Butt-washing Funny
***
“Igod, they don’t grow t-maters, today like they igod used to. Igod, they used to sell tomatoes by the count to the bushel. Igod, I can remember when a count of 3 or 4 was common.
“Igod, the real secret to big tomato growing was using the right kind of manure. Igod, old man Fox had a barn that hadn’t been cleaned out in igod 15 years and igod, 20 to 30 cows had been in there all that time. Igod, that gave you the amount of manure you needed.
“Igod, old man Fox fed them cows on his straight sour mash that he used in that old secret still that everybody knew he ran out back. Igod, his cows were drunk most of the time. Igod, I’ll tell you, you’d go by them cows and igod every dang one of ’em would have a big old grin on their face. But, igod, they sure did give old man Fox the right kind of tomato growing manure.
“Igod, old man Fox tore that old barn down and plowed up the ground on the very spot it stood. Igod, when it came spring, he planted some of them 3 to 4 count seeds and watched them grow.
“Igod, I’ll tell you, a tomato patch like that had tomato worms as big as igod garter snakes. Igod, it took a brave man to go into a ’mater patch like that during the daylight and no one could be found that would go near it at night.
“Igod, I remember old Nellie Fox went out there to that patch and picked a two count bushel of them tomatoes. Igod, she made tomato sauce from just them two; the way I remember it, igod she got some twenty-eight quarts from ’em.
“Now she made a spaghetti sauce and took it to a church social, and igod, half them ladies got a buzz on what lasted to Igod, Tuesday next.
“Igod, I don’t know how big the biggest was, but igod they told me when old man Fox died they found tomato seeds in his garage that weight near a full half pound each.
“Igod, the folks was afraid to plant the dang things and was afraid to throw them away lessen they might grow. Igod, what they done was to fetch a gallon or so of kerosene to catch ’em afire. Igod, they burnt every last one of them seeds.
“Now mind you I was not there at the time but igod I was told that the whole dang town smelt like burnt tomatoes and sour mash whiskey for nearly three months afterwards. Igod, that’s what was told to me.”
Mimic-e
(From Thibodaux’s Trial)
“Been thinkin’ on getting me one of them dogs what they train to do tricks,” Mose said. “You know, like them dogs was in that circus show what passed through here a year or so back. One of them dogs what can jump rope, walk on their hind legs, and such.”
“Get yourself a trick dog ya say?” Igod said.
“That’s what I'm thinkin’ on,” Mose said. “How y’all think a feller would go about trainin’ one of them dogs?”
Igod gave Mose a blank stare. After a few seconds he had an answer. “What y’all have to do is get yourself a mimic-e, that’s how it’s done.”
“A mimic-e? What the Sam Hill’s a mimic-e?”
“A mimic-e is a dog what knows how to do them tricks. Get yourself another dog what you want to learn them tricks and he be the mimic-er. The mimic-e does a trick and the mimic-er will copycat it.”
Mose scratched his chin, said, “If’n I had a mimic-e what knew them tricks why in the Sam Hill would I need a mimic-er?”
“I knew it, there you go,” Igod said, “y’all want to get in the trick dog training and don’t know the first damn thing about it. If’n everyone thought the way y’all do all them mimic-e dogs would die off and the world would be left with a bunch of mimic-er dogs. Wouldn’t a damn one of ’em know a single trick.”
Glenburn Creek
Igod said, “You know, when they was young and both of ’em newly married, old Ada Harper and Alma Foresee used to go on down there to Glenburn Creek and pick a flower or two, you know just a doin’ those women things that they used to do. And gossip, them two would get to talkin’ and Lord have mercy, they’d go on for hours of sunshine.
“Well, one day they were down there jawin’ away like you’d never believe when old Sam Floyd’s bull came upon ’em. Now this was not just one of them every day mean bulls, this old boy was ungodly mean and everybody in the county knew it. Big old bull that one, with a bag of nads nearly draggin’ the ground. Why most folks was scared plum to death of that bull.
“That big bull went to snortin’ and pawin’ up the ground and lowered that big old head of his’n’s gettin’ set for pure bull meanness.
“Now Ada and Alma know’d right away they was in what-for trouble. All they could think of to do was jump in that creek. They know’d that old bull had no fancy to get into no creek no matter how ungodly mean he was.
“Now them two women had no never mind to get their dresses wet so they just dropped ’em there on the bank afore they jumped in.
“About the time them two thought it was safe enough to get out of that creek, along came old Sam Floyd himself.
“Now there them two women stood in little more than their birthday suits. No one ever accused old Sam of being too bright and sure enough he just stood there a gawking at ’em.
“Now Ada Harper weren’t never one to be gawked at, she said, ‘What’s a matter Sam, ain’t you never seen no lady escape from a bull afore?’
“‘Well mam, no I ain’t, but had I thunk of it I’d put that bull down here by the creek a long time ago.’”
Mushrooms
“Mushrooms, why they just don’t pop up as big as they used to be,” Igod said. “They used to be a danger you had to watch out for. In the spring you didn’t want to be parking anywhere near them Glenburn woods. Why a mushroom could pop up and flatten a feller’s tire. Be sitting in the wrong place, could most likely upset a car.
“Jake Potter was one of the best mushroom hunters the country ever seen. The man would go off and hunt with a dump truck. He’d fill the dang thing up before noon and eat mushrooms all throughout the year.
“They tell me when Jake went after the really big ones, he’d carry a chainsaw.”
Sweet Corn
“Sweet corn, why they just don’t grow sweet corn like they use to,” Igod said. They used to measure sweet corn by the bushel to the ear, like one half-bushel ear or three-quarter bushel ear. Those cornfields were something to see, Igod tell you. Why to hand pick an ear of corn most likely, as not, you’d need a stepladder, big ole stepladder to boot.
“The biggest picking I ever heard of was a three-bushel ear. Old Mose Ellis grew it. Now if’n you don’t believe me you can go over to his farm and see for yourself. Why he made a fence post out of that cob, corner post I think it was.”
Big Catfish
“Big catfish yuh say?” Igod said, “they ain’t no big catfish left like there used to be. I remember when Frank Potter caught a big old flathead catfish that was so big that he could not find a scale in the whole county that was big enough to weight it. Couldn’t find one of them Brownie box cameras big enough to take no picture neither. With his bad back and all, he couldn’t drag it to town to show it off. So, all he could do, to prove that he had caught it, was to tell folks about it. But I can tell you one thing, the pond, where he caught that catfish, fell nearly three inches when he pulled it out. It stayed that way, too, ’till the next rain leastwise.”
The Preacher
“My daddy was always one to watch out for the welfare of the community,” Igod said. “I remember one time Daddy caught the preacher a foolin’ around over at the red light places in Clarksville. Now Daddy was not going to let that go unnoticed so he figured he’d have some fun with it, and set things right.
“Sunday next, Daddy was a sittin’ there in church a listenin’ to that preacher go on like they will with that hell and damnation preachin’. Then, right there in church, Daddy stood up and confronted the good preacher, “‘Tell me preacher, what would the good book say about a feller what would be a goin’ over to them red light places there in Clarksville?’”
“‘Why, I’d say that if the fellow would repent the good book would say that he was to be
forgiven.’”
“‘I see,’ Daddy said, “‘now what would the good book say about what was to happen to them red light women?’”
“‘Why‑I’d say that if they was to get down on their knees and pray for forgiveness and promise to mend their ways they too would be forgiven.’”
“‘Now, what would the good book say if’n one of them red light women had a social disease?’”
“‘My God,’” the preacher said, “‘which one, the redhead or the blond?’”
Entertainment
“We found our entertainment where we could find it,” Igod said. “In a small country town there is very little excitement because not much happens on purpose; most thing happen by accident.
“I remember one time the widow Harper done got her hair caught in one of them new May Tag washing machine wringers. God Almighty that women had hair clean down her back to her knees. Pure white it was and as thick as a horse’s mane.
“A’fore you know’d it, there was no less than twenty odd people over there a tellin’ each other what they should be or should not be doin’ to get the old ladies hair out of that fix. Now for sure that weren’t very entertaining to old lady Harper but there weren’t no harm done other that a loss of a considerable amount of hair and her feelings being hurt and all. Besides, it gave the lot something to talk about for a month or two.
“To hear ’em tell it every dang one of ’em was the one what got her hair out of that wringer. If’n the truth was told it weren’t a one of ’em what finally got her free, on purpose anywise.
“What happened was her near-sighted brother, Harold, accidentally engaged the wringer and the darn machine pulled half her hair out and she was free. Seems to me she could have done that her ownself.”
Missin’
“Most folks went to see old doc Barns for their doctoring because that’s all we had,” Igod said.
“Doc Barns was an old man when I was a young-un, but he was still doctoring when I reached thirty. It weren’t so much that folks got down on him because of his age as it was for his hearing. It got so a body had to shout at the top of his lungs to get old doc to understand what it was that you wanted to say. I'd allow the old man never heard a heartbeat for the past twenty years.
“There at the last, most folks paid a good day to old doc but most stopped givin’ any serious thought of takin’ a sick problem to him.
“One day, Clem Baker had him a problem with one of his tom cats. You know, Clem was one of them Bakers what used to live over there up and down the Salt River. Clem had himself a pretty good sized dairy herd and he keep them cats out to his barn to keep after them mice and rats that would go to gettin’ into a feller’s feed supplies.
“Well, it seems that this here old tom cat done got himself constipated. When Clem told me the story, he said ‘concentrated,’ but I know’d what he meant.
“Being that the nearest vet was over to Clarksville, a good piece to go in them days, Clem thought on it and surmised that old doc Barns should be able to help him with a cat’s concentrated problem. So, he rang up old doc and asked him.
“It took a lot of screaming into the ’phone on Clem’s part, but in time he was able to make old doc understand what he was a trying to tell him, at least he thought he had. Doc said that veterinarian was a bit out of his line but he would guess if’n Clem was to give that animal a quart of mineral oil it should more than likely take care of the situation. Doc told Clem he would stop by the next day to seen how Clem had made out.
“The next day, doc went out to Clem’s place and asked Clem where the sick calf was. ‘Calf?’ Clem screamed, so doc could hear, ‘it weren’t no calf, it was a cat what was concentrated.’
“‘My heavens!’ Doc said, ‘you didn’t give that cat a quart of mineral oil, did y’all?’
“‘Sure did,’ Clem said.
“‘What on earth happened to the cat?’ Doc asked.
“‘Don’t rightly know,’ Clem said, ‘I ain’t seen hide nor hair of him this morning, but I can tell you one thing, yesterday he set records.’
“‘Set records you say,’ Doc said.
“‘Yes siree, I funneled that oil down his throat and within a minute he dug himself a hole, big old hole it was. Must have been five feet across.’
“Old Doc was confused, ‘Well, what kind of records did he set?’
“‘For distant and missin’, after he dug that hole he turned to do his business and missed it by fifty feet.’”
Weather
“Winters don’t come as quick as they use to nor stay as long neither,” Igod said. “I remember one winter, winter of '32 I think it was, around the first week of September a snowstorm hit us out of no where, hit us with no warning a’tall.
“Well I’ll tell you, it snowed some eight to ten feet in one night, didn’t let up none for a day or two. People went around stubbin’ their toes on telephone poles. Why, it came down so fast that it snowed over Miller’s pound before that pond even had a chance to freeze. All winter long, you could get out there, poke a hole through the snow, and fetch a bucket of water just as pretty as you please. That pond never did freeze over. It was like that until the next June.”
Holidays
“Holidays,” Igod said, “holidays was for them what had little to do. Farmers’ women folk worked harder on holidays, than most other days, fixin’ them big meals and all. The men had to do them chores just like most other days. ’Course, kin would come a-callin’ on most holidays, bein’ that they know’d a farmer could not go off and leave livestock to fend for themselves for a whole day. ’Bout the onlyest difference between a holiday and most other days was that a feller would have kin folk under foot while he was a trying to get his work done. I liked Christmas pretty much. Folks were happier and freer with their giving. ’Course when you had a cold Christmas was just another pissy day.”
Hogs
“The overall most stinking animal whatever lived is the hog,” Igod said. “There are your three basic types of hog smell. You have the awful, the unbearable, and the awful unbearable. “Old Hubert Wolf used to raise hog over to Glenburn Creek. Had a bunch of ’em for sure. Someone said he had a thousand at one time.
“I swear, and God strike me dead If’n I'm a lyin’ to you, on most days you could smell that farm thirty miles off. Why it got so awful unbearable that Hubert used to keep skunks in the barn to make the whole place smell better.”
Boys
“A boy ain’t worth his salt if’n he don’t get into trouble every now and then,” Igod said. “My old man use to keep a bundle of switches by the door. He expected us boys to get into trouble and we didn’t let him down. We’d get two lickin’ if’n we didn’t watch it. If you did something wrong and lied about it, the second lickin’ was for lying. One time two bigger boys came on the farm and I watched them paint the rumps of our hogs with the reddest barn paint you ever did see. Them, they got that paint all over me.
“Daddy came home and saw them hogs, he came stormin’ in the house yelling, ‘Get me a switch, got a butt to whip.’
“I yelled right back, I guess I’d better get two of ’em, you ain’t gonna believe a word I say.”
Dead and Gone
“Now, you take that old lady Johnson,” Igod said, “why the women’s jaws moved so much she’d go to the doctor once a week just to have ’em oiled. Stretch the truth, will I reckon, if a locomotive was the truth, she’d stretch it so far you could put it through the eye of a needle. Why it got so bad, like the time she was ease dropping on the party line and heard a story about someone’s uncle so and so was a runnin’ around and drinkin and all while the man’s poor wife was bedridden at home all alone. Old lady Johnson spread the story all over town that she had seen it with her own eyes. Come to find out, the poor man had been dead for three years.”
School Dropout
“High school,” Igod said, “shoot fire, we didn’t have no time for such in my day. Now, it’s even the law what you’ve got t
o go for twelve years of school housing for you can go lookin’ for a job. There you have it, in my day a feller didn’t need to go lookin’ for no job, all’s he had to do was to get out of bed and work would find him soon enough.”
Chivalry, Crimes, and Other Illegal Things
“Heck yes we had the chiv-er-ree,” Igod said. “We’d chiv-er-ree a neighbor’s town in most cases just for whatever reason, but mostly because they’d done some no good to us. But you’d can bet they’d come back on us sooner or later. Kinda would upset us if’n they didn’t ’cause that would mean it was all over. Nobody in them days would pull off two chiv-er-rees in a row less’in they was chiv-er-reed back first. Might say we had our pride about some things.
“I remember the time that old Luke Short done got his Motel T painted with some words only a drunken preacher was capable of sayin’, without lookin’ ’em up. Boy, that didn’t set with Luke, not a’tall it didn’t. So, Luke got a bunch of boys together, liquored ’em all up he did. They all piled into that old wrecker that Luke used in his gas station business and they headed over to Newtown. No one know’d for sure that it was them Newtown boys what done it to Luke’s car, but most felt that it was them, most likely it was. But that didn’t make no never mind, if’n they hadn’t done it they’d know who did so that made ’em just as guilty. You’d never know cause in them days no one would have fessed up to it even if’n you was to catch them red-handed.
“Getting over to Newtown in them years weren’t no easy thing to be doing bein’ that it was dead winter. Them roads weren’t worth a red cent in the summer let alone in the dead winter. But, somehow they made it long about ten or eleven at night.
“They sneaked down the alley behind the courthouse. If’n you could call it sneaking with the lights off on that big old noisy wrecker of Luke’s. Well, sir, they found Sheriff Frank Potter’s police car parked right there where they know’d he always left it.
“Now Luke jumped out with a bucket of thick red barn paint. He attacked that car a writing insults to Frank’s kin, Frank’s family, and of course to Frank himself. You know, the next day a feller couldn’t read a word of it. Luke never was one for writin’ much. If’n he had wrote a few more lines, the car would have more than likely been completely painted. It was so bad, no one know’d that he had tried to write a thing on it.
“Anyway, them boys piled back into that wrecker and made their getaway. Luke had gotten himself so tanked up that he was in no shape for no drivin’, so Billy Bob Dean found himself behind the big wheel of that wrecker truck. He’d been okay if’n he’d just drove but folks say he went to foolin’ with them wrecker controls. If’n a feller don’t know what he’s a doin’, he ain’t got no business a foolin’ with no wrecker controls.
“That big old hook done swung around and as them boys hit that main street that headed south outta town. That hook done caught ahold to the courthouse privy. Hooked ’er good, too.
“Come morning next, late morning at that, Luke found himself asleep on his kitchen floor. Never had no idea how he come to get there neither. Well, sir, comes noon, after he got a fire built in the house and all, Luke figured he best get on over and get the station opened up. Folks get right mad when he didn’t open on time. In dead winter, Luke had his share of batteries to jump and charge and all. Half the town needed a jump-start now and then.
“Well, when Luke went out on his front porch, there was that old wrecker parked on his front yard under a good three inches of new snow. There behind the wrecker was an outline of the privy, just as pretty as you please, a lying face down it was.
“Now, Luke and them woulda more than likely got off scot-free had it not been for two things. When that wrecker hooked that courthouse privy, Judge Howard was in it a doin’ his nightly business afore bed, and‑he only had on his long johns. That’s the first thing, and it would have most likely been enough by itself to get them boys in a world of hurt. The second thing, Judge Howard was still in the privy.”
Manure
“There was the time that Leroy Farmer’s boy, Calvin, done went and filled that Miller’s Junction one room school house full of chicken manure,” Igod said. “Now the boy went and done it on a Friday night. That stuff lay in there for a long time and that smell got dirty nose deep.
“I can tell you them local farmers was upset when that mess was found come Monday morning. Old Betty Fay was the one what found it and they say she liked to swallowed her teeth in the panic. She was the schoolteacher what took over when Miss James done went and got herself married. Betty was always on the finicky side, and that smell set her back a step or two.
“There was only eight young-uns a going to that school at the time so it weren’t no problem to know’d who had done it. Five or six of them men went over there to see Leroy. They was big bull mean, but they knew Leroy was no one to be getting riled up. The man could go bear huntin’ with a switch any day of the year; they all knew that too.
“They stood on Leroy’s porch and tapped on the door. Then, Leroy came to the door; in his bare feet and overalls dropped down to his waist. It was easy to see that they had caught him at naptime.
‘Leroy,” they said, ‘we’ve come to tell you that your boy, Calvin, over the weekend, done dumped a load of chicken manure in the Miller’s Junction school house.’
‘You don’t say,’ Leroy said, ‘chicken manure you say?’
‘Yes siree,’ they said, ‘must of been a load or two of it. You gonna do somethin’ about it Leroy?’
‘Why you bet I am,’ Leroy said. ‘It’s got so I can’t control that boy. Boy’s dumber than a mule shoe. I just don’t know where it was I failed with that boy, musta got that dumb from his mother’s side you know?’
‘Yeah,’ they said, ‘That was a fool thing what he done.’
‘It sure was,’ Leroy said, ‘I told him to clean out the dang hog pen, not the chicken coop.’”