Hoosier Hill
Indiana
March 2012
Girding our loins for the ascent from the parking lot to the summit of Hoosier Hill — this consists of putting on our jackets, which obviously doesn’t actually have much to do with loin-girding — we step from the car, trying not to trip on the monkey balls. Lisa comments, “Hmm, smells like a farm.” What she really says is “Hmm, smells like horse shit.”
Monkey balls? Yah, the fruit of the osage orange tree. Monkey balls look like overgrown pimply green tennis balls without the seams. Nothing like what you might expect to be housed in the scrotum of a monkey. Actually, what were your expectations of what is housed in the scrotum of a monkey?
Monkey balls are also known as hedgeapples, green brains, horse apples and mock orange, among other names, and are believed to repel spiders and mice. Certainly monkeys, as not a single one is in sight.