There’s a certain, small, malodorous segment of Pennsylvania Ridgerunner culture that considers open farting to be within acceptable limits. It’s just a small segment but a very conspicuous one. Farting is within acceptable limits to everyone, of course. If you have to break wind you have to break wind, what are you going to do? Trying to hold it in can be painful. The distinction is how, when and where. That and the attitude. Attitude is everything when it comes to breaking wind.

Most people, feeling gas about to discharge, try to be polite and not bother anyone. They get downwind, if they can, and do it as softly as possible, if they can. When they’re indoors, they go to the bathroom, turn on the vent and let go. In a public area, they go to the restroom and hope it’s unoccupied at the time. If not, then they cut loose, get mortified by it, and leave with a sheepish grin.

Ridgerunner farters don’t feel that way at all. Farting is just something you do, with élan or not. Sometimes you do it on purpose, if you have a purpose, which is usually to show off. However, the farting itself is just life, that’s all. At least it is in Bolivar. Pennsylvania.

“Whooie!!, babe, did you just blow a fart?” Carl asked his wife, June.

“No. I did cut one near a hour ago. It just took this long to get on out. I have a really big ass and it takes a while. You get off so quick like, I was a thinking I had the time. It be your own damn fault.”

Bob and Mikey were walking in the mall when they saw two good-looking women coming towards them. When the ladies got three feet away they both exploded huge, loud, smelly farts. By the time the two women heard it, and reacted to it, they were standing even with the guys. They had taken that one more step before the shock of actually hearing a fart hit them. After that, they couldn’t take another step as the smell hit them. The invisible, but very obvious, vapor of gas enveloped them and took the curls out of their hair. They lost the ability to think clearly.

Bob and Mikey, thinking they had impressed the women, immediately tried to hit on them. They didn’t pay attention to the glazed, stunned look they got. They took that as a sign they had really impressed the women.

“Well, I bet you never heard no farts like them before”, Bob said.

By that time, the gas had dispersed. The women regained their senses. They looked at one another and then at the guys. The guys thought they were considering going out with them. They weren’t. They took Mace out of their purses and gave the boys a face-full.

After the guys came round a little bit, Mikey said to Bob, “Man! What did them bitches go and do that for?”

“I don’ know, Mikey. Weren’t’ as if we lit a match an’ set it off. Guess they be no figurin’ women.”

After recovering from their face mace, the boys went down to Frank’s Genuine Old-Fashioned Italian Pizza and ordered a large, “everything on it” each. It was the equivalent of filling the tank of their pickup trucks. As they finished the last of it, Bob said to Mikey, “Man, wish this place sold beer”.

“Yea, a cold one ud go down real smooth ‘bout now”, Mikey said.

“ Course, if we was to go to a bar, it would be a bit hairy, know what I means?” Bob replied.

“Yea, I know that for sure. All them damn smokers. Wow! What an explosion! I still laugh at you runnin’’ ‘round yellin’ ‘My head’s on fire! My head’s on fire!’ That was funnier ‘an Hell”.

“Yea, for you, maybe. Guess with that shaved head you didn’t have no hair to set off. ‘Course, you blistered somethin’ fierce”, Bob rebutted.

“Yea, I did ooze for a long time.”

They decided to buy a couple of cases of beer and go up to Bear Rock and drink it. No danger of an explosion if they kept a close check of the wind. On the way, they stopped at Bob’s mama’s house to get some money. Bob didn’t work regularly and borrowed a lot from his mama.

“Bob! What a surprise! Ain’t seen you since last time you needed money. Gonna give you a big, old hug!” she yelled out.

A big, old hug is what she gave him. Being full of gas, and his mama being a little peculiar about farts, Bob had to hold a real tight pucker. Mama grabbed Mikey and gave him a big, old hug too.

Mikey, knowing full well how Bob’s mama felt about folks farting in her house, had rolled up some newspaper and rammed it up his ass. Thing is, he used motor oil to make it go in easier. The problem was, the oil made it come out easier too. When Bob’s mama hugged him, he exploded. It sounded like a cannon going off. It was so powerful it blew that wad of paper through his pants. It ricocheted off the floor and went through the ceiling.

“Mikey, you ignorant, little s.o.b! You know how I don’t like folks farting in my house. This is why, or, at least, one of the reasons why. Look what you went and did. You’re going to fix that hole. You also need to go find whatever you blew out and get it out of my crawlspace. It’ll stink the whole house up!” she screamed at Mikey.

Odd thing was, Bob’s mama was known as Methane Mary. A heavy woman, she could fart after breakfast and it not escape until Pastor Donovan was giving his sermon. He’d see people scooting away from Mary and then running outside, breathing deep and hurling their breakfasts. He finally had to ask Mary to stand at the door of the church with a fan blowing on her and blowing the gas outside.

Mary, being terribly offended, this being a house of God, waited until the church had their annual candlelight service. She then turned the fan off. As people began gagging, the church got a flash of fire. Hair went up in flames and so did Millie Carpenter’s wig, which she claimed wasn’t a wig but she tore it off when it caught fire. It was so bad, it blew the candles out. Can’t fart in church, my ass, Mary thought.

Can’t fart inside Mary’s house, though. Her husband has had a lifetime of punishment for doing that. Her husband, Bob’s daddy, was called Sneaky Tom. Tom could pass a colossal amount of gas without making a sound. Everyone would look around to see who unloaded but had nothing to go on. Tom didn’t make a sound and didn’t give it away with a guilty look.

Right after Bob was born, which put Mary in a bad mood to begin with, Tom let a small fart escape. It escaped Tom but not Mary.

“Did you just fart?!” she yelled.

“Well, yea, I did. It were an accident an-”

“Accident?! You damn well better not have had an accident. You’re 24 years old!”

“No, I accidentally blew a fart. It’ll go away in a minute”, Tom told her.

“I don’t care! I’m the one that has to smell it! I don’t like smelling farts!” she s yelled.

“Now, Mary, I have to smell it too an-”

“Bullshit! People can’t smell their own stink! I have to smell it!”

“Mary, be reasonable. You fart; you fart big-time.”

“That’s me. I don’t mind other people smelling farts. I don’t want to smell them. Understood?”, she went on.

He understood. What he didn’t realize was what Mary had in mind to do to him. She started making him Ex-Lax-laced brownies. Tom started spending more and more time in the bathroom. It got to the point that he only came out for dinner...and a brownie. He eventually went on Social Security disability. He was pretty miserable and lonely.

His only pleasure in life was those great brownies. He couldn’t get enough of them.

Bob, and all his friends, grew up knowing the rules. Fart where and when you please but not at Bob’s house. No one had the balls to do that.

Down at the local Legion Hall, the old-timers were bitching that today’s kids had it too easy.

“We used ta hafta work at fartin’”, former Captain Berkemeyer was saying. “These kids today just have to go to Taco Bell’s and load up.”

“You old drink”, former Lieutenant Weimerholtz said. “Hell, our grandparents got to be great farters ‘cause a them Mexicans the government brought in during WWII to help pick the crop. They mostly just picked their noses but they did bring in Chile Reds.”

“Oh, yea, that’s right. I forgot”, former Captain Berkemeyer agreed.

Bob grew up in the culture and, while he certainly noticed the farting, didn’t pay much attention to it. It was just a run-of-the-mill part of the atmosphere, a disagreeable part, but normal. It was on his first overnighter with the Scouts that it came together for him. He was adding wood to the fire and let off a big one. The flash fire boomed out five feet. A couple of clueless Scouts didn’t think or act fast enough and got singed. Bob had discovered the power of breaking wind.

It gets cold in the winter in Bolivar, Pa. Below zero cold; zero as the high cold; freeze your breath cold; shrink your scrotum cold. The teachers in Bolivar had to choose between the rank atmosphere or freezing their asses off by keeping the windows open. The didn’t actually have a choice since the atmosphere in the classrooms wouldn’t support life. At least they had the satisfaction of knowing the kids were cold too.

Not as cold as the teachers, though. The kids came to school pretty much wearing everything they owned. They could barley move. The teachers couldn’t do that. It wouldn’t look very professional. The kids, however, didn’t give a rat’s ass what it looked like.

The cold coming in didn’t stop the gas coming out though. The kids were layered enough to keep their asses from freezing, not to block the passage of gas. The gas eventually made its way out. As long as it was working through the many layers of clothes, it provided the kids with a bubble of gas trapped inside their clothing. Gas is lighter than air; gas rises. The gas took the kids clean out of their seats. They’d float around the room at ceiling height. They loved it.

Where you have cold, you have snow. Where you have snow and hill you, have sledding. The Bolivar kids loved sledding as much as anyone did. Down they’d go. They’d get to the bottom and look back up the hill wanting to ride down again, like kids everywhere. There was a important difference though.

Kids elsewhere would get to the bottom and drag their sleds back up the hill to ride down again. The Bolivar kids rode down the hill to the bottom. Then they turned their sleds around, farted and rode back up the hill. Leastways, the skinny ones did. The fatties couldn’t. They’d drag and fart their way back up. They’d have frozen waiting for enough gas to get past the cheeks of their asses and power them up the hill. Only the skinny ones could ride up the hill. Sometimes there wouldn’t be enough energy to make it all the way back up. Then they’d be riding down backwards. That was fun too. Some, farting away, would go up and down like yo-yo’s.

The daredevils would take a running start, leap on their sleds and fart. They’d almost literally fly down the hill. At the bottom, they’d keep right on going to the top of the next hill. Then they turn around and start over again.

Bob was there the day Mikey did his “Great One”. Mikey took a long, running start and blew a colossal fart, known as a “Boomer”, as he hit the ground. He went down the hill, up the next one and then over that one. Old Man Fletcher says Mikey cut through the corner of his yard and was still moving. Mikey claims he made it all the way to Rt.22. Bob thought that maybe he did but Mikey was such a bullshitter that who knows?

The parents of skinny girls didn’t have to worry about their daughters’ virginity in stark contrast with the parents of fat girls. Bob and Susie, who weighed 85 lbs, were going at it hammers and tongs. Just as Bob put his hand up her dress, they both cut one. The atmosphere in the car became unbreathable. All they could do was roll the windows down and wait for the air to clear. When it did, Susie had cooled off, iceberg cool. Bob had cooled off too but with guys, that never means anything.

Bob reached over and slid his hand up Susie’s dress. She slapped him on the side of the head. She really rocked him.

“Whadja go an’ do that for?” Bob asked.

“I ain’t some whore you can lay whenever ya want”, Susie told him.

“Huh? We were both gettin’ it on”, Bob said.

“Yea, well, we ain’t getting it on now. Take me home”, she told him.

“Come on, Susie!”

“I said ‘take me home’. So, take me home.”

“You bitch, you heartless bitch!” Bob cried out.

“Oh? Let’s see. I could say you tried and couldn’t. How would that be? Huh?”

“Okay, okay, I’m takin’ ya home.”

The parents of fat girls had to sweat it out. They figured if the boy cut one their daughter would gag her way home, safe and virginal. The problem was that if the daughter cut one the boy would be finished before he caught a whiff. A little late then. Many was the parent who said to their plump daughters, “If only you’d broke wind a little sooner.”

Norm Walls was called “Gas”. He was considered to be the greatest farter in Bolivar. There was simply no question about that. He could cut one at the east end and it flashed a smoker at the west end. No one doubted “Gas”. Even Burt Sneider, who burned his sinus out on meth, feared “Gas”.

“Oh, man. Leastways the rest of youns get a warnin’. All I get is a sudden flash of fire. Man, I never shoulda done all that meth.”

In Bolivar, farting is done with pride and élan, if not style.

In Bolivar, you’d better not stop and smell the roses.