me on camping/float trips. I can't imagine what would possess a man to voluntarily hang out with a bunch of unruly fifteen-year-olds. I'm sure he had his reasons.
Dad, third from left. This also marks the first of 20,000 times my friend Joe would flip off the camera. The guy in the purple trunks is now my brother-in-law.
At any rate, as we would sit around the camp fire telling stories of unrivaled fantasy and fiction, one theme would always appear: the legend of Tom's leg.
It began as a throwaway joke in one of my father's stories, about how Tom was killed in the war, leaving behind only his leg, which went on a series of subsequent adventures. This proved to be the seed of many an absurd tale, with the severed leg going on many globe-spanning journeys. Tom's leg was our inside joke, a phrase that made us laugh through college and beyond.
Dad claimed he got the idea from a 1950s comic book, where a character screamed 'It's Tom's leg!' though how you'd identify someone from just a limb was not explained. The idea intrigued me, but my father could remember no more details.
But then along came ebay. A quick search of 'it's tom's leg' + 'comic book' led me to the appropriate issue, which I of course bought for him for Christmas.
It's been a long time since that first float trip in 1990, but I fondly remember the legend of Tom's leg. It still beats out our other favorite tall tales of the time, 'The story of the bloody fingers' and 'one time I kissed a girl.'
Brings to mind a whole new line of Legos, appropriate for the times.
ReplyDeleteI really want to know about "the terror of the hungry cats." Though my cat is certainly a terror when he's hungry.
ReplyDeleteI wanna know more about Joe The Flip Off The Camera Guy...
ReplyDeleteYour dad is awesome. Do you guys still tell severed leg stories? (I bet Sophie could come up with a few wild ones.)
ReplyDeleteI'm with Jody. More Joe stories :)
ReplyDeleteCertainly a testament to the profound impact Tom's leg had on your father, that he remembered and lovingly shared it with you and your pals 40 years later. I, too, have oft opined on Tom's leg. After he was executed, the hungry cats must have eaten it off, after they removed his shoes. Cats! Still, having read the book myself I still ponder, all these decades later, about the bullwhip guard's intimate knowledge of Tom's body. Ahh, those were the golden years of incarceration in America.
ReplyDelete