One of the big local sports is cricket spitting. The record is thirty-two feet. We have an annual Cricket Spitting Festival. There are rides and games and food booths. The main event, of course, is the cricket spitting.

Cricket spitting comes natural in these parts. Seems like you can’t open your mouth around here that a cricket doesn’t fly in. It’s either spit it out or swallow. Swallowing one seems crude.

For a week before hand the officials gather cricket for the event. They want to be sure no one brings in a ringer, a trained cricket that doesn’t just get spit but adds onto the distance by flying. That happened once. The guy who did it got the crap beat out of him.

One of the things a spitter has to be careful of is not catching the feet between his teeth. You can’t get any real distance when that happens. A good many of the spitters don’t have teeth which sort of gives them an unfair advantage. The judges check the cricket after the spit to be sure no one has chewed or gummed the legs off before spitting.

The head of the local health board is quoted as saying, “It’s seems to me that this is unsanitary but danged if I can find a law against it.”

The crickets themselves aren’t harmed by all this spitting. They are harmed by being fed to the frogs at the annual Frog Jumping Contest held at the same time in the same place.