"Don't let Pickles pass you"

My brother, Robert Green, was a pretty fair high school miler. I set the school record my senior year at the district meet (his sophomore year), and held it exactly six days until he broke it at the state meet. He went on to lower that mark by several seconds over the next two years. He won the district meet at least one year and was fourth in the state in our class his senior year. All four of the top finishers that year were from schools within an hour's drive from Booneville, so western Arkansas was a hotbed of milers in those days. Robert's school record stood for about four years until it was broken by Ricky Dean Davis, a three-time winner at the Meet of Champs, a feat very few runners can claim.

At one meet our family was out in force to root for Robert. His arch-rival within the district was a boy named Nichols, whose nickname (at least among his opponents) was Pickles. At one point in the race Robert was leading Nichols by a step or two, and my father began yelling, "Don't let Pickles pass you." Finally he almost pulled a Spoonerism by saying, "Don't let Packles . . ." - but he caught himself just in time and did not finish the sentence. My aunt, sitting beside him, did not catch his mistake, and loudly blurted out the entire line, much to everyone's enjoyment.