A.Claytons' PossumStomp Holler public diary thang

It blowed up real good (sorta)

2011-07-05T09:05:00.001-07:00

Well happy forth o JOO-ly to yall. As we all gather round to celebrate our countries’ bifday, lets take a moment to pause an be thankful fer the freedoms we enjoy, unlike alla them other folks who live in crap countries like Canada, Sarieyayvo, an North KO-rea.

This year we really got to stick it to them democrats in washinton whos tryin to step all over our freedoms.. Of course I anit talkin about the dems who keep us fed an send checks to old people.. I’m talkin bout the sissy “ooh save the poor children, les outlaw EVERYTHIN’” demercrats. Of course I’m speakin in partikler about how the Commonwealth of Kentucky finaly made it all legal like to shoot off the GOOD kinda fireworks.. Apparently some genuius figgered out that somethin explodin 120 feet in the air was a mite safer-n somethin that explodes on the ground 20 feet away (Or closer if yore brave like me an Clint an Bobby an Leeroy). This finally means we dont gotta drive all the way to tennessee to get the good stuff. You gotta unnerstand, we all live on the backside of nowhere, an there’s hardly 2 miles worth of straight road between her an the nearest innerstate.. So it takes nigh on half the day just to get to a road where you can go faster-n 60mhp. We always used to take these lon roadtrips down south to buy fireworks, only my truks got such bad gas mileage that we ended up spendin bout half of our bankroll on fuel.

`Course we could have probably made the trip much quicker if we’d driven to Wes Virginia, but we’re kinda boycottin that state right now. Relations between Critchens Valley an Ringo County WV are kinda strained after uncle Ray accitentally tried to blow up a bridge whilst tryin to get away from some po-lice who caught him runnin moonshine.

It weren’t his fault, honest! I fergot to tell him I had put some blastin ordinance from the quarry in the back of his Chevy Blazer. I had jus’ bought it for the quarry an wanted to keep it out of the rain till I had a chance to bring it to the quarry for proper storage.

So After a 20 minute chase, Uncle Ray ditched his car on the bridge an jumped into the river. One of the squad cars must’ve hit the back bumper of the blazer a little too hard, cause it `x-ploded and knocked a big ol chunk out of the bridge.

That story ain’t here nor there though, I’ll tell the rest of it later if yore really interested in the borin details.

ANYHOO, so we came back with the mother load of fireworks. See, all these firework’s tents over in Morehead was havin “BOGO” specials.. Now I don’t know who or what the hell BOGO is (sounds like a Muppet to me), but the special was that you could buy one get one free. So we spent mos of our bonus checks on fireworks an took them back to the Valley. So the long weekend started out on a pretty good note; lotsa pyrotekniks and beer. I gotta be honest, after a while all the fireworks started gettin kinda borin. See, me an Clint work in a quarry, as you well know.. There ain’t a firework to be bought that matches the sheer firepower power of some industrial mining-grade explosives, an basically if you don’t `bout get shaken off yer feet by the explosion, then it’s all just amateur hour. On the other hand, while minin ordinance is really loud an explosive, It don’t got the visyoal appeal of reglar fireworks.

So on Saturday, Me an Clint an Bobby an Neil Myers (`Member him? He works at the phone/utilitees company) all decided to make our OWN brand of fireworks.

Neil Usually spends all his weekends on the professinal clogging circuit. That boy had been dancin his whole life, and was known in some circles as “Ratt-A-Tatt Myers, Critchens Valley’s own Dancin Machine”. Personally, I found it kinda dumb.. I mean if you wanna clog for a hobby, thats fine I guess, but it’s a pretty narrowized skill that dont do much good nowhere else. On the other hand, Neil made between 600 an 800 bucks a month just tapdancin on the weekends..

Anyway, Neil’s Saturday event got cancelled on account of no one showing up (cause they was all out buyin fireworks since this was the first year they didn’t gotta go to tennessee to get the good stuff).

So fer once we got to hang out. Neil had all sorts of safety gloves and such from workin with power an phonelines, so we figured he’d be able to give us the “hook up” (hur hur hur) safety wise.

Disckclaimer:

Here are some safety tips if yore gonna try an make your own fireworks.

1. Chew, dont smoke. Smokin around explosives is dumb, an if you really gotta have the nicotine fix, then use some skoal fer godssake

2.Don’t mix fireworks outside. You may not realize it, but most of the inner werkins of fireworks are different sorts of powder. The last thing you want is to spend an hour cuttin open firecrackers, only to have the bang-powder get blowed all over the place by a gust of wind.

3. Dont mix fireworks in yore shed. Theres gasoline an metal an tools an such lyin all over the place. If you spill, you gotta worry about fireworks dust an such gettin into your tools. God knows what could happen next time you start up yore ridin mower if it had flash powder spilled all overit cause you was mixin firecracker powder on the hood.

4. Wear RUBBER gloves. You don’t want your cloth gardenin gloves gettin permeeated by extra flammible materials. We had a fella get badly burned a few years back on account of his gloves catchin fire whilst he was tossin sticks into his burn pile. Turns out he was wearin these gloves whilst he was re-packin shells for his 30/06 rifle, and they musta gotten coverd with black powder.

Thats pretty much it, if you follow these rules, then you dont got nothin else to worry about when makin fireworks.

Anyhoo, we took up shop in this old trackter trailer on account of it not bein used for anythin, it was out of the wind, an it didn’t have no machinery or tools or nothin in it.

So we started cuttin apart an sortin the guts of roughly 60 lbs of fireworks. It was pretty borin work tryin to sort out the different sorts of powder an then sift out all the little hard bits that make for them little fireballs. Most of these bits were about the size of a pencil eraser, a.k.a. WAY too small. We figgerd we could crush up all the little stars into powder an then bind them together with some gum arabic an use some pingpong balls as molds to form respectable size stars.

We covered a bowlin ball with a bunch of layers of paper mache, an let it dry. We then cut it into 2 halves to make our “shell” that we was gonna stuff full of explosives like a thanksgiving turkey. Straight through the center of this we placed a hollow cardboard tube stuffed with a buncha sticks of detcord.

Friends, we stuffed this paper-ball-o-destruction so full of stars an flash powder an pyrodex that it wouldn’t hardly hold together. It took almost 3 rolls of duct tape to get it sufficiently packed and shaped. So what we had kinda looked like one of them round cartoon bombs Wiley Coyote used to use. We were just a little uneasy tryin to transport this thing, it was heavy as hell and we were all plum scared of droppin it.

At this point we realized we didn’t have no suitable apparatus for launchin what we had dubbed “The Armageddonater!”. Lets not forget that this thing was slightly bigger than a bowlin ball now, and there was no way in hell we was gonna use somethin flimsy like plastic sewer pipe for a launcher.. We didn’t trust some of the heftier concrete pipes eiter.. In order to launch this sucker straight up, we’d need at least a 1/2lb charge... I know, this is probably overdoin it, but we didn’t want this thing explodin too low.

Then I done got the bright idea to go over to the quarry an get a heavy duty stone drill sos we could just bore a hole straight into the bedrock. This was probably the safest way to do it since we didn’t hafta worry about it fallin’ over or anything.

So that evenin’ we all made our way to the launch pad where we stuffed “The Armageddonater!” into the hole with not quite a half pound of charge an a nice thick wad of horseblankets in-between. We lit the 30 second fuse an then ran like hell while we waited for the world to end.......

There are certain things in life that really need to be left to the professionals; Doctorin, bein an astronaut, flyin planes, an makin fireworks. See, the ancient art of makin fireworks is a precise science that requires precision measurements and precision placement of the components. It ain’t the sort of thing that a bunch of guys can just “eyeball” till it’s “close enough”.
There is a REASON that them little star bits are as small as they are, an it don’t got nothin to do with costin less.. See, the most important part of buildin airborne fireworks aint about makin sure its got pretty colors, or is real loud.... No-sir, the most important part of makin fireworks is makin sure first that it launches high enough, an second that all the bits an pieces BURN OUT long before they hit the ground.
Oh this explosion shore was was loud enough; it left our ears ringin. But best as we can figger, the shell only went up about 300 feet.
Thanks to the high explosives in the core, all of them EXTRA LARGE, an EXTRA LONG BURNIN stars done got flung an scattered in what must’ve been a quarter mile radius. It warn’t long before we started smellin all sorts of burnin aromas in our general vicinity... course we didn’t hear the sirens on account of bein half deaf from the initial explosion..

The fire dept eventually got the fires put out, but not before nearly 30 acres of forest, 2 barns, 4 cows, clint’s truck, and the “Welcome To Critchens Valley” sign suffered severe burn damage.

So the Judge says we gotta spend the next 8 weeks plantin trees, fixin barns, buildin a new sign, and rubbin salve on 4 head of cranky angus. Neil is mighty pissed on account of havin to miss half of this year’s pro cloggin circuit... So now he wears his clogging shoes whenever we’re doin community service.. I’m not lyin, I about want to strangle the bastard now.. All day long its CLICK-TAP, CLICK-TAP, TAP TAP, CLICKITY CLICK, TAP... I’m startin’ to get a headache... Anyhoo, lunch is about over, I gotta finish this sandwich [used to be]Aunt Sandy made me.. She shore is sweet...

Some Bad Idears can a learnin opportunity

2011-05-02T12:12:00.000-07:00

You know, sometimes folks’ll come up with a really great idear once in awhile.. Like the fella who discoverd the fry daddy, or that one lady who invented xrays.. It stands to reason that theres lotsa bad idears out there too, an that theres prob’ly WAY more bad idears than good ones.

Me an Clint was havin a late night wafflehouse chat sadurday evenin after drivin into richmond to get some transmission parts for his Ford. We was talkin about just what makes a bad idea really bad. Clint says that most “new” ideas happen when folks try to take a couple of already-good ideas, an try to combine them.. You know, things like a clock radio, or a flashlight radio, or a blender juicer, or a blender radio, or a juicer radio (Clint has this obsessive-type thing about combinin’ radios with other objects.... Bobby says its cause his wrists are too dainty to turn the knobs on a real radio.)

So the more we got to talkin, the more we started to realize that you could also combine 2 good idears to come up with a really REALLY bad idea. Obviously you wouldn’t want to combine a twinky an a radio.... but there are some vaguer examples out there that aren’t so plain as day.. Take for instance the fella who decided to combine the functionality of all the TV menu an input select buttons with the convenience of the remote control.. Now i love my remote as much as anyone else, but when a remote’s got more buttons than a computer keyboard, well we start to get into problems.. in my imho opinion, a remote oughtta be simple an NOT have a learnin curve. I wanta watch Deadliest Catch on discovery, not spend 2 hours tryin to figure out how to add an internet mailin list to my remote. Now I suppose I can stomach overly-fancy remote tv channel changers, but why’d they have to go full out on the conversion an take the buttons OFF of the TV? If I run out of batteries, or lose my remote, alls I can really do is pray my tv was already stuck on the X-box setting, cause there aint no way i’m gonna be able to switch it over with the single power button an 2 volume controls left on the actual TV itself.

Anyway, remotes aint tneither here or there. The point of this post is our rumination on the merit of good and bad idears.

Here’s where we get to the heart of the matter.

We was in the Richmond Waffle House on account of Clint boycottin Lexington. He’s actually willin to pay 8 extra dollars for transmission parts in Richmond, rather than sending his patronige to what he calls that “commie police state”. See, the govt in Lexington passed a smoking ban on all businesses a few years back. Apparently non-smoking folks in Lexington are too helpless to just NOT go to places that allow smoking. Nossir, they had to ban it from all stores an restraunts, an bars. So its ok for mom an dad to take their kid to McDonalds for a double helpin of deep fried emulsifyed chiken meat product, so long as they don’t gotta worry about no second hand cigarette smoke. Then they’ll drive back to their mcMansion with the windows down, breathin in car exhaust the whole way. Personally, I think it oughtta be up to the owners of the buisnesseseesses. If they get enough customers complainin about the smoke, then let them make it a no smokin joint (smokin joint... hur hur hur). Now I unnerstand not allwin smokin in places like chick-e-cheeses, or grocery stores where they can get ash on food, but no smokin in the bars? Really people, bar patrons aren’t slammin down the SOCO on account of bein health nuts..

Anyway, I’m not talkin about that anymore, i’ll jus start bitchin an complainin about certain folk’s notion that its acceptable to screw over one segment of society on behalf of another in the name of freedom (jus so long as the folks gettin screwed ain’t them).

So the smokin ban got Clint to thinkin.

“Waffle house just aint the same if you cant smoke,Clayton! It feels all creepy an overly clean. At leas when there’s good honest smoke in the air then the sticky tables dont seem so out of place. Lex’s Wafflehouses are too sterile-yet-sticky.. Its like eatin a cupa Bert’s Chili in an E.R. room...besides, I need my smokes! I always get chased down by the grill cooks on account of me steppin outside to smoke. I guess they think i’m leavin without payin!”

So Clint got the bright idea to combine smokin an eatin into one food product: Tobacco Smoked Beef. Basically the idea was to slowcook beef in a smoker, but usin tobacco leaves instead of hickry. Of course I told him this was a terrible idea on account of it would jus make the steak taste like ash, an that it would be much better to marinate the beef first in tobacco juice.

Ok, YOU know an I know that marinatin beef in tobacco juice is an equally bad idear, but you gotta unnerstand something about Clint. See, once Clint takes to a notion, logic an reason sorta take a back-seat to his imagination.. The best way to get an idear outta Clint’s mind is to let him experience first hand the repercussions, while in a safe an controlled environment.

So Clint spends pretty much half the day Sunday chewin Red Man an spittin it into a tupperwear container. I sat back an let him do this for awhile before I suggested that choppin up the tobaccer in a blender, an then simmerin it for awhile would be lots more sanitary. Clint gave me the finger an called me a bastard for not tellin him that earlier (he was already kinda green around the gills). So he gets the broth set up an sets the steak to marinatin’ for a few hours. Then he slaps it on the grill an cooks it medium rare (he decided not to slow cook on account of him wastin so much time allready.

So after Clint start’s chowin down, he starts turnin greener an greener. I wont bore you with them grizzly details, but he got pretty sick. I wound up spoonfeedin him oatmeal an milk of magnesia for almos 2 days. It weren’t no fun, I think i got a contact buzz jus from movin him from the dinner table to his bed. Needless to say, Clint has now officially quit smokin, an chewin, and is seriously considerin campanin fora tobacco ban here in Critchen’s valley, the communist! We know he’ll be hisself in a few more days, but I imagine he’ll probably be able to make it all the way through a WaffleHouse Waffle now without havin to stop for a smoke break.

Gas station wars...

2011-04-22T12:35:00.000-07:00

Thers a kinda fellowship type thing that exists between fellers that visit the same gas station day in, and day out. Its like there’s this unspoken bond that happens when strangers can come together in sieleent agreement that THEIR particuler mid morning commute waterin hole is superior to the rest. There is somethin magical that goes on when you walkup to the coffee counter at 6:30 am, pour yoreself a cup of coffee, and then walk up to the sugar an creamer table where a UPS fella is putting sugar in his cup. Then you’ll nod to him an say
“Mornin’, chilly weather ain’t it?”.
Then he’ll nod back an say something like
“Sure is, wish I wasn’t wearin these shorts.”
Then you both part ways with a heartfelt
“Have a good one, Chief.”

What’s really goin on unnerneath the surface is that you both are really sayin:
“Yeah, I like how they have the Slim Jims up front too, and the creamer pump is a way better idea than those individual packets they use across the street at the OTHER gas stations. I’ve had much better luck with these lottery tickets, and the hotdogs are always fresher…. You see? we are really brothers, you an me……”

Some folks jus don’t get it.. To them a gas station just a place to fill up the car. This aint the sort of post those folks would be much interested in hearin…….thn again, meybbe theys JUST the sort of folks as oughtta be readin this (maybe they’ll up an learn somethin)

We got 3 different gas stations here in Chritchen’s Valley; the Gas-n-Go, the Stop-n-Gas, and the fleet fill pumps at the Critchen’s valley Feed mill Co-op.

As a rule, the feed Co-op don’t really count. Its just a few pumps by one of the silos that truckers can swipe their fleet cards through an get gas. Its usually a few cents higher than the other 2 stations, and only has diesel and kerosene. There’s not much snacking to be done there, they only got a pepsi machine and a half empty peanuts-n-chips vending machine in the front office, and the manager’ll bitch a fit if you try an just hang out smoking in the waitin room without havin no official business with the feed mill.

Stop-n-Gas is run by Roy Houlihan (remember Roy was the fella with the prized blue tick hound, DaisyBelle), and this one guy named Musheef. I’m not even gonna try to spell Mushee’s last name on account of it havin punctuation marks an stuff innit. It sounde something like Alabama Fah Haddock, but I know that ain right cos he’s one of them A-rab types, and Alabama is an American name. Now Musheef is OK once you get to know him… but before you get to know him, he looks pretty much like the scariest sumbitch you’ve ever seen. He’s got one of those faces that looks like he’s always glarin’ atcha and fixin to stab you or somethin. Once you can figger out that that’s just his reglar facial expression, then he’s a pretty good fella. Its really kinda funny cause that boy’s got one of the loudest booming laughs I ever heard, so its like one minute he looks like he’s gonna start cutting on you at any moment, then the next he’s belting out this hilarious infectious-type laugh that makes it hard not to join in. yeah he’s a pretty good natured fella.

Let me tell you WHAT…. Musheef makes the best damm regular gas station pizza I ever had.. an that’s sayin a lot comin from me seein that roughly 80% of my meals originate from the shelves of a gas station in some way.

The Gas-n-Go is the older of the 2 establishments, and my preferred place of refreshment. Old Lenny runs it, and like i’ve said before, he’s about the nicest fella you’ve ever seen. Lenny’s a veteran of pretty much every foreign war in recent history prior to the gulf. He runs a pretty tight ship....or else he would if’n he wasnt half blind an deaf.

Lenny’s always good for a story .. The ones about `Nam are the best (Lenny used to be a real hardcore sonofabitch). He loves talking about the Hanoi Hilton, or as he calls it “That one shithole Charlie couldn’t keep me in no matter how hard he tried.”

Nowadays Lenny’s biggest foes are the afterschool skateboarders who try to steal them chocolate Yoohoo drinks, and bonus-pack parliament 100s cigarettes.

Gas-n-go has 3 kinds of coffee (6 if you count that panty-waist cappagina machine), and nas never been known to run low on it’s stock of slim-jims. It’ts got chicken or sausage biskits in the mornins, fried baloney and pimento cheese sanwiches for lunch, an corona an frozen burritoes for mexican-dinner-Tuesdays.

Lenny’s also got a cafey-type setup in the middle of the store with a couple of mustard-yellow restaurant booths and 3 small tables-for-two. The brown ceramic floor tiles aint exactly level, so most of us’ll stand around an wait for a booth instead of havin to deal with tables an chairs that rock back an forth ever time you shift yer weight to try an take a bite of moonpie. What really makes the Gas-n-go special tho is it’s Broaster Chicken.

A chicken broaster is basically what you get when you cross a deep fryer an a Critchens Valley Stovetop Oven (that’s a Pressure Cooker to you outsiders). So it fries the chicken under pressure, which makes it nice and jiucy. The broaster chicken alone is enough to keep me loyal to the gas-n-go.

So lately with the way the economy’s been going, both gas stations have been crankin up the competition as they try’n get folks to keep comin through the front door. Folks gotta buy gas, but when prices start climbin, they start buying fewer energy drinks, doritoes, egg salad sandwiches, ace-of-spaces zippos, an ed hardy air freshners.

Ol Lenny’s claim to fame used to be the largest broaster chicken statue in ky until this sumbitch at a marathon station over in bulleitt county got a bigger one (http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&source=s_q&hl=en&q=Bernheim+Forest,+Lebanon+Junction,+Bullitt,+Kentucky+40165&aq=&sll=37.851783,-84.572194&sspn=0.014164,0.027874&ie=UTF8&geocode=FR9PQgIdg3fl-g&split=0&safe=on&hq=&hnear=Bernheim+Forest&ll=37.886696,-85.549391&spn=0.014158,0.027874&t=h&z=16&layer=c&cbll=37.886838,-85.549574&panoid=sfinw9qWNt0tHBTv4RJpzQ&cbp=12,186.9,,1,0.83)

So now Lenny had to resort to other tactics to bring in customers. He rented one of them big light up signs for the side of the road that reads “In a hurry? Y Stop-n-gas, when U can Gas-n-Go?”... it kinda backfired because Roy Houlihan (allegedly) rearranged the letters to spell “Crashworthiness Haywagon Pyongyang U.N.”

This really pissed Lenny off on account of him bein a korean vet an hatin the UN and all...

So Lenny decides to start makin Pizza... Problem is, lenny aint got no pizza equipment, but don’t let that make you think he shure as hell didnt try.. That ol boy tried about everything he could think of........he tried puttin it in the microwave, it tasted like ass. He tried cookin it in his oven upstairs, he couldnt climb them steps fast enough when the timer went off an it almost burned the house down. He tried cookin it under the heat lamps, and that particular version of pizza looked even MORE like leather than regular gas station pizza does. Lenny was at his the end of his rope for the whole pizza thing.......that is until he set eyes on the Chicken broaster.. Let me tell you what folks. You aint never had pizza till it’s been fried in a chicken broaster! Likewise, you aint never had fried chicken till it’s been cooked in the same oil as a broaster pizza (tastes kinda like on-the-bone Chicken Parmashauna).

Lenny was in hog heaven, but I gotta say Musheef an Roy were pretty pissed. As the only resident pizza dealers in town, they’d gotten pretty slack on standards.. (Some days the peperoni pizza looked a lot like it had jack links terriyaki jerky hunks innit `stead of peperoni)

So Roy gets the great idea to tell everyone how Musheef once shot him an AlQuaeda. See Lotsa folks don’t realize that the mid east is made up of a TON of different folks, an jus cause they carry tiny carpets an pray toward mecca, it don’t mean they dont hate each other... Hell, them folk’s’ve been hatin on each other almost as lon as they’ve been hatin on us. As it turned out, Musheef was from Iran, an actually fought against some of them Taliban an alquaeda types back in the 80s before the US realized they were bad news.

So Roy puts up this sign that says “Stop-an-gas, Where a real, terrorist-killin, American hero works.”

Now this is a pretty sensitive subject for Lenny. His entire military career had been spent haltin the spread of communism. Nowadays though, since communisim has kinda shrank-like, all folks ever talk about fightin are the terrerists. Ol Lenny had retired long before we went to war on terrorism. So now his feelins are all hurt, and HE puts up a sign basically sayin that Musheef only shot al quaeda caus he was tryin to take it over, just like he’s tryin to take over the Critchen’s Valley Gasoline Reseller Industry.

This warnt exactly fair of ol Lenny, an everyone knew it. Roy an Musheef sued Lenny for slander, and Lenny countersued Roy an Musheef for bein “A couple of freedom hatin’, terrorist kissin, sons of bitches.”

Of course Lenny didn’t really have any sort of case an the circuit judge tossed it out, and fined Lenny for contempt of court. Lenny told the jusdge to go ahead and fine him for contempt of Roy Houlihan and “That evil lookin mustached a-rab”. The judge obliged and fined Lenny double, in addition to ordering him to cease and decist with makin broaster pizza (at Roy’s request)..

Its kinda funny how things work out ain’t it? On the one hand, Lots of words were exchanged, feelings were hurt, and Lenny had to pay a fine. Technically Roy an Musheef won cause the law was on their side.. On the other hand, most folks were so pissed at Roy for gettin the judge to make Lenny stop makin broaster pizza, that they started boycottin the stop-n-gas for the most part. Now Roy’s down to only one display rack of slimjims, 2 fridges full of pepsi, and a forlorn rack of out-of-date auto trader mags.

So even with the fines, the gag order, the restraining order, the cease and desist order, and the 3 days spent in jail for takin a poke at a baillif, ol Lenny came out on top anyway...

The grand science-type deceeit of our young folk.

2011-04-13T09:58:00.001-07:00

I gotta tell you folks about somethin thatr’s been eatin me for awhile.... It’s got to do with what sortta future we’re makin for our kids..

PREFACE(skip ahead if you dont wanna hear my opinions on over vs unner sheltred kids):

I’m not one of those sissified folks who think all kids are born with a silver platter in their mouth and oughtta be treated like theyre’ fine chinas. Part of becomin a regularly functioninal adult is learnin to take your licks an move on with it. Some folks try an sheild their kids from every little bad thing that pops up on the horizone..

I think we all can agree that a fella (or gal) gets lots of learnin from the experienses they come acrost in life, but when a parent makes for certain that nothin bad can ever possibly happen to their kids....well....what’s that do to little Billy when he suddenly turns 15 an has a couple of sets of twins an a single-wide payment? Bein raised without no consequences is about as harmful as lettin a kid fail every now and again.

`course there are folks who’re WAY too strict with theyre kids and don let em do nothin normal like watch cable TV, or play X-box, or dip. Those are the kids that usually start out all awkwerd wearin high-top sneakers an acid washed jeans an suspenders(Gingham dresses if theyre girls). Then they up rebellin some how when they’re older and end up workin in a comic book shop when they’re 40 cause they’re still tryin to recapture what sortof childhood they think they was missin out on in the firs place.

This post dont got nothin to do with how kids are raised, I just wanted to offer a dissclamer sos yall didnt think I was gettin soft on kids (cos I aint. If you’re old enuf to figger out one of those nintinder DS things, then yore old enougf to sweep floors an mow the yard)

In my IMHO, our schools are doin our kids a graev unjustice when it comes to science....

Did yall know I was a scientist?

Well... that ain’t exactly true.. I should say that if the nature and criteria for bein a scientist were the same as what they TOLD me it was in gradeschool, then I’d be a scientist by now.

See, when you’re a kid and you go to science class, they teach you bout cool stuff like constellations, an animal footprints, and identifyin birds. They tell you that if you like makin baking soda volcanoes, and takin bark rubbings from different trees, then you’d make a good scientist. Every day you’ll listen to teachers an the like tell you that scientists get to do stuff like go to the moon, an discover cool thiings like xrays.

Beginnin science education leaves kids basically thinkin a scientist is a cross between indianna jones, MacGuyver, and Christopher Columbus.

Of COURSE this is 100% grade A unpasturized organic BULLSHIT!

See, if they told kids that science was basically a godawfull mess of math an paperwork, no kid in his right mind would ever go into that field. So in an effort to catchup with them asians, we pull a giant educationel bait-and-swish. By the time the kids realize Science is nothin but math an paperwork, it’s too late. Science aint about collectin leaves, or taming guniea pigs, or puttin carnations in colored water, but by now the kids aint no good at sports or playin guitar or workin on cars or weldin or nothin. So our attempt to shield the kids from the truth winds up hurtin them in the end an they drop out of college an wind up workin in a comic book store anyways....or else they turn into an uber nerd an yall can kiss grandkids goodbye FOREVER!

If folks want a new crop of scientists, I got a solution that’s simple and truthful. I call it the Eightfold Path

1. Science aint nothin but a lot of math and paperwork.

BUT

2. Bein good in science will let you make more money than God, and you’ll be able to live in one of them fancy houses with a basement.

3. It’s much easier to be a rockstar when you have a bitchin science job to pay for it.

4. If you get good enough at science, you can get other folks to do the hard stuff for you an all you gotta do is read books and talk about science at semminars.

5. if you get good enough at math an paperwork, you can pretty much invent anything you want an never have to worry about not knowin how to do it: Wish someone would make a combination tv remote and beercan cooler? Wish no more!

6. If you make enough of the science-cash, ladies (or fellas) will come an ask YOU out.

7. If you know enough sciency stuff, you wont never have to worry about findin work.

8. yore parents will stop comparin you to your cousin who went an got a chiropractin degree.

See, I think that if we tell kids “Look Johnny, science is really hard.. BUT folks dumber than you have made it, and they’re making ass-tons of money now and can invent anything they want. So get good at math an stuff, an brush up on your paperwork skills.” Then more of the sort of folks we want bein scientists will go for it.

IF the modern consumer votes with his or her wallet

THEN the products that’ll do the best are the ones people wanna to pay for

ERGO The sort of scientist who’s in it for the money an the glory is gonna have the right mentality to make/discover stuff people give a rip about.

Take paleeentology an archeologie... Sure dinosaurs are cool....if yore like 7, but what good has studyin 8 gazillion year old dinosaur shat evver done for society one? Ooh look the blahbblahopterix used to eat dragonflies, lets make us a histry channel special!

Leave that science to the sandal wearin nerds.

I put it to yall that the whole reason we don’t got no giant robots or flyin cars is cos we dont have enough rockstar scientists who do it for the cash an groupies.

New job resplonsibilities can be a pain in the ass unless you know how to milk tha system!

2011-01-25T07:41:00.000-08:00

Hey yall, I know its been a while, I just aint had much insperashion of late. I’ve been workin hard down at the quarry on account that we hit a vein of good hi-quality-tye granite. `Problem with this sorta granite is that you shore cant go blastin away at it like you do with limestone-type rock, on account that you wont make no money with itty bitty pieces of granite. Nossir, you gotta cut granite into slabs so’s folks can make counter tops and whatnot with em.

See, Adar Quarry is a mixed aggregate type quarry... that means our equippent is designed to drill rows of holes into the rock that we (an by “we” I mean me) then stuff with dynamite. The resultin explosion breaks the rock into all different size pieces that then get used in all sortsa applications (concrete, gravel driveways, industrial abrasives, concrete, etsetera. Etsetera.).
The point I’m tryin to make is that Adar Quarry didn’t have no proper equipment for cuttin slab granite, and the same was true for most of the quarries around here, seein how quality courses of fracture-free granite is a geographical oddity of sorts in this part of Kentucky, so it ain’t like we could jus take half a day drivin over to morehead to buy the equipment.
So my boss put me in charge of gettin the right equipment.. Now i dont know much about the finer points of geologic-type harvestin. I took this job for one reason and one reason only.. To get paid to legally blow shit up with high explosives nearly every day.

See, ever once in awhile you’ll find somethin that’s so fun that you dont really ever think of it as work. The enjoyment facktor of that pertickular task is way higher than the pain-in-the-ass-fackter of doin’ said task (like gettin paid to legally blow shit up with high explosives.).
On the other hand, a fella can find a task that takes less work to do, but is a much bigger pain in the ass (i.e. doin dishes, mowin the yard, etc), so in the end it SEEMS like more work than it really is.

So now my job was to find equipment and training resources so that Adar Quarry staff could start learnin how to harvest this particlear type of granite... I put up a stink about it an said i didnt know nothin about giant ass diamond saws, or water-fed cooling systems..
In response to my complainin, my boss Bob said “If you cant figger it out, then find find someone who CAN goddamm figger it out!”
I was feelin riled up, so I tol him that sayin “-find someone who CAN goddamm figger it out!” aint hardly proper english, an that the use of “goddam” as an adjunct didn’t make no sense, an that it would have been better moved to the end of the sentence: “-find someone who CAN figger it out, goddam it!”
Boss just tossed a ledger at me an told be to scram.

I was gettin pretty pissed an frustrated on account of my job’s pain-in-the-ass factor was startin to outpace the enjoyment factor. In most circumstances it wouldn’t have been too bad if the boss had asked me to look fer people and equipment, an then let him know when I found somethin. In this case though, he wanted daily status reports on my progress... which is some sorta retarded somethin he learned at a manager semminary at the mariott conference center in Lexington.. The problem here was that findin people and equipment warn’t the sorta project you can really have regular progress on; you either find the stuff you’re lookin for on any given day, or you don’t. So I had to go into his office most ever day an tell him that I still aint found the right kinda equipment, or folks as knew how to use it. He bitched and complained and tol me that time was money. I tol him that things would go lots faster if he’d get the internet donwloaded at the quarry sos I could look up info on places that were further away than a half day’s drive, or weren’t included in the local phonebook yellerpages. He cussed some more an tol me that the ‘internets’{sike} cost money too, an why didn’t I jus go to the library internets and look from there?
I tol him that I was banned from the library on account of owing them 300 bucks for losin a bunch of starwars books on tape. He pulled out 300 dollars on the spot and tol me to go pay the library what I owed them. So I went an paid Critchen’s Valley Public Library the 150 dollars I actually owed them (oops, did I tell my boss I owed them $300? Silly me!)

Then I took the remainin 150 bucks and signed the quarry up for internet service. The boss bout like to skat a brick when he saw me browsin yootube videos of quarry equipment. I tol the boss to calm down on account of the internet bein a free donation on account of granite bein a valuable resource in the manufacture of computer parts. He patted me on the head and said I used good Synergy, and way to Paradigm the hell out of attaining company resources (now I may not know the meanins of lots of these fancy words, but I do have the knack fer bein able to tell when someone aint usin them correctly just the same).

In about 2 days I found this company in Massachusetts that leased equipment and provided consultation for this exact sort of situation. So we had them send one of their fellahs down to analyze that big ol granite vein and try to figger out how big it was, an how much equipment an services we needed while still maintainin a healthy profit.

It turns out that they had a prety good lease-to-own deal with the equipment, and they provided in-depth learnin services included in the maintenance fee. So when all was said and done, we got all the equipment we needed for a small-scale harvest outfit for “artisan granite”.. You know, I’ve worked with rock for near 20 years now, an I am amazed at how much folk will pay for this sorta rock. Now I can unnerstand payin lots for precious stones like diamond, and amethyst, and silver; those things take lotsa time an skill to make, an are fairly rare. Granite on the other hand is a different. It’s harvested in the same spot as the limestone-type rock, an don’t really take THAT much more work, yet doctors and law folk will pay out the nose fer “artisan granite” countertops....
It almost feels like highway robbery.. but if they’re willin to pay it, i’ll just take my raise and shut up.

Now you might think I’d be out of sorts now that my job is mostly cuttin `grannit slabs (at least until this vein runs out). Now I admit, I do miss gettin paid to blow shit up legally... I miss it BAD... But try to see things from my point of view.. I now operate what essentially looks like an overweight forklift with a 40 hp, 9-1/2ft articulated chainsaw attached to the front... So even though I used to get-paid-to-legally-blow-shit-up-with-high-explosives, I can now say I get-paid-to-operate-a-giant-robotic-chainsaw.. So it aint exactly a step down the career ladder for me.
Also, I try to look at it this way, I’m the only one certified to operate the GRC (giant robot chainsaw), and no matter how busy we get, the boss has to go home eventually. You’d be pretty impressed at all the sorta things we’ve tried cuttin up with the GRC..

Deap Freeze: 9.6 sec

Chevy engine block: 23.3 sec

Big ol hunk of bologna: 1 sec

24-pack of Bud Light: 4.25 sec

Dead Cow: 11.5 sec

8 ft stack of tires stacked around a 8ft section of telephone pole: 2 min, 27 sec

Tool box full of concrete with heavy chains rapped around it and placed inside a 55 gal oil drum full of nails thats placed inside of the back half of a 78 buick thats placed inside of a construction-waste dumpster: 4 minutes till the chain broke, then another 2 minutes, 12 seconds after we replaced the chain.

The challenge is gettin it all cleaned up before the boss gets back in the mornin.. It makes for some long nights, with not near enuf sleep... but come on, seriously, how often does a fella get to play “How fast will it cut?” with a Giant Robot Chainsaw?

As an added bonus, I now have internet at work. I told the boss that we had to keep the internet now as part of the maintenance cost since we would need to be able to do online trainings to keep up with industry standards.....that is unless he approved overtime for us to do training after hours in the library.. needless to say he approved the internets subscription thing pretty quick!

Where do i even start?

2010-06-15T11:08:00.000-07:00

It dont fail that `bout every time I think I got wemmin figured out, I find I still dont got no clue. Now I aint talkin about wemmin in general, cause everyboddy knows alls you gotta do is be polite, shut up and listen, do what they tell you (within reeson), an bring them flowers on mothers day, birfdays, valentine day, flag day, etc. My problems start when I stop dealin with wemmen in general an start dealin with wemmin in specific... `Meanin that with certain specific type wemmin, it dont matter what you bring em, or how hard you work, or how many concerts you take em to, or how many times you take em fishin, or how many times you let them borrow yer truck, or how often you do everything for them and work hard all day long in the quarry, or how often you take them to the bowling alley, they aint NEVER GONNA BE ANYTHIN BUT A CANTANKEROUS POLECAT TO YOU IFN YOU LET THEIR BLOOD SUGAR CRASH! Thats right Hepisbah, I’m talkin to you!

Hepisbah’s sorta a relation to me, but not really. She’s my aunt Sandy’s older half sister. Since Aunt sandy aint really my aunt anymore, that means Hepisbah is sort of my EX-half cousin onced removed or somethin like that. Anyhoo, Hepisbah had been livin with me for a few weeks..

Now before you savvy internet folk start makin kentucky jokes, unnerstand that it AINT like THAT.

Here’s WHY Hepisbah was livin with me (be patient i’ll get to why it sucked in a little bit)
See, Aunt Sandy an her mom Pat an stepdad Monroe done went to Gatlinburg for a few weeks. They happened to be in the right place at the right time and wound up takin one of them free tours that the timeshare companies is always talking about...`Thing is, Pat and Monroe went an did this about 10 or 12 times.. So they had about 2 weeks of free timeshare tours racked up. After doin this they only had to pay for about a weeks worth of fees at the Motel6. Needless to say, they didn’t want to take Hepisbah..

Actually “needless to say” dont really work on account of yall not knowin Hepisbah.
Hepisbah warnt exactly what you’d call “well adjusterd”. See, she was born with a hole in her head an SugarDibetes. They patched up the hole pretty good (for a home job) an now you can barely see the numbers from the piece of license plate under her skin. The sugar diabetes on the other hand is another matter.. Now I aint too sure the specifics of Sugar Diabetes, but i’m pretty sure that AINT what Hepisbah’s got, on account of my former great-aunt Pat just decidin one day that Sugar Diabetes was what ailed Hepisbah (an Pat aint a doctor no matter how many taped reruns of general hospital she watches.)
Whatever Hepisbah’s got wrong with her means she turns into a terror whenever she gets hungry.(I looked on wikipedia an i think it mite have to do with somethin called hypor glysemia or somethin...) I mean she flies off the handle and will bout like to kill you ifn she dont get somethin to eat once the hunger sets in. Its kinda scary to watch. She’s just a little thing with big ol thick glasses, huge teeth, an about 9 cats. She usually wares these old style gingham-type dresses that make her look like a nerdy laurie ingals from little house on the prary. She LOOKS liek she wouldn’t hurt a fly, but WATCH OUT! Aunt Sandy’s gotta mean lookin screwdriver scar on the back of her leg from the time when Hepisbah missed the bus from school and was late for dinner by 3 hours. Honestly, all Aunt Sandy said was “where’ve you been? Suppers cold.” And Hepisbah went SNAP an stabbed her with a screwdriver.. Of course the screwdriver had been sharpened to a point so they could use it to punch extra holes in Monroe’s belt after thanksgiving, but i’m pretty sure it would’ve broken the skin even if it wasn’t sharp.
So Hepisbah had no desire to go to Gatlinburg on account of them mountains bein too far away from the different eateries for her to make it before the hunger-crazies set in.

So Pat and Monroe was lookin for someone to watch Hepisbah. They figured that since Aunt Sandy and I was friends that I’d be cool with watchin her.
“Jus keep her fed” they said, “As long as she dont get hungry she’ll help you with all sorts of stuff around the house. As a bonus, we’ll get you a buncha Pigin Forge shotglasses!”
Never one to turn down an offer on free booze parafinalia, I said I’d give it a 'shot' (hur hur ). Besides, Hepisbah was kinda like family, an my trailer’s nintendo rooms got a futon in it.

Now here’s where things started turnin sour. Apparently Hepisbah’s condition means that she dont process sugar too well. And by “doesn’t process sugar too well” I mean she tends to get hungry a lot quicker if’n she gets lots of complex cerbohiderates an dont get fat or proteen to blance it all out. Monroe (who dropped her off) neglected to tell me that bit of info.
I was plum out of race steaks (thats fryin’ baloney for you newcomers) and gizzards, but I had plenty of moonpies, crackers, cinnamon donettes, and hotdog buns.
Bein the good host that I was, shared my lunch with my cousin/aunt/former relation/ whatever.. She complained a little bit about not gettin proteen, so I tossed her a snickers bar (snickers has got nuts innit, right? Aint nuts got proteen?)
Well come about 3:00 I hear this ruckus in the livin room. I didn’t pay it too much attention cause I was about to break my old record on DoubleDragon. A few seconds later I hear this big ol ripping noise followed by a big WHOMP that shook the wall that the ninttendo room shares with the livin room.. It shook so hard that the skynyrd flag up on the ceiling fell off an landed acrost the TV sos i couldn’t see the game no more. I reckoned this was as good a stopping point as any (since i’d have to pause the game to get up an remove the flag). So I picked myself up and stuck my head in the livinroom to see what was causing the ruckus. Turns out, she tore up part of the carpet an punched a hole straight through the floor on account of gettin so mad about how the sun was shinin through the window an how it was messing up her day and how this part of the world sucked because the sun was too hot this time of the year, etc.(I should probably mention that it was a soft spot in the floor anyway from back when the pipes burst, and I’d been meanin to fix it anyway.)
Anyhoo, I had to make real sure she had plenty of nuts and bacon and cheese in addition to the other food groups foods like cereal and twinkies on hand.. this was shure startin to feel like the sorta complex dietary plannin you hafta do to raise yourself a prize 4H steer.

So for a few days things were goin ok I guess, but she shore got cranky real quick!
I took her to the bowlin alley in Grayson and we didn't get halfway through the first frame before she tossed down her bowlin ball (she cracked the floor) and started shouting about how she hated this game and how aint nobody unnerstood her and how this town was just full of terrible people an how the world was out to get her. I hoofed it over to the concession stand and nabbed her a hotdog or 3 and she soon calmed down after trying to choke some poor fella with his own ball towel. I explained about the hole in her head an the “sugar diabetes”, and the fella decided not to press charges.
The next few days were ok, an we didnt have too many fits because I was able to toss her some cashews whenever i started hearin her grind her teeth in agitation.

Thursday came around and I was runnin mighty low on supplies, so i decided to head on over to Adar Quarry an pick up my paycheck, then head to the gas-n-go for some groceries. After pickin up my regular load of Bacon, lunchables, slimjims, RC cola/Ale-8, and Good-n-Hot potato chips, I noticed this here display for “!Magnum!Strike! Power Drink” On the back of the can it said it was loaded chock full of proteen, plus lots of healthy sounding stuff like Ginseeng, Taureen, Guaranna, Effedrin. According to the cardboard cutout of Brett Michaels, this was supposed to be one of them technological advances in energy drinks, an that it had a days worth of vitamins an energy in one can.
This sounded almost too good to be true! You shouldn’t have to be some sorta rocket chemist to figger out how to feed your cousin the right balance of food so she stays as close to normal as she can get. I reckoned I could give her one of these cans per day to get her vitamins an stuff, an then let her eat regular food like honey smacks and pretzels without havin to make sure she didnt have an episode and wind up alterin the countryside or killin someone. So I went up to the counter with an armload of snacks and about 8 of them energy drinks.
`Ol Lenny took one look from behind the register an said “`Gotta be careful with them drinks Clayton! I hear they’re mostly full of this thing called Hi Fruitcost Corn Syrup! An the lady on TV says its really bad fer a fella!”

I told Lenny that just cause its on TV, it don’t mean its ALWAYS true. Who ever heard of Corn bein bad for people? BESIDES, Corn aint no fruit, its a vegetable.. everybody knows that! And vegetables are lots better for you than fruit.
To me this seemed just like a bonus if the !Magnum!Strike! had vegetables in it!

So I headed home to find Hepisbah sittin on the front porch carving cusswods into the cushions of the old Ford F100 benchseat I was usin as a porch swing. (Usin parts for furniture and door stops is about the only thing Fords are good for.. MOPAR!!!)
So I tossed her a can of the !Magnum!Strike! and 2 packages of twinkies an told her that I was goin fishin an that if i got back an she had messed up any more of my stuf that I’d horsewhip her.
She took a sip of the drink and started complainin that it tasted all “mediciny”. I told her that she needed to be a good girl and drink her vitamins or she couldnt have any more twinkies.
So I headed off to the west branch of Critchens Creek to try an catch some rockbass an bluegill to fry up for dinner.. (I’m off Fridays, so Thursday nights are kinda like the start of the weekend for me).
I didnt do to bad at the fishin hole, and I reckoned i got enough fish to make supper for both Hepisbah an me, so i headed for home.

All I can say is that what I sawd when i got back was nothin but pure desolation. I walked up the hill, an once I got past the bushes at the end of my driveway, I saw that the end of the trailer had got tore clean off. At first I thought it was a tornado hit it till I saw racial slurs spraypainted all over the inside of the trailer. I stuck my head inside what was left of my livin room and shuddered.. All the upholstery on my sofa had been tore off, the stuffing shreded and tossed all over the place. The floorboards were tore up an piled barricade-style in the hallway along with boht the stove that worked, as wel as the broken stove I used to store pots in. It was only half noticed all 8 !Magnum!Strike! cans lyin empty on the kitchen floor.
Then I started hearin the screamin. It started out as a low buzz, but then it started gettin real loud (like hurt-yer-ears-loud) and I could hear exactly what Hepisbah was sayin from behind the barricade. I won’t repeat exactly what she said on account that i’m pretty sure typin stuff like that on the internet aint legal. Basically she was goin on an on about how everyone in this town was a lazy nogood sonovabitch and how we would all pay and that she’d make certain all this damm water underground would stay there and how the government was sending airline jets full of chemicals to spray the sky above her to keep her quiet, etc.

I didn’t know what to do! I could wait till she passed out, but it was almost getting to the point where she’d done more structural damage than could be fixed with tarps an 2x4s.

Ok i gotta confess. I may sound pretty calm right now, but I was pissed as hell at the time and was shoutin my share of colorful language too.. I mean, she’s plum destroyed half my house! Why in God’s name is she even out an about in public ifn she’s able to do this kinda destruction?? I decided I had to do somethin ifn I still wanted to have a home left standin. So i went outside and hooked up my pressure washer an quietly snaked the nozzle through the broken half of my bedroom window (I could jus barely see Hepisbah on the floor.. It looked like she was carving “REDRUM” or somethin like that in the floor boards with one of my buck knives).

Next I went to my truck an got out my stungun from under the seat of my truck.. Why do I have a stungun? Well, when you combine lots of friends, lots of beer, a bonfire and a stungun, it shore makes for a fun Friday night!

Anyhoo so I nabbed the stungun and things went down like this :

I turned on the pressure washer and the hose started thrashin around the bedroom while sprayin water all over. Hepisbah screamed like a wet cat, ran out of the room an jumped the barricade.. She warn’t runnin in terror, she was just even more pissed and was gonna carve my ass in two with that there knife. I knowed this was the case on account of her screamin “Clayton! I’m gonna carve your ass in two with this here knife!”
So she jumps the barricade an I hit her with the stungun before she can stab me. She dropped right away like all the bones had done got removed form her all of a sudden.
I scooped her up an put her in the broken chest freezer i had out back....
Now dont worry, there were airholes punched in the freezer. Like I said, it was broken. I punched airholes innit so i could use it to keep snappin turtles in. I had some blankets i’d been keepin in there cause I aint got no turtles yet, so i figured she’d be sorta comfortable. So I padlocked her in the freezer along with some slimjims an some hardboiled eggs from the store.
After awhile she wokeup and ate her food an then started crying. I felt real bad, so i sat down an started talking to her. It turns out she was cryin on account of how she tore up my house after I was so nice to her, an how she hates when she goes crazy. She said it was like watchin a movie about someone else when it happens.
Its easy to stay pissed when someone acts like they didnt do nothin wrong, but when someone is real sorry like that and is actually upset by their own actions.... well call me a sucker for nerdy holly hobby types who wish they didnt do screwed up crazy things.

So we came to an agreement, Hepisbah an me. I let her out of the chest freezer and she would help me fix up what part of my trailer was still salvageable. When I had to leave the house she would go into the freezer with some snacks an a stack of my guns-n-ammo magazines (she said they were soothin). I cut a small window in the end of the freezer an dragged my TV an Nintendo out on the back porch so she could play nintendo or watch TV ifn she got bored. This actually worked pretty well. Hepisbah liked the chest freezer well enough. She said it made her feel shut in and isolated from the world when it started to piss her off.......oh yeah, she beat my score on Double Dragon too..

A few days later, Monroe an Pat an Aunt Sandy came back home pullin a brand new airstream camper Monroe won in a raffle at `The Forge. They sorta stood around in shock as they looked at what was left of my house... Of course it was in a little bit better shape than when Hepisbah tore it to shreds a few days before, but the front end looked more like a giant tarp-tent than a living room.
“Was there some sorta tornado?” asked Pat..
“Um... no,” I said, “Hepisbah had one of them.....episodes...”
I took a look at Monroe, then looked at the camper... then back at Moroe, then back at the camper. I raised my eyebrows and held out my hand... Monroe sighed, then nodded an handed me the keys to his new camper.

They bundled Hepisbah into the truck, along with her newfound “Fortress of Solitude” (aka my old chest freezer) and got ready to leave.
Aunt Sandy gave me a hug an told me that she was shure glad that at least I dint get stabbed with a screwdriver. Then she squeezed my hand but didnt let go for a few seconds.. She jus looked at me an said nothin. Then she walked back to their truck an looked over her shoulder at me an smiled.. then she was gone.
That made me feel ALL kinds of funny inside.. but it was a good kinda funny, an THAT was what was scary... I mean Aunt Sandys my aunt an all....of course she wasn’t may aunt no more after she got divorced.. An she WAS only a couplea years older’n me... I wonder why she held my hand like that? Like I aint got enough to worry about now..

2010-06-01T18:12:00.000-07:00

OMG. HAHAHAHahh! http://www.amazon.com/Mountain-Three-Wolf-Short-Sleeve/dp/B002HJ377A/ref=cm_cr_pr_product_top

you gotta read this fella's review. I SWEAR that's got to be Leeroy's borther who wrote that. We's always givin him a hard tim for goin to fancy stores like the walmart..

I swear my friend Clint from back in the hollar's gots him one of these.. course Clint's a scrawny fella, so he had to special order an Xsmall-long size. Me-n-him done went over to the Gas-n-Go to get some Merle Haggard tapes from up by the register and Lenny form behind the counter offered to sell us a couple of "Stairway to Zepplin" tickets for cheap. So Clint an me decided to go to the show. He wore his wolf shirt to the show, an I wore me a special tee I made from cafe express. It's gots a picture of a bald eagle dressed in a nascar jumpsuit with a #3 helmet under his wing (we aint never gonna forget you Intimidator!!). There's an American flag in the background an spudz Mackenzie the dog playin an electrical guitar while he rides one of them monster trucks over a bunch of them commie al quaeda terrierists on the back. Its got letters on the pocket that spell "Claytonz Krazy Backyardz Kustomz" with a photo of my chevy s10 truck with all 4 corner panels sportin different paint jobs. I'm jus tryin to decide which one I like the best. Sos we up an went to the show an listened to the tunes, only we got in a fight because they didn't slee PBR there for cheap, an as everboddy knows, PBR aint good unless it's cheap! so we got banned for 2 weeks from the only bar in Critchens Valley. We were stuck out on that friday night with our fancy shirts an no one to notice (on account of most everybody who wasnt jailed was at the concert). So Clint got the bright idea to go cash his paycheck at the gas-n-go an then go over to the county jail an see if there was any pretty wemmin who needed bailed out. (Clint likes em firey, so about once a month he goes cruisin for alleged public disturbance types). There werent nobody fun at the jail except for my aunt Sandy. Sandy's only a year older'n me and aint really my aunt anymore.. Still, she's always lookin fer help makin corn squeezins out at her still behind the first baptist church picnic shelter. So even though we didnt find no dates (outside the family tree, but sandy's not really a date cos we's too good friends) but we did get some free shine in the end. you gotta find silver linings like that in life!

I'm back, but the tarps on the roof keep leakin..

2010-04-05T17:54:00.000-07:00

Its been awhile since I up an posted on this here inter web diary thang. At first I was putting it off on account of me n Robert gettin writers block about the whole bobby kettle saga, but then the roof of the library got done got tore off by Hurricane an that put a hold on my musins’.
Naw I aint talkin about them big ol water tornadies they get down in floraida on account of Kentucky bein way too far north for that sorta thing (in the hills all we git is this here wind/rain/ice cocktail all winter long so that by spring time yore roof is all leaky and half of the branches on the dead maple in yore driveway up an got snappt off in the storm.
Anyhoo the roof of the library got tore off by big ol Ralph “Hurricane” Stodge. I’ll come back to the Library in a little bit cause I gotta tell yall a little bit about him sos you can unnerstand what sorta fella he is. (You know me, I aint one to just tell a story without offerin plenty of suppermental background materials)
Ralph was obsessed with wrestlin... Well I shouldn’t say obsessed on account of him not really following pro wrestlin all that much. No sir, what Ralph was obsessed with was his VHS collection of the old Hulk Hoagan’s Rock-n-Wrestlin cartoon series. He watched those beat up old tapes almost onna daily basis. Of course all of us true wrestlin fans shore did make fun of him lots on account of him not knowin much about the real thing. I kinda felt sorry for Ralph though, cause them cartoons is pretty far fetched. I mean its tough to unnerstand from watchin a cartoon just how much of an athelete you gotta be to make it in the ring (or Octagon on more special-type occasions). I mean if you really watch Wrestlin’ closely, you can see how much sweat an strain it takes to pull off all them near-deadly special moves. We tried tellin Ralph that it took hours and hours of training to become a pro, but it didn’t do no good, Ralph said he got enough talent sos as not to have to worry with all that trainin stuff’. “Besides,” he said, “This extra weight’ll give me an advantage in the ring, an if I worked out and slimmed down I might lose my edge!”
So Ralph thought he was obsessed with wrestlin’, so he started referring to himself in the 3rd person as “hurricane”. He done made hisself a uniform outta a black teeshirt with the meatierological symbol for a hurricane on the front, and a pair of old realtree camo pants. It warnt ever real clear if Ralph…scuse me, I mean “Hurricane” was a good guy or a bad guy wrestler… According to him, and I quote, “The Hurricane’s too complex and deep to be classed as good or bad. Some days he’s good and passes far to the south in the ocean before makin landfall, but other times he smashes into retirement homes and carries off people’s dogs and used gold jewelry!” Now that didn’t make no sense cause he was talkin in weather terms, an we didn’t know weather or not to believe him. Anyhoo, all he ever did was wander around town (he was pretty much a slacker) and bum cigarettes and Ale-8 offa folk tryin to take their lunch breaks at the gas-n-go. Mos folks obliged an handed over the goods if Ralph would promise to show off some of his wrestlin’ moves… He had such feared signature moves as the “Deadly Landfall”, “Record Swells”, and “Gale Force Wind”… In reality, these moves consisted pretty much of Ralph shouting the name of the move, then doin a pretty bad rendition of a roundhouse kick. Ralph nearly always ended up hurtin himself or breakin somebody’s personal property, or fallin down and crushin someone’s yorkie-type dog.. Usually the breaking of property was preferable cause we got to see Ralph try to fight the pissed off owner of said property whilst usin his extra special moves that jus didn’t work (we called this a double on-tandrah). Either way, Ralph usually wound up at the doctor gettin stitched up an generally pissin off the doc.
Now Doc brown was a nice enough fella, but he didn’t tolerate anny sorta jackassery at all.. Needless to say, he shore picked the wrong place to open his practice. Anyhoo Doc tol Ralph that he was getting hurt on purpose, and that that hippopotamusic oath he took didn’t cover no jackasses hurtin theyselves on purpose, an that if Ralph came in one more time with wrestling related injuries, then the doc would refuse to see him an he’d have to go to the urgent treatment center next county over.. Well Ralph got hurt again, and true enough to his word, the Doc sent him to the emergency Services. Now this particular ambulatory care center charged 100 bucks a pop for people jus poppin in to get the same stuff done that they coulda had fixed at the doctor (like when Clint got the flu on Sunday night and didn’t feel like waitin for Monday morning to roll around to go see the Doc).
So Ralph didn’t change his ways, so he kept windin up in the ER next county over.. Needless to say, he kept rackin up the medical bills.. As I mentioned before, Ralph didn’t work…nossir, he was too busy tryin to get “discovered”. So the bills kept pilin up and he started getting pestered by collections folk.
So ol Ralph starts lookin fer ways to make money, cause bummed cigs and Ale-8 bottles won’t pay the bills. So he tries mowin yards, only no one ever mows their yards around here cause theres lots of shade and it don’t need it. He tried bailin hay, but that was too much like training and he didn’t want to lose his edge. Finally Ralph started stealin copper and selling it on the gray market (We don’t got a black market here on account of all the bootleg whiskey and medical grass practically bein legal tender, so its really more of a gray market than black). So he starts stealin coils out of folks AC units, stealin copper pipes outta people’s vacation cabins by the lake, etc. Well now the roof of the new library was made out of copper sheeting, so now it probably makes a little more sense when I say the roof done got tore off by Hurricane.
Yeah so we figgered out who tore off roof off and we sent his ass to jail.. Sorry but that library got paid for with our taxes. Stealin copper offa the roof is like stealin copper from all of us. So he went away to prison for a few years, and wouldn’t you know, the pokey was just the thing Hurricane needed to toughen him up. He’s gone semi-pro now and is actually makin enough to pay for his old ER bills. I guess sometimes crime does pay if you learn your lesson and grow from it.

Bobby Kettle an the still of destiny part 7

2009-12-15T06:38:00.000-08:00

Ok so I know its been a right long time since i done wrote the last entry for this here screen play, but the library done got a leak in it's roof over the summer, an the circuit pc guy only comes round once a quarter.. When I say "circuit" I don't mean he works on microchips an such, i mean he's got one of them circuit positions where he moves from town to town durin the year.

Anyhoo, here's the next part of the story.

After the run-in with the tiny house Elvis, Bobby was feelin even more confused than usual. Dopey done threw him for a loop an it was pretty hard to stay focused on account of that stupid letter. He decided to go for a walk before class to try to sort things out he didnt bother lookin for Cletus an Henri; he was pretty sure they were still sleeping on account of havin a late night NOT meetin each other out by the big rock an NOT swimmin in the moonlight.

As he walked, Bobby tried real hard to think wo might be tryin to sabotage his work.
“Hell’s Bells” Bobby thought, “It ain’t like I’m doin’ anything wrong, an mos every student I talk to has been all pumped up about goin to R.E.A.L.M.A.G.I.C.A.B.Cs... It aint like any of them teacher know either, or else they’d put a stop to it real quick... And that oughtta be enough motivation to keep any of the members from squealin.. besides, who’s want to stop summoning hydras an meteors an stuff sos they could go back to twirlin spaghetti with a magic fork? So it aint a student, and it aint a teacher... who could it be?”

“Scuse me fella,” said a ragged voice over Bobby’s shoulder, “You done trampled mud all over mah clean sidewalks! Im gonna hafta nail your hands to a shingle. Its the rules!”

Bobby whirled around and came face to face with Archie Fitch, the school janitor, and his pet polecat Ms Stinkles. Fitch was holdin a hammer and a pair of mean lookin nails.

“Gawd Fitch,” Said Bobby, “I didnt track no mud over no sidewalks, these here walkways is made of packed clay, its ALL mud!”

“Oooooh” said Fitch, “fella thinks he’s so high an mighty cause he can use magic! That’s the way yer thinkin right now! I can see it written all over yer face! I got my eye on you Kettle! Don’t think I don’t know what yer up to! Me’n Ms. Stinkles done been watchin you! You best watch yourself too, cos we’s watchin it, aint we Ms Stinkles?”

“I don’t reckon what you’re talkin about Fitch, and I’m pretty sure I don’t care,” Bobby replied, “But since I’m pretty sure you aint gonna leave me alone till we talk, you might as well say whats on yer mind.”

“Not here,” said Fitch “fellas might hear what i gots to say. Meet me in an hour out on the southside field by that ol sycamore that stands all by itself. Come alone!”

“Whatever.” Said Bobby.

After breakfast Bobby made his way out towards the southside field. As you can weel imagine, he was gettin pretty pissed about the stuff he was havin to put up with. It seemed like a day couldn’t go by where he didn’t have to deal with some idiot from this here magic community. Bout every one that he done come across seemed to be of one of two minds: The first sorta person seemed to love bobby and kept goin on and on about legends or prophecies, or that he survived a football game with some badass in the magickin’ world. The second sorta person hated Bobby’s guts from day one. Apparently Bobby had a real big ego an was too big for his britches according to them, etc.
Bobby warn’t too fond of either way of thinkin; the folks that loved him an the folks that hated him all seemed to have their minds made up before even gettin’ to know him.

Bobby was so lost in his thinkin that he done tripped over a plaque on the ground.

Now before you go an make fun of poor Bobby, you gotta remember that the middle of fields are usually the sort of places where folk dont have to worry about watchin where they’re goin. It ain like you gotta worry about walkin through a slidin glass door on account of if bein too clean `cause your aunt Peggy uses the Windex way more’n she should. Fields aint the sort of place where you gotta keep an eye out for low hangin signs or worry about bumping into someone. Bobby wasn’t exactly wanderin’ around a cemetary or takin a tour of a plaque-on-the-ground museum. I jus wanted to make sure we’re clear on this sos you dont go wonderin how a football star was clumsy enough to trip over a plaque.
(Ok in all honesty, Robert made me put in the disclaimer in the last paragraph. Bobby Kettle’s about half based on Robert himself an I guess he thought the girls would laugh if they thought his namesake was clumsy)

ANYHOO
Bobby tripped up and fell flat on his face. Cussing under his breath, he got up and dusted hisself off an then went to go see what the plaque said. (Hey, if it was you who done tripped on a plaque, wouldn’t YOU want to know what it said?)

BEWARE!
SMASHING SYCAMORE AHEAD!

“Smashing Sycamore?” Bobby said aloud, “I ain’t heard of that before, but chances are it’s probably stupid as hell, or cursed, or it wants to knock some invisible chip offa my shoulder, or is way too dangerous to be near any sort of school with little kids running around.”

As Bobby neared the tree, he was sorta surprised to see it was a perfectly normal lookin sycamore tree. It wasn’t 900 feet tall, or pink, it didn’t smell terrible, and it sure wasn’t glowing or screaming or singing or doing anything annoying, (which was probably why it was planted so far from the school grounds).

Just as Bobby started thinkin he might have actually found somethin normal, the tree whipped out a limb and caught Bobby in the stomach with a right hook that sent him flyin. It suddenly occurred to bobby why they called it the Smashing Sycamore.

“Oh I see,” said Bobby, “its gonna be like this, is it?”
Bobby quickly ducked as another big damm branch barely mised knockin his head offa his shoulders.
“Time to trim the bushes!” Said Bobby as he raised his wand, “VOCATO SERRA VINCULUA GIGANTOS!”

With a flash of reel bright light and some magic-sounding thunder, a giant chainsaw materialized out of thin air. With a flick of his wrist, Bobby sent that ol chainsaw to work. Within a few short moments, lopped off all the sycamore’s lower branches and trimmed the rest into a 60 ft leafy rendition of Jeff Gordon’s helmet. The tree whimpered and cringed back as Bobby approached it.

“Now lets get a few things straight Mr Sycamore,” Bobby said sternly, “you was all ready to take my head off, an if i wasnt quicker about it, I’d be dead now, am I right?”
The tree shuddered in a way that sorta looked like a nod.
“By all rights I should used this here chainsaw to cut you into tiny lacquered driftwood clocks with pictures of eagles an american flags painted on em.. Now stop whimperin, I aint gonna chop you down. The way I see it, a big ol tree that can kick some ass is about the first thing I’ve seen at this school that’s halfway cool. So what I’m gonna do is let you keep your new haircut for a few days. `Aint nothin like lookin like an idiot for awhile to learn you a lesson. Then, once I’m sure you’ve taken your medicine, I’ll come back and we’ll talk. If ‘n I like the way our conversation goes, I’ll cast you a grow charm and you’ll get all your branches back. Is that acceptable?”
The tree creaked moaned, and twisted some of it’s roots in the durt to crudely spell the words OK Boss.

Bobby made his way back toward the school. It was mighty suspicious that Fitch tol him to go meet somewhere so dangerous. It started occurrin to Bobby that maybe this Fitch character had somethin to do with all these attempts to keep bobby from practicin real magic. It didn’t make no sense though; he aint talke to Fitch but maybe once or twice, an the janitor usually ignored most students so long as they didn’t break nothin or make a mess.. not that it mattered really since most things could be fixed with magic, an most messes were easily cleaned up with a spell or two... It was at this point that Bobby realized that he aint never seen Fitch clean or fix anything with magic. Whenever there was a spill in Distillin 101, fitch was there with a mop. Any time someone broke a chair or a fence rail, Fitch was there with a hammer and nails to fix it. Come to think of it, Bobby hadn’t never seen Fitch actually use magic for anything.

“Thats strange” said Bobby, “howcome the fella with the worst job here would choose to do it without magic? It don’t make no sense...... Unless he CANT do no magic... but why would the school ever hire a non magical-type person for that job?
To be Continued...

Bobby Kettle and the Still of Destiny part 6

2009-07-31T12:13:00.000-07:00

This here episode was typed out by Clayton, but written by bobby, blah blah blah (its friday, I'm tired, I wanna go shoot some cans, not type) if'n you gots problems, talk to Bobby OK?

The next day Bobby done woke up to a loud clangin that startled him so much he about turned hisself inside out.
“What the hell is that?” Bobby wondered aloud.
“Ohhh nuthin” said the reply, “its just me, Dopey.. Thank you, thankyouverymuch. I was sent to wake up the Bobby Kettle an see if he had any scraps of peanut-butter an banana sandwiches for Dopey to eat, uh HUH, thankyouverymuch!”

Bobby peered over the edge of his bed to see a tiny little fella dressed in a rhinestone jumpsuit, platform shoes, and carrying a bell that was near on half again as big as he was.

“Um......Dopey, right?” Asked Bobby, “I’m not meanin to sound rude or anythin, but what the hell sort of critter ARE you?”

“uuuuuuhh HUH!” said Dopey, “Dopey’s jut your run of the mill house Elvis, Thankyouverymuch. I do simple household tasks like wakin people up, and serenadin the ladies! Rock-n-roll, Rock-n-roll, I’m the King of Rock-n-roll! Thankyouverymuch.”

“Riiiiight” sed Bobby, “Why are you wakin me up so early for?”

“Dopey aint sposed to say,” said Dopey, “Dopey’s manager says he’s supposed to go wake up Bobby Kettle if Dopey ever wants to make a comeback..uuh huh!! But he said that Dopey oughtta leave plannin up to the Colonel, an for Dopey to just worry about singin and a shakin!”

“Okay, well it was nice to meet you Dopey, but I gotta go get ready for Practice now.”

“OOH no!” Said Dopey, “Colonel says I gotta make sure Bobby Kettle doesn’t go to practice thankyouverymuch. Colonel says its much to dangerous an that I’m supposed to hurt you if you try to go because that’ll keep you from goin to practice where you might get hurt!”

Bobby blinked..
“Lemme get this straight Dopey. Some fella called the Colonel says he doesnt want me to get hurt by going to practice, so he says yore supposed to hurt me KEEP me fro gettin hurt?”

“Uhh huh!” said Dopey “Thats what the colonels a-sayin, thankyouverymuch! So best get back in bed or i’ll have to put these blue-suede shoes someplace uncomfortable! Uhh huh! Dopey wont like to though, but Colonel says its the only way Dopey can get famous again!”

“Sorry to disappoint you Dopey,” Said Bobby, “I don’t really give a rip about what some Colonel says. I’m goin’ to practice now! I wouldn’t want to hurt you cause yore a little fellah, but you best stay out of my way—OWW!”

As Bobby started to talk, Dopey whipped out this tiny guitar started to shake and shimmy and shuffle back and forth across the room, and when Bobby got to the word “way”, an orange bolt of lightnin shot from the guitar an hit Bobby in the arm.

“Awww hell man,” said Dopey, “See what you made Dopey have to do ,thankyouverymuch ? Dopey didnt want to, `specially cause it’d be an unfair fight. Magic don’t work on house Elvises- HEY give that back!”

Bobby took two steps forward and snatched the little guitar from the house Elvis. With a smooth motion he brought it crashing down on Dopey’s head, where it remained, quivering with Dopeys head pokin halfway through it. Dopey started wavin his hands around an he started to glow faintly. Cursing under his breath, Bobby picked up the fella by the collar of his jumpsuit, and tossed him out the window. There was a muffled THUMP after several seconds. Later on, Bobby felt real bad for doin’ this because cause his bedroom was s floors from the ground, an for a fella the size of Dopey, it probably seemed closer to 12.

As Bobby rummaged through the pile of clothes on the floor lookin for somethin no too dirty to wear, he noticed a tiny envelope over under his bed. He relized that Dopey must’ve dropped it in the scuffle. He picked up the envelope an opened it. There was a letter inside.

Dear Dopey
I have been in negotiations with the record companies and film studios in LA. They said that they would love to sign you on, but that they were afraid that you were too talented for any of their venues and that even though this would normally pay tens of thousands of dollars, they wouldn’t be able to pay more than about 27 bucks for the Aloha venue. I told them not to worry and that you were an artist and weren’t in it for the money. I told them to give me the 27 bucks and I’d make sure you’d get it. The record companies added a stipulation to the contract though, they said you have to go and wake up Bobby Kettle every morning and prevent him from going to practice for his R.E.A.L.M.A.G.I.C. A.B.Cs club. They said this is the only way that you will ever be famous again, and that if you fail they will hire George Jones to play at the venue instead of you.
Sincerely,
Colonel Barker

PS The record label says that you may have to hurt Kettle very badly in order to keep him from practice. They say its a better fate to be wounded by someone as talented as you, rather than getting blown up by some random spell...

“I wonder what this is all about, like I dont have enough crazies to worry about here!” said Bobby. He shook his head again, there had to be more to this here note. Bobby didn’t know of anyone stupid enough to think some record label could only pay 27 bucks for a concert...then again, the house Elvis’ name WAS dopey. Bobby wondered how long the “Colonel” had been makin’ money off of the tiny entertainer. He wondered how many other tiny house Elvises were getting exploited.. Then Bobby wondered why he was wasting this much of his thought process on the matter.. Fact was the house Elvis was annoying as hell and Bobby couldn’t care less about his financial situation. With that, bobby strapped on his mud boots and headed down to breakfast, and a full day of practicing his covert power-magic skills

Bobby Kettle and the Still of Destiny part 5

2009-07-28T10:26:00.000-07:00

Bobby Kettle and the Still of Destiny part 5
Written by Bobby, but typed by Clayton.

Note from Clayton: I cant take no responsibility for this here post. Bobby wrote it an i promised him i'd post it. Theres some romantical stuff down towards the end an it made me all uncomfortable to type it, but Bobby said that tossin in a love story would make "chicks" liek this here story better.

As Bobby, Henrietta, and cletus done made their way toward the House Bootlegger dormitories, Bobby tol them they needed to go an follow him behind the trackter barn where they could chat all private-like.

“Henri, Cletus,” said Bobby, “I know we done just met, but yall seem like trustworthy sorts. Would yall mind if I made a couple of honest observations about what I’ve noticed so far?”

“Why shore Bobby!” said Henri, “Go right ahead an tell us. We aint gonna tell a soule!”

“Ok then, but understand that I ain’t tryin to be mean or nothin’,”said Bobby “I just don’t wanna waste our time by beatin around the bush.”
Bobby took a deep breadth an cointinued, “Seems to me like this here magic school’s got more of an emphasis on the useless ass-end of magic.”

Whaddya mean Bobby?” Squawked Cletus defensively “They done teach us to do lots of stuff!”

“I KNOW Cletus, an I’m sure you an Henri over there are pretty good at what you do. What i’m talikin about is that there shore does seem to be a big concentration on usin magic to do the same sorts of things ENNYONE could do without usin NO magic!
Now takey look at that knitting class over on the green. Where I come from, old ladies knit all the time without magic. Its a helluva lot easier, it dont give no headaches, an they can talk an carry on a right pleasant conversation whilst doin it.”

“Well of COURSE! Magic is about makin life easier! What else would annyone wanna use magic for?”

“Dont you see?” said Bobby “It DONT make life easier! Back in the real world, aint NO ONE stabes themselves in the face while tryin to eat grits. An they shore as hell don’t gotta sit through three semesters of food-levitation jus to be able to feed theyselves! Shouldnt magic be used fer the sorts of stuff that can’t be done otherwise? Would them terrorists over in af-ganiestan have been able to touch america if them folks who used magic was usin it fer more than creatin spells to feed the cat when they’re away?
What if folk up an used their magic to heal sick folk an cure diseases instead of tryin to fix injuries they done got whilst playin demolition derby on brooms? Usin magic could shore kick some ass if folks in this school would let it!”

“But them profs wont teach hus that sort of stuff Bobby!” Said Henri, “Besides, that sort of magic is real dangerous, an it could hurt lots of people if’n it done fell into the wrong hands!”

“But think of the good that could be done!” Said Bobby, “Shore bad folks could get hold of some dangerous magic.. But the way I see it, bad is bad, an bad folks is gonna find some way to mess stuff up whether it be by magic, or by guns, or by drivin up the rpice of gas. Folks as is eavle are probably learnin the powerful stuff anyway! And them folks as is good aint gonna have no way to defend theyselves....Les face it. Eatin grits real good shore as hell aint gonna stop a big ol ball of fire from hittin you in the head.”

“Well gee Bobby, what should we do?” Asked Cletus.

“I think we should start a special club where students can learn to do real stuff with magic like castin chain lightnin, or acid rain, or mordenkainen’s failthfull hound!”

“I aint never heard of them spells before,” said Henri, “An I’ve been going to this here school since the 1st grade.”

“Thats cause they aint real spells I named. We got this here board game in the real world called Dungens and Dragins. Its a game that folk play where they pretend to use magic an swords an all sorts of medievil weaponry. We can set this up like one of them live action role play events, Non-users cal em LARPs. If anyone asks, we can tell em that we’re studying the habits and pre-conceived notions of the non-magic folk.”

“So we’d be pretendin to be non-magic users who are pretendin to use magic?” asked Cletus.

“Thats a pretty good idear!” Said Henrietta, “We can tell them that we’re werkin on a reesearch project for non-magical anthropology!”

So them three kids walked back to the dorm to formulate a plan, an within less than a week, that club was fixin to bust with all the kids runnin around on the green. They tol the faculty that they was rehearsin for a play they was gonna do that showed some legends that them non-magic folk told, an not to worry about the flashes of light, cause they was just sound and lightin effects for added drama. The teachers agreed that it would be good for the students to study non-magic users so that they could better understand the prejudices of the non-magic folk.

It had been a hard day of practice in the Research Experiment And Learn More About Giving Information Cearly About Benevolent spellCasters Society
(or “R.E.A.L. M.A.G.I.C. ABCs”).
Bobby, Henri, an Cletus had been tasked with fillin in a new crater left behind when Evely Skunkin accidentally cast a level 5 “Meteor Shower”, instead of the expected “Meatier Shower” seasoning-spell for that day’s batch of chili. As of this point, there waarnt much left of the practice ground except for the outdoor stage which had all sorts of protective charms onnit.
Even though the professor’s parting instructions had been to use a diggin-manipulation spell on some shovels, they decided to use their newfound power-magic to focus some localized seismic forces to vibrate the crater into bein level ground once more. It took lots of concentratin, but the 3 managed to fill in the 50 foot hole in about 5 minutes.
They wasn’t expected back in class for at least 5 more hours, so they decided to kick back and take it easy.

Cletus plopped down underneath a sycamore, kicked off his boots, an pointed at a nearby bottle of water. “Expecto Patròn!” he shouted.

“That ain’t how you say it!” said Henri, “it supposed to go ‘pase el tequilla, por favor’. THATS how the mexicans say it.. an it’s probably not gonna be Patron, It’ll probably be gordons or somethin cheap since the bottle’s plastic. Besides, you souldnt be drinkin hard alchiehol Cletus Weasel! You ain’t old enough. SHAME on you!”

“I didn’t really want to drink no tequila,” Said Cletus, “I jus like how pretty- uh... I mean how funny you look when yore angry!”

“Is that SO?” hollered Henri, “Lemme show you jus how funny it is when i whoop yore ass Cletus!”. With that she hauled back and slapped Cletus in the shoulder.

“Wow, you hit likea girl Henrietta!” said Cletus.
The angry girl responded by hittin Cletus again.

SMACK

“Ow that hurts!” said Cletus with a grin.

SMACK

“Ow, stop it! Please!”

SMACK

“Stop it some more!”

SMACK

“GAWD, jus keep stoppin it, just like that!”

SMACK

Before Henri could land the next hit, Cletus grabbed both her wrists and they both fell into a kicking, screaming mess on the ground. They rolled all over the place, knockin over tools and chairs an stacks of scripts. Them two finally came to rest in the middle of the stage in a tangled heap, with Henri on top. They stared at each other for a second... Suddenly, it got reel quiet as they both began to understand jus how awkward the situation had got.

“WILL you two jus quit wastin time an get it over with?” said Bobby “Just kiss each other an get it outta the way! You two are pathetic!”

“I don’t know what yore talkin’ about Bobby Kettle!” said a blushing Henri, “Cletus Weasel is the most igant, bone-headed, UGLY sumbitch I ever saw!”

“Yeah!” Said Cletus, “An Henri’s a knowitall, an she’s rude, an she never stops talkin long enough to figger whats goin on, and she’s got the absolute softest an nicest skin I’ve ever seen, an she’s stupid, an she smells like my uncle randy after he’s been catfishin, and she sucks at magic!”

There was an even MORE uncomfortable silence.

“...you think my skin’s soft Cletus?” asked Henri

“Uhhhhh...” Said Cletus “I meant soft like a rotten piece of fruit!”

“...oh” said Henri.

“AHEM” Bobby cleared his throat. “Yall might find this conversation less awkward if you wasn’t still all tangled up on the floor.”

Henri an Cletus both jumped up like they’d got stuck with a cattle prod.

“I hate you Cletus Weasel!” shouted Henri.
“I hate you too Henrietta Gander! I’ve hated you from the moment I first laid eyes on you when you popped out of the arrival loo in them acid washed jeans an them pretty green tennis shoes.”

“I hate the way you stand up for me in front of them bastards from Coal Scuttle”
Said Henri.

“I hate your deep green eyes an the way you walk all graceful like a deer”
Said Cletus.

“I never want to see you again Cletus!” shouted Henri.

Cletus replied “Me Either! I never want to see you again. I ESPECIALLY don’t want to see you tomorrow night out by the big rock. I’d never go swimmin with you by moolight if you was the last person on earth!”

“Well DONT WORRY!” hollered Henri, “I WONT BE THERE, and I SHORE AINT LOOKIN FORWARD TO IT. And I shore I aint gonna be there after 9:00 cause I aint got an exam to study for!”

“FINE!”

“FINE!”

The two students stomped off in opposite directions.

“Gawdalmighty,” thought Bobby to hisself “I ain’t never seen two idiots try harder to act like they aint smitten in my life!”

With that, he gathered up the shovels, locked them away in the toolshed, and moseyd back on over to his dorm to try to figure out exactly where it was that big rock was that Cletus and Henri werent goin to, cause he shore as hell didn’t want any part of that situation.

--to be continued--

Bobby Kettle and the Still of Destiny. part 4

2009-07-24T08:12:00.000-07:00

As Bobby walked through the dor of the dining hall, his nose got attacked by all sorts of aromas. These smells seemd to come from a mess of barrels that floated around the 6 long tables that all them magic-type students were stitin at. Each of them barrels was labeled with words like “Beef Jerky”, “Deer jerky”, “Turkey Jerky”, “Gator Jerky, “Yak Jerky”, “Bison Jerky”, “Elephant Jerky”, “Kangaroo Jerky”, “Gizzards”, “Greens”, “Grits”, etc.

From where Bobby was standin, It looked like most of the students was trying to serve theyselves by transportin food from the barrels onto there plaets. Some attempted to do this magically levitatin spoons, ladles, an forks, while others just tried levitatin the food itself onto the plate....most of these kids was failin pretty miserably, and quite a few of the younger students were nursing burns from poorly aimed globs of steamin grits.

“I shore do hate mealtime,” said Henri, “i up and get me a big ol headache tryin to levitate that fork into my mouth. I most always wind up havin to go to the dockter sos he can fix my face after I accidentally stab myself. Besides, I done get me a headache from all of that concentratin!”

“Thats why you gotta stop tryin to use sharp flatware to eat, Miss Knowitall!” Said Cletus, “How come you don’t just pick up the FOOD with magic? There aint much point in usin a levitatin spoon to eat grits when you can levitate the grits theyselves!”

“.......Uh, why don’t yall jus pick up them spoons an forks with your hands an eat that way?” asked Bobby.

Henri laughed, “Thats perty funny Bobby, but why’d anyone want to pick em up with their hands? If we was sposed to use our hands, the silverware wouldn’t have them magic antennas stickin out the back for the spells to grab onto!”

“Those aint ‘magic antennas’ said Bobby, thems is called HANDLES. That’s what you grab onto with your hands, like this.. Bobby picked up a ladel and began heapin gizzards an greens onto his plate. It done got so quiet in the dinin hall that you could hear a pen drop as all them folks watched Bobby eat! Folks begin to murmur in awe. “Thats HIM!” “Thats the Fella That Lived!” “He’s so in tune with magic that he can pick up his silverware with his HANDS! He aint even usin a wand! He must know some sort of maniperlatin charm that lets him grab onto magic items!”

Suddenly, Bobby felt a hard an heavy hand grip his shoulder.
“Stirring the pot already, are we Kettle?” Said Cerberus, “Typical! Your father was a pot-stirrer! Perhaps you haven’t noticed, but the name of this institution is the Magic Valley Magical School of Magic and Mystisism, is it not? Perhaps using one’s hands is acceptable in the Magic Valley Magical School of Picking Things Up With One’s Hands, but not here.... 10 points from Bootlegger house!”

There was a stifled grone from all them students at Bobby’s table.
“Points? What the hell are points?” asked Bobby

“Points get assigned when you do somethin good,” Said Cletus, “an they takes points away ifn you screw up! At the end of the school year, whichever house has the most points gets to have they name engraved on the SOD Trophy.”

“An what’s thew SOD Trophy? Is it like a statue made out of turf?” Bobby asked.

“Naw Bobby,” Said Henri, “SOD stands fer somethin magical. But we students aint allowed to know what it means. The trophy itself shore is pretty though. Its about 10 feet tall an all coppery, or so I’ve been told. I ain’t never seen it cause House Deliverance has won the competition fer the pas 20 years.”

“Let me get this straight,” said Bobby, “I gotta burn my face all year long instead of usin’ a spoon so that we can get enough points to have our names engraved on some sorta tropy yall ain’t never seen?”

“You got it, Bobby!” Said Cletus.

“@#$% THAT!!!!” said Bobby.

No sooner had the words left his mouth than all hell broke loose. The ground heaved and there was an explosion at one end of the dining hall. Tables, n chairs , n students flew in every direction like a buncha green army men taped to an M-80. The moans of the wounded and dying was heard all around. Miraculously though, Bobby’s end of the table seemed to be unharmed.

“BOBBY!” screamed Henri “You just launched an f-bomb! I thought that spell was a myth!!!! Oh them poor people!!!!”

“KETTLE!” Screamed professor Cerberus Schlitz as he pointed his wand at Bobby, “I knew from the moment I you set foot on campus that you would be trouble, but THIS? The penalty for using one of the unforgivable curse words is absolute! AVADA KEDAVR-“

“HOLD ON THERE CERBERUS!” Dangledare said, appearin as if by magic (oh yeah, it would hafta have been by magic?)
“Bobby didn’t know his own power. The f-bomb is a commonly used word by them that dont got no magic skill! In Bobbys mind, he was jus cussin, an didnt know it would kill ¾ of the people in the school. Good thing this here’s easy to remedy with the Soap of Unsayin!”
Dangledare pushed a glowing bar of soap into Bobby’s mouth.
As soon as the bar of soap entered Bobby’s mouth, there was a big ol whirrin sound like when you push rewind on an 8-track. The pieces of the dining hall an pieces of students all magically fit back together.

“There now,” said Dangledare, “No harm no foul, right Cerberus?” with that he re-disappeared into thin air..

“BUT ITS THE LAW!” Whined professor Schlitz, “Still it would be typical of the Kettle name to wade into matters far beyond them. Your father was a cheeky know it all too Kettle!. 10 points from bootlegger!” and with that he turned around to leave.

“Yeah, get stuffed Cerbie!” said Bobby

Snape- i mean Schlitz stiffened and whirled around,
“What did you say to me Kettle?”

“I said ‘g e t s t u f f e d’” bobby said slowly.

“I see”, said Cerberus “and where exactly did you have in mind for me to get stuffed?”

Bobby was unsure what to say, though he knew for sure the mean ol professor guy didnt understand what he jus said. “I don’t mean no place in particular, “get stuffed is just a figure of speech!”

“Spouting off words and phrases without any sort of concrete meaning? Typical!” sneered Cerberus, “Your father was a gibbering fool as well! 5 more points from Bootlegger!”

“Why no make it an even 10 sos it’ll be easier for you to add?” Bobby retorted.

“30 points from Bootlegger!” came the reply.

“Do I look like I care?” asked Bobby

The professor peered intently at Bobby.. “No it seems you don’t care at all Kettle... Perhaps you think you’ll pull of some great heroic feat at the end of the semester that will bolster your Houses dismal scores? Typical! Your father was always one for delusions of heroic grandeur!”

“Ok professor, let me try an explain myself real clear-like,” said Bobby as grabbed a pet rat on a nearby table.

“Do you see this Rat, professor?” asked Bobby

“Yes..” said Schlitz

“Rodentiae Levitae!” said Bobby with a flick of his wand. The rat begain to hover in the air..
“Do you see this here lying rat, professor?

“Yes Kettle, I see the flying rat.. Very typical! Your father was always trying to turn rats into birds!”

“I ain’t finished,” Said Bobby, lifting the rat’s tail. “Do you see this here flying rat’s ass?”

“Yes, I see the flying rat’s nether-regions,” said the professor, “but I fail to see the relevance of-“

“OK.” Said Bobby, “now do you notice how I ain’t givin it to you?”

“.....Yess....” said Cerberus slowly as a look of understanding began to appear on his face.

Bobby continued, “So this is me not givin' a flying rat’s ass about points, or a stupid trophy, or whatever the hell you think about my father.
500 points from bootlegger! 1000 points from Bootlegger. I DONT CARE. Its a stupid system that aint got nothin to do with magic.”

“Brave words Kettle” sneered the professor, “lets see how brave you are when I take 300 MORE points from Bootlegger!!!!!”

Bobby realized that the conversation weren't headin nowhere, so he jus shook his head and walked out of the dinin room to shouts of “100 MORE points from bootlegger!! 50 points from Bootlegger!! 400 points from bootlegger!! HAHAHAHAHAH!!!!”

“Bobby!” said Cletus, “We ain’t NEVER gonna win now! We got more'n -1200 points now! We ain’t never been this low!!”

“Don’t worry bout it Cletus,” said Bobby, “I got me a plan!

--to be continued--

Bobby Kettle and the Still of Destiny part 3

2009-07-21T09:37:00.000-07:00

As the ceremony ended, 2 students chased down Bobby an started yammerin at him all excited like. The girl might have been cute, but it was too early to tell (he’d have to wait a few more movies before he could tell). The boy looked so much like a scarecrow that Bobby had to try hard not to laugh.

“Hay there!” Said the girl, “you’re that thar Bobby Kettle aint ya? Yore FAMOUS! My names Henrietta Gander, but you can call me Henri. This here is Cletus Weasel!”

“Hah Bobby! I’m Cletus, this is my pet raven Scrambles. Wanna be best friends?”

“Ok” Said Bobby, “But why are yall sain that I’m famous?”

“Because yore the boy that LIVED!” said Henri, “You was playin’ football against Bath county highschool and got run over by defensive linesman Moose Vanderhoven!! `Last person who did that died on the way to the hospital!”

“Stop sayin his name HenrI!” whined Cletus, “You know that done bring bad luck! Maybe you metro-bloods have a tough time understandin that!”

At this, Henri turned all pale-like an slapped Cletus across the face, “Goldangit Cletus, if I didn't have such a big secret crush on you, I’d done cast a catch-no-more fishin hex on you!”
Noticing Bobby’s confused look, Henrietta clarified, “a Metro-blood is a really terrible name for somebody whose parents don’t come from rural areas. Its like the N-word, but fer hillbilly wizzardin students.”

“Aww I’m sorry Henri”, said Cletus, “I was just havin fun. I wont do it no more, I promise! but you shouldn't be usin MV's full name out loud. havent you heard the rumors that he done broke out of juvie?”

"I aint skeered," said Henri, "He dont got no special powers of bein able to hear his name whenever someone says it! sto pbein such a baby!"

“Well,” said Bobby, “`looks like I wont be doin much talkin with you two around. Why don’t you two jus stop pretendin you hate each other an save some time an jus go make out? Its perty obvious yer both takin a fancy to t’other.”
Both students laughed nervously at this and told bobby he was imaginin stuff.

As Bobby, Henri, and Cletus started to make their way toward their dormiteria, they got stopped by a mean lookin boy who blocked their way past the Magic fountain of KorhnLikker.
“Well, well, well,” Said the boy, “If it isn’t the famous Bobby Kettle!”

Cletus piped up “What do you want Maco? I dint reckon Dralfoy’s was allowed to slither out from under them rocks once the sun was up!”

the strange boy turned up his nose at this and said, “Weasel! I thought I smelled vermin? Kettlw, why are you associating with this riffraf, are you lost? Your home is in CoalScuttle! Its such a shame to see you hanging around this Metro-blood and the Weasel! Your poor dead mother would be turning in her grave to see you like this--- OOWWW!”

Now Bobby was smart, he could tell right off the bat what sort of relationship he an Maco was gonna have. So he hauled off an broke that Dralfoy sumbitch’s nose as soon as he started speakin bad about Bobbys mama. Cletus and Henri jus stared at him in amazement.

“So this is how its gonna be, Mr Dralfoy,” said Bobby, “If’n yore gonna speak bad about my mama, I’m a break your nose. Ifn you touch me, i’ma break yer finger... Ifn you try an cast any of them little spell thingies on me, i’ma take that wand away from you an cram it someplace it’s not sposed to go. I aint scared of detention OR jail...so lets see you up’n rethink how you’re gonna talk to me from now on!”

Mako Dralfoy didnt say a word, but crawled away while he sobbed grate big tears of pane.

Henri rounded on Bobby “That was incredible Bobby! You didn’t use no magic or charms or curses or even a hex! Are you wearin some sorta invisible enchanted glove that breaks people’s noses when they get touched?”

“Uh.. naw,” said Bobby, “It was just a punch.”

“A punch?” asked Cletus, “That sounds like some sorta potion! I didnt know you knowed how to make magic potions yet!”

“Aw hell, it werent nothin magical,” protested Bobby, “I jus hit him with my hand that I done balled up into a fist.”

There was a breif pause by them other two students before Henri said, “You mean that it weren't no magic attack? You jus hit him with yer hand an his nose got broke? Thats fascinatin! Where’d you learn to break someone without usin magic?”

(Bobby was startin to realize that this school must be full of reel idiots.)
“Well its a long story," he said "I’ll fill yall in on the details over dinner.”

With that, the 3 new friends turned around an headed back to the dinin hall where the smell of beef jerky and moonpies floated through the air.

To be continued

Bobby Kettle and the Still of Destiny part 2.

2009-07-21T07:28:00.000-07:00

Typed out by Arlister Braxton, but written by Robert (a.k.a Bobby) Warbuck.
<
With a loud crack and a flash of light, Bobby rocketed out of the #4 arrival outhouse in the Magic Valley’s Magical School of Magic and Mysticism. He landed at the feet of a tall, hook-nosed fella dressed in black.
“Well Kettle, I see you’re lying down on the job already! Typical....you’re just like your father!” Said the stranger.

“The lad just done arrived here, Cerberus.” Said another voice, “I expect he’s still sufferin from the shock of travellin by loo network. Bobby, how’re you feelin boy?”

Bobby looked up to see a kindly old man who looked like a skinny SantaClaus all dressed in huntin coveralls with yellow stars sewed all over.
“Yessir,” said Bobby, “I’m kinda dizzy, but I think I’m ok. Are you Albatross Dunkledare?”

“Well aint you jus a smart boy, I knowed you was special! Don’t mind this sourpuss over here,”
The old man said, gesturing to the man in black, “This here’s Cerberus Schlitz, our distillery and fermentation master. He’s as sour as the corn mash he uses for cookin up `shine. He’s a stickler for the rules though, I’ll give him that!”

“Very well Kettle,” Said Schlitz “I see you’re endearing yourself to the headmaster already. (Typical, your father was a sycophant as well...) I trust that in the future you will take more precautions when making entrances into the School grounds?”

“Y-yassir..” Stammered Bobby

"Typical," sneered Snap- i mean Cerberus, "your FATHER stuttered too.. I trust you wont stutter in my moonshine and home remedies class? I thought not."

With that Schlitz done whirled around and walked off towards what must have been the distillery.
Albatross helped Bobby to his feet, brushed him off , an began to show him around the campus. First on the tour was a trip to the school's duellin’ club, where members from the houses of Bootlegger and CoalScuttle competed to see who could play cripple creek faster on enchanted mandolins and banjos.
Next, they toured the Defense against Yankee Arts class where students were being taught that while cabbage is an accepted ingredient for cole slaw, it should never never never be boiled and served as a main course. Finally, they passed the Mystic Taxidermy class where an attractive young lady from house WackyTobaccy was summoning the mounted head of a 84 point buck.

"Professor, I didn't know there was deers that got that many points!" Exclaimed Bobby.
"Why they shore do!" said Dunklldare, "....well at leas them magic ones have got em!"

At this point a loud whistle sounded, and dozens of students and faculty started to stream outta all the outlyin buildings.

“Lets get the lead out, Bobby!” Said Dunkledare, “Its almost time for the sortin ceremony!”

Bobby entered a long, low dining hall where dozens of other students were sittin’ an lookin towards the stage. It seems the star attraction was an enchanted gun rack that was floatin around the stage an singin a song. Now Bobby thought this was the dumbest song he’d ever heard (and he was right), but he decided to lay low an not say anythin about it.
The gun rack continued to bob and spin on the stage, singing it’s song that sounded somethin like this:

Oh I’m the sortin rack, sortin-sortin-sortin rack, I’m the sortin rack listen to me.
Ima pick what house yore in,
Ima pick what house yore in,
I’ma pick what house yore in, an you dont get no say!

Oh...
Bootleggers are sellouts
CoalScuttles’ are dropouts
WackyTobaccys teeth fall out
An Deliverance House is ga--....erm.. I mean strange!

Each student would walk up to the stage and wait for the sortin rack to decide.
Once the Rack made it’s decision, object would show up on the rack, thereby determinin what house each student would go to.
House Bootlegger got a double barreled shotgun
House Coal Scuttle got a compound bow
House WackyTobaccy got a lever action 30/06
Deliverance house got a pump action 4/10 shotgun.

When it came to be Bobby’s turn, the sorting rack was havin trouble makin up it’s mind..

“Hmm... you are a handsome and strong young man who is very popular.. you’d make a perty good bootlegger or coal scuttle student..” said the rack.
“Please dont put me in Coal Scuttle!” begged Bobby, “Them compound bows suck! Please let me be in Bootlegger house!”
“Oh ok,” said the sortin rack, “If yer sure? I stand by my instincts though, you’d have made an excellent CoalScuttle!”
"yer wrong.." said Bobby.
The Sortin Rack twirled around and a nice new over-under remmington appeared on the rack. All the folks in house Bootlegger cheered on account of gettin such a handsome an smart person for their house.

-to be continued-

Bobby Kettle and the Still of Destiny (Part 1)

2009-07-20T08:15:00.000-07:00

“Bobby Kettle and the Still of Destiny”
Part 1.

Typed out by Arlister Braxton Clayton, but written by Robert (a.k.a Bobby) Warbuck.
##Note from Clayton: I make no claims whatsoever to the quality of this here story. If you think it’s dumb, talk to Robert cause I just typed it.##

Bobby Kettle was a lot like most other boys in Critchville; He liked to play football, race bikes with his friends, and drink ale-8. Bobby was a very attractive and manly young man who was the most popular kid in school. Bobby was not like other boys though `cause strange things would happen whenever Bobby got hopped up on too much caffeine... Sometimes his shoes would catch on fire for no reason if he was embarrassed. Sometimes streetlights would burn out when he walked underneath them.. He was even known to walk into thin air right off of the front porch of his house for a few steps before realizing that he had forgotten to fall to the ground. Bobby was sad because he thought he was a freak, and even though he was handsome and popular and smart, he felt very lonesome because he was different.

One evening Bobby was lying awake in bed because he couldn’t sleep. Suddenly, he heard a noise at his `winder. Looking up, he was surprised to see a large white turkey purched on his `winder sill. The turkey was carryin a big ol package labeled “TO: Robert Kettle”. Bobby opened the package and found a set of blue overalls with lighning bolts stitched all over, and a matching baseball cap. He was very confused and didn’t understand what was happening. He felt a nudge at his elbow, and he turned around to see the turkey offerin him a folded piece of paper. Bobby opened the note and read what it said:

Yore not diffrent, yore special! There is a place where other people like you can go to school and learn how to be even specialler. Yuo are full of magick Bobby, and you should learn to use it good. Come to Magic Valley’s Magical School of Magic and Mistisism and learn and stuff!”

Love,
Albatross Dunkledare
Headmaster MVMSMM.

PS. If you are intersted in coming, you should ask the turkey. Don’t be nervos, yore a parcelmouth. This means you can talk to any animal that brings you a package. His name is Footwick, and he’ll be happy to asist you an help you.

“Wow!” said Bobby, “I cant believe I got a genuwine letter! Aint nobody written me anything before! Can you really understand what I’m saying Mr Turkey?”

“Gobblegobble-Yes I can Gobblegobble” said the turkey, “Gobblegobble-Do you want to come and learn to do magic stuff? Gobblegobble”

“Oh yes! Very much!” said Bobby, “When can we go?”

“Gobblegobble-Well, we can leave right now, Gobblegobble” said Footwick, “Gobblegobble-Have you ever used Loo Powder before? Gobblegobble.”

“No I haevn't”, said Bobby, “How do I do that?”
“Gobblegobble-It’s easy! Is there an outhouse around here? Gobblegobble” said Footwick..

“Sure is,” said Bobby, “There’s one out back that we’ve not used for about 10 years now.”

“Gobblegobble 10 years huh? It might be a bit stale, but I think it will still work on the Loo network. Gobblegobble”

So Bobby an the turkey went out behind his house to the creepy old outhouse.

“Gobblegobble-Here take this powder and go into the outhouse, Gobblegobble” said Footwick, “Gobblegobble-sit down on the seat and throw the loo powder up into the air while speaking the name of the place you want to go to. In this case you want to say ‘Magic Valley’ Gobblegobble”

Bobby took the offered Loo powder, tossed it into the air and said “Magic Valley”.
There was a loud noise as Bobby got sucked butt-first through the seat in the outhouse. There was a blindin flash of light and he was gone!

I saw me some harry potter!

2009-07-20T07:34:00.000-07:00

Me’n Clint’n Bobby up and drove all the way into Richmond this weekend to see that new harry potter movie (LeeRoy wouldn’t come cause he said it was a kid’s movie). I got me these free tickets from a raffle at Adar Quarry’s company picnic, ann I was itchin to go see somethin an enjoy the fine sites of the city of Richmond.... Ok so meybe there aint that many fine sites in Richmond, but there are lots and lots of “OK” sites to see. We left town about 1:30 in the PM, and wound up in Richmond just before dinner .I’m not sure how long it should take to get there cause I ain’t been even once when somethin bad didn’t happen traffick-wise; this time my truck got a flat an we had to patch it up on the shoulder of the highway.
Anyway we made it finally and got to have oursselves some whitecastles before we went to the movie. Then we watched the movie and went home.... thats it!

Now if I ended the post here it would probably be a pretty borin waste of time, an yall’d get pissed off an not read it no more, but the point of this post ain't to talk about goin to the movie, its what happened afterwards as a result of goin to the movie.

Bobby has decided to write a downhome version of Harry Potter, an he wants me to post it on my blog. I tried tellin him that it warnt no hard thing to make a blog, but he jus said he’d rather work on the “storeycraft” and leave the “computer wizzardry” to me.

I don’t want to be discouragin to Bobby, but that boy aint never finished nothin in his entire life, an I’m pretty sure that “Bobby Kettle and the Still of Destiny” won't be no exception to the rule. But i’ll try an report this as accurately as possible, though i’ll have to put some disclaimer-type thing on the front of the posts so that yall can differentiate which one of us is writin it.

In the meantime, I’ll give you list of some of the magicianary-type spells we done come up with.

MaizCanus Apparatus: Causes a corndog to appear out of thin air. Higher level wizzards can summon it with mustard.

Strapus Non-fraeus: All purpose repair spell for broken fan belts, straps, cords, etc.

Illumen Rackus Vehiculus: This lightin’ spell causes 4 balls of light to hover above the roof of yore truck to form a magical light rack.

Treadus Knobulous: Turns regular tires into mud tires.

Dendrae Familiae schizmaticae: This spell causes an attractive member of the caster’s extended family to no longer be related to the caster.

Canae silenciae:A usefull spel foer gettin a barkin dog to hush-up

Aires Velocitus: this spell makes yer Dodge drive way faster.

Goodnes-o gracious-o: Summons a great ball of fire to fly at yore enemies.

Pullae!!!: Summons a magickal clay disk to fly away from the caster so that the caster can shoot his shotgun at it for targit practice.

Ursus arctos horribilis Plentiae: Instantly refills any nearby cans of grizzly-brand smokeless tobacco. (WARNING! If said improperly, may summon a large group of REAL grizzlies)

Petrolatum Sin Costa: Free gasoline spell (not to be confused with Flatulae libertae)

Flatulae Libertae: Imbues the targit with a bad case of gas.

Lingua Sofa: Enables the caster to communicate with livin-room furniture.

Regis-Fermentis: This raises the alchohol tolerance of the caster, thereby makin it sos he can drink way more than anyboddy else.

Avis Libertius: Causes any musical performers in the area to suddenly break into a rendition of freebird.

We’ll try to come up with some more spells in the meantime. I dont know if any or all of em will show up in Robert’s screen play... time will tell I guess...

Doug Palmer aint no cripple!

2009-07-17T12:53:00.000-07:00

You know, Its mosly true when they say aint nothin in life is free.. Ok so maybe sometime you can get presence an stuff for your birthday or christmas an you don’t have to pay for it, but by an large even that’s gonna cost you in the end. Once you cross that gift-line with a friend then reciprocation is expected.. So even gifts arent free because you’ll wind up buyin a gift for that person down the road unless you’re a jerk or somethin. Now this aint sposed to sound all mercenary-like. I aint sayin I begrudge gettin people stuff, cause i enjoy birthday shoppin to be quite honest.. What i’m tryin to say is that nearly everythin has it’s price in one way or another, sooner or later.
“Do unto others” the bible says, an its true. You’ve gotta continually invest time, money, love, or a combination of the three in general upkeep.
What really cracks me up about some of the people round here is that they’s always tryin to get somethin fer nothin, even though they’ll spend way more time an effort in tryin to avoid pain for somethin. Like how when the gas-n-go was offerin a BFGO sale (buy 5, get one free) sale on nickel-plated lightup-led skull butane jet lighters, there was a line out the door cause people was wantin to get a free lighter.. It didnt matter that they now had paid for 5 refillable novelty lighters, all theys was carin about was the free one they got.. Needless to say, that christmas most everbody in the holler got them a fancy lighter as a stocking stuffer.

This all leads up to the story I’m about to tell. Now I’ve not talked much about Douggie Palmer; maybe this was cause folks say it aint too nice to make fun of the handicaps. Thanks to a few hours on webmd and some other sites, I found out that Doug aint, in fact, disabled.

It all started years ago when Doug moved into his own place. Now all growin up, Douggie’s parents aint raised him right. Now I can say that cause I growed up with him and got to see first hand what happens when folks try so hard to give their kids a good life that they wind up hurtin them in the long run. Douggie never got paddled or punished for nothin.. Maybe he’d get the occasional “douggie, you shouldnt do that!” from his mama, but that was about it. Now I’m sure this tactic works for some kids, but not Douggie.. He knowed full well he could get away with murder, and it didn’t make one lick of difference. So he basically grew up in an environment where there werent no consequences for what he done, and he didnt have no responsibilities neither. Now I can sympathize that his parents didnt want to make their only kid waste his summer mowin the yard, hell, mowin the yard sucks! But it stands to reason that douggie had never had to work for anythin he ever got.. he’s kinda like takin a spoiled little rich kid, but with none of them trust funds, or fancy cars, or nikey shoes, or family connections, or book-learnin that’d help him get more’ve a shot than workin at the SparkleShine carwash.

ANYHOO, this is all to say that it was quite the culture shock to ol Douggie when he struck out on his own.. Apparently he thought that water, electricity, and propane just sprung up from the ground by magic and was free to use. Apparently Livin room rugs was supposed to sweep theyselves, an the pantry would mysteriously fill itself up with spam and frootloops every Thursday. Now you’re probably startin to see the problem here. Douggie never got taught that you gotta pay for livin in somethin beside a cardboard box.. Of course there’s systems out there to help folk who cant do for themselves, lord knows there’s enough up in the holler, an folks who’re creative enough to milk the system can get by too.. Sadly for Doug, he wasn’t neither type. I don’t know much about them folks that work at the unemployment office, but I’m pretty sure they made the right choice when they told him that even if he had been laid off, jus because there wern’t no “fun jobs” around, it didnt mean he was qualified for an unemployment check. He thought about goin on wellfare, but back before he left home LeeRoy bet him 300 bucks that he was so helpless that he couldnt hold down a job and that he’d wind up on welfare within one year.

So that winter, Douggie learned the lesson that a trailer’s gotta have electricity or propane to stay warm. Now most non-assisted folk would go an get a job to remedy this preedicament, not Doug Palmer. He had this ol fashioned coal burning stove that he found in a rundown ol cabin way up in the hills. He decided that this was better than a furnace on account of he knew where to get some coal for free.
Now the LauraBelle mine had been shut down for about 50 years by this time, because there warnt enough coal left to make it “commerically viable”. This didnt mean there warnt no coal, it just meant that it wasnt worth payin for the cost of business to get said coal from said hole in the ground. Nowadays, the mine was technically closed, but every couple of months, some group of college students’ll stop by on a weekend and spend all day crawlin around while underground pretendin they was hardcore adventurers.. The rest of us in Critchens Valleynever had cause to go down there cause we jus paid the propane or electric bill and enjoyed our climate control.

But dammed if Douggie would take a job that was beneath him just to pay for heat!
So he’d go out at random times with a wheelbarrow a drywall hammer, and an imitation maglight from the walmart to go nam him enough coal to keep his singlewide heated.
Now for those of you who dont know, coalminin is hard work. Its harder than farmin, its harder than paintin, its harder than mowin, or assembly line work, or teachin, or mechanic work. The fact is, that Douggie prolly worked harder than most just sos he wouldnt have to work an spend his hard earned money to pay for somethin trivial like heat. Now most of us realized this, but no one said anythin about it; as long as douggie was diggin coal, he wasnt pesterin no one or gettin into no trouble. We all figgered that the work would do him good, an that he had a few years of hard labor to do before he was caught up with the rest of us.

So one day Doug dug just a little too deep into the ceiling in one particular section of the mine. A chunk of limestone fell from the ceiling and landed on his right leg, breakin it in a couple of places, and completely crushing the toes of one of his feet. He screamed and hollered for about 2 days straight till someone finally found him. By that time there warn’t nothin that could be done about his toes, though Doc fixed up his leg real good.

So far as Douggie was concerned, this here was bout the best thing that coulda happened to him. As soon as he was able to hobble around on crutches, he applied for disability benefits on account of his leg bein too sore and stiff to be able to be a “cole miner” {sick} an crawl around in no mine tunnels no more. He wore this big ol poo-eatin grin on his face while he hobbled around town talkin about how he was goin to a place called easy street. Later that week he had an appointment with them government folks, and them government folks actually bought his story. They asked who he worked for, and it became evident that Doug was what you’d call “self employed”. They asked him about how much he made per year, an he said he maid about $95,000 (which they shore DIDNT believe cause even on a good year a pro coal miner makes round 60-70k a year). So they sent some sort of auditin fella over to figure out exactly how much Doug’s time was worth. Accordin to the calcerlations of the audit-guy, Doug loaded about 5 tons in a heating season. At the going rate of 45 dollars a ton, that rounds out to $225 per year. Spread out over a 12 month period, that’s not quite 19 bucks a month. Given that it took him roughly 8 hours a week to dig the coal , and takin into consideration the trip to the mine and back, Douggies time was worth about $0.10 per hour diggin bootleg coal... oh yeah, I almost fergot! Unemployment only pays at 60%, so in reality he was only makin about 6% an hour! So Doug Palmer’s free ride was barely enough to cover the cost of the wheelbarrow and tools...

Now compare this amount to the $9.50 an hour he’d make startin out at the quarry moovin an sortin stones, (which is a lot like loadin an cartin coal). This is almost 10 times that amount fer doin close to the same amount of work. `Course Doug couldn’t get by with only workin on Thursdays, but it aint like he’d be loadin the rock by hand (we use bobcats fer that), AND he’d get a week of vacation per year worked (up to 3 weeks) and an invite to the company picnic twice a year.

So Douggie works at the quarry now, though he still complains a lot about havin to do so much work. We normally just let it slide, after all he’s handicapped .......at least thats what he kept tellin us sos we’d be nice to him. After a quick search on the web, we found out that missin some toes don’t qualify you as a cripple if you can still walk around and perform normal activities with no more’n a “minimal amount of discomfort”. So now we make fun of Douggie all the time, after all, He has a tough time cause he's a worthless sonofabitch, not cause he's disabled. One of the guys on the drill crew nicknamed him “Smurfy” on account of his foot lookin like the feet of one of them cartoon smurfs cause he don’t got no toes. `Course Douggie hates it, but we figger he’s got a couple of years of gettin bullied before he’s all caught up with the rest of the world...

Whats ever happened to a good old-fashioned stick?

2009-07-16T10:44:00.000-07:00

This aint too terribly funny, not "ha hah" funny at least.. meybbe its more "Oh yeah, i've seen that before" type funny. I was at the Walmarts store yesterday tryin to buy some music. This little snotnosed brat was starin blankly at this "nintendo w2" screen for almost an hour playin mario carts. I dont think he blinked twice the entire time, and he shure as hell didnt get out of the way when i prodded him with my boot (he was standin right infront of the Merle Haggard cds).
I’m not reel sure what to think about kids anymore these days... Sometimes I think we give kids TOO easy a time of it... I mean it AINT like they cant take it (remeber back before the depression where kids worked the same hours as adults?)
Now I remeber back when I was a kid... Lemme tell you, stuff shore was different! If the sun was up, I was outside.. This was mostly cause my mamma’d wind up paddlin’ me for gettin into stuff if I stayed cooped up in the house. When we was outside, we played hard all day long, and were tired enough to fall asleep come bedtime. We didn’t have no adult supervision, or safety labels, or bike helmets, or dvr and nickelodeon, or all 12 ice-age movies. We didn’t have no rooms full of toys and gadgets to do the imagining for us, no sir.
The average aresnal of toys we had consisted of:
a bike
assorted sticks and rocks
maybe a football or basketball
whatever scrap we found lyin around
The point is, we had very basic items to go’n play with, and because of that, we had to use our imagination a whole lot..

Here’s a great example of what I mean. When I was wanderin around in the walmart last month, I saw this big-ol battery-powered toy guitar with all sorts of knobs and buttons you could push for different music-type effeckts. Now a gadget like that cost near on 30 bucks..... 30 BUCKS for a pretend guitar! Here’s the problem. A toy like that can ONLY be a guitar, so if little Dakota doesn’t feel like crankin out some AC/DC today, well I guess its time to go to the store and buy him another single-function toy!
When I was a kid, fake guitars was called “sticks”, (or maybe a tennis racket if you was rich). But heres the thing.. whats a stick to a little kid with an imagination? Is it a sword? Is it a magic wand? Is it a gun? If a kid leaves a stick out in the rain, it dont cost no 30 bucks to replace.. besides, its cool to be able to smash your pretend guitar on stage like you was a member of The Who.. you can’t do that with a plastic battery powered guitar!

What about all of them power wheels cars? Why spend 300 bucks on a fake car that drives slower than a kid can run? In my day, powerwheels was called “feet” (or bikes once we got older). I’m sorry, we may not be scientists or doctors here, but aint none of us was so dumb that we couldn’t pretend we was Knight Rider while pedalin a bike!

How about all them video games? Now I will say that vegetatin in front of the x-box aint near as big a problem for little girls as it is for boys.. But have you ever seen some 7 year old sit infront of his game-station thing for 8 hours straight one evening, then come home with a craptastic report card cause he cant sit still in class? In my day, video games was called chores. If we mowed the yard, and helped with the dishes, then maybe we could play nintendo for 30 minutes to an hour. See, it was a reward for doin somethin good, not just a babysitter.. Mosly this was cause our parents didn’t think we needed babysitters an jus left us to our own devices..

I guess this is cause kids get stronger when they have to endure stuff instead of gettin whatever they want whenever they want. OK, so when we played we got scrapes, bruises and the occasional broken bone.. But it instilled within us a healthy sense of what we could and couldn’t do. Its like climbin trees.. Once you fall outta a tree 3 or 4 times, you get real good at judgin what branches is too skinny (and you get loads more careful too). Nothin teaches lessons quite as well as consequences...likewise, nothin hurts the learnin process more than removin the oppertunety to learn like that.

My Mamaw Coleburn had a little cross-stich sampler on her wall that used to say:

A kid who wont eat aint been hungry enough.
A kid who wont sit aint been tired enough.
A kid who gives sasses aint been paddled enough
A kid who can’t think ain’t been `let go enough

She used to say there was a big difference between raisin a kid, and protectin a kid; sometimes the 2 went hand in hand, but sometimes you gotta let a kid trip sos he can learn to walk better....

On the other hand, theres somethin to be said for keepin yer brood placated and quiet till they’re old enuf to kick outta the house. This worked reel good for Clint.

carnies and catpiss continued (but shortened)

2009-07-15T11:04:00.001-07:00

Well hell, we done took a power hit at the library and I up’n lost all of part 2 I was writin. This here’s damn frustratin! I dont feel like re writin the whole thing, so i’ll just sum it up for you..

I followerd Sparky over to the grug store where he met his friend Stavros who was from Italy or bangladesh, or one of them european countries. He liked to jibber real fast and was strung out on somethin sos i couldn’t tell what brand of spainish/I-talian/ bangladesheese he was speakin’. So they get in this big ol arguement about the quality of the “ammonia” sparky purchased from yours truly...
Eventually they made up on account of them realizin that they had much more in common than they first figgered: a desire for a cheap way to “chase the white dragon”.

As you can probably well imagine, it stank like hell and it didn’t work. Zeke tried to make the arrest, but them fellas stank so bad that he didnt dare touch em till they got hosed off by the fire department. As it turns out, cookin meth is only illegal if you actually cook it usin all the necessary ingredients... Nyquil and cat urine doesn’t count for nothin in the legal sense cause its not illegal to fail miserably at makin somethin you dont even have the right ingredients for.. Its like how you can’t get arrested for tryin to shoot someone if you just keep pointin a stick at em while shoutin’ “bang bang bang!”

On a sadder note, the manager/foreman/ringmaster, or whatever the hell the carnie boss is called was so mad that they pulled up stakes early and left town.. Apparently Critchen’s Valley is now on the Carnie blacklist. It ain’t no big deal, we made our own carnival equipment that was lot better than them rickety ol carnie rides. That thars a story in an of itself.
Here’s some of the idears we came up with to compensate for the missin midway in the county fair

Rick Terrance replaced the bucked on his old hitachi UH07-7 excavator with the roll cage and driver seat of an old dune buggy. “Ricks Excavator Extravaganza” was a real hit with the kids as well as those grown men who never did quite grow up.. (I rode it at least 4 times)
Dave McAlister tied a couple of mattresses to his bobcat an strapped a saddle to the top. The mechanical bull was pretty popular till he busted a hydraulic hose an it got fluid all over the matresses.. his wife Elle was mighty pissed off about that, which ended up bein every bit as entertainin as the rides.
Crazy stab-happy Debbie McPhearson (remember her? She got out on parole) started an interesting hybrid game called “Hit the goldfish with a stuffed Elmo and win a free softball.” Most folks played that one cause they didn’t want to piss off Debbie and get stabbed.
Leeroy started a cornhole tournament with a buncha Morehead State vs EKU cornhole boards he’d been makin for Ebays. While most folk thought that 7 dollars was a little steep for a buy-in in the tourney, most agreed that the prospect of winnin one of Leeroy’s purebred pitbull pups as the grand prize was well worth the risk.

We even had Miguel Mendoza, our RMF (Resident Mexican Fella) bring out somethin he called a “pinyata”. It was basically this paper donkey that people could pay to take a swing at (providin they was wearin a blindfold) . Now I was first in line, and let me tell you I absolutely MURDERED that donkey.. I guess it was cause of all that practice I got playin backyard ninja back in the day when I was like 27. Imagine my surprise when I found out that “Pinyata” is Mexican for “Donkey Full of Candy”. Shoot, that Miguel is allright! Here I was thinkin I was payin a dollar just to hit a fake donkey with a stick and not only did I get to do that, but out pops handfulls of bourbon balls and moonpies as a bonus! I love the fair!

Carnies, Meth, and cat piss (episode 1)

2009-07-10T11:43:00.000-07:00

Well yall, the county fair is in town this week and I gotta say that all us folks in the holler are perty excited.. Now what we all think is probably the best part about the fair is gettin to watch the carnies.. Theres truckloads of them come up from tampa for the summer!

Now I know that I up and write all sorts of crazy stuff about life in the holler, but I aint nearly as colocqwial as I let on.. I use somethin called autistic liberty when i write to make stuff a little more entertainin.. (Like when i say Leeroy has 32 cats living under his trailer when he really only has like 12 or 13). I realize that addin some exajeration to a story can make it more entertainin, so I try an fill in stuff here and there to make the story more enjoyable to them readers (yall). My point is, that we may be a little bit behind the times than those folks in big ol cities like Morehead or Cynthiana, but we sure as hell ain’t as screwy as them carnies!!

So there I was at the Gas-n-Go, eatin a fine lunch consistin of corn-nuts, slim jims, some jones soda, and one of them red-hot pickels that come packaged in a plastic bag, individual-like. All of a sudden, in walks this strange lookin fella carryin a jumbo-sized mayonnaise jar full of pennies. This boy was wearin cutoff shorts and nothin else(I could tell he was wearin nothin else cause there was a big ol hole in his pants where the pocket got ripped off.) He was sunburned about 3 shades redder than one of them tijuana mama red-hot sausages (I knowed this cause the meat-snack stand was right in my line of sight sos I was able to make the comparison).

Well ol sparky (I dont know his name, so i’ll call him sparky) here had the shortest set of dreadlocks I’ve ever seen.. Now I’ve seen dreads.. About every 2 years or so we get this crop of kids pop up who decide to go all alternative on us.. they buy a buncha Korn shirts an order a truckload of black canvas shorts that reach about 11 inches below the knee (they gave me the finger when I told em that shorts that were that long were’nt shorts no more, they were capris). So anyway I knowed full well what dreads look like, an i’m tellin you that this guy’s dreadlocks looked to be all of 2 inches long.. I aint got no idea how he grew them that short and still kept them all dreadlocky. I kid you not, this fella looked like Lisa Simpson, but with black hair.

It seems Sparky wanted to cash in his pennies for somethin, which wasnt exactly fair to old Lenny who was workin the counter. Lenny had been workin the gas station from way back when Exxon was still called Esso (way before my time). His eyes aint too good (his hearin is even worse) and he prices everythin in the store in multiples of 25cents sos he dont have to worry about small change.. He still has to keep some nickles and dimes on hand on account of them Kiwanis and Lion’s club sons of bitches droppin off their gumball machines in his gastation like they was phonebooks or somethin. So kids are always askin for change to go buy some cheap gum so them Kiwanis folk can go buy new sashes, or help orphans, or whatever the hell it is that they do..

So Sparky walks up an puts the jar on the counter an says “Here”.
“Eh? Wassthat? Pennies? I dont remember stockin no jars of pennies son.” Said Lenny.

“No. I need dollars.” said Sparky, in a stright to the point manner, “Kyle says the drugstore dont take pennies. He needs sudafed”
“Ohhh” said Lenny with a look on his face that said ‘Oh god, this is gonna take days to count and my old hands hurt’.
Now Lenny was way too nice a fella to tell Sparky to take a hike, so he started countin out them pennies as carefully as he could.

“Where I can get a propane burner?” Sparky asked.. “And anhydrous ammoinia too?” .

Now it dont take no rocket scientist to figger out what Sparky was up to, what with him wantin sudafed, anhydrous ammonia, and a propane burner.. He was fixin to cook himself up some meth!

Now I’m as big a fan of meth as the next guy..... OK, OK, so maybe I’m just sayin that sos it’ll give me some HC (thats “Highway Cred”, our version of street cred). But the fact remains that them folks as decide to go cookin meth usually wind up all messed in the head. When you couple this with Sparky’s pre-existing Carnie nature.....well....Lets just say that this is one show I didn’t wanna miss.

I shouldn’t go makin fun of folks for havin carnie nature cause preacher says its what leads to sin. “Deny your carnie nature!” he’s always sayin, “flee the temptations of the flesh!” I’m not too sure what that second part means, but my skin seems just fine to me..

ANYHOO so I stand up and walk over to the counter and hand ol sparky $11.47
“Here you go fella,” I said, “this’ll cover the money in your jar.”
Sparky looked at me all skeptical an said “How do you know it’s 11.47?”
So I pulled out this here card I keep in my wallet that says:

Critchens Valley Church of God VBS
Summer 1987
Certificate of Achievement
This is to certify and recognize
Arlester Braxton Clayton
For the winning of the guess the number of jellybeans contest
For 5 years in a row

Ol Sparky looked at this and asked “What’s it say? The type’s too small to read.”
It says i’m a certified champion guesstimator, and you’ve got exactly 11 dolars and 28 cents in that jar, but I’ve only got quarters for change cause I hate what those kiwanis sonsofbitches did to old Lenny. You can get a propane burner at the true-value place downtown. I can sell you that ammoinia stuff up the way.

Now I feel I oughta mention that what i was fixin to sell this guy warnt anhydrous ammonia.. neither was it technically mine to sell... Clint’s Uncle Shannon had been collectin cat piss for as long as anyone can remeber.... Now dont get me wrong, i dont think collectin cat pee is funny, its pretty disgustin, but Clint’s uncle Shannon swore it was the best weed killer he ever saw. We tried to get him to buy some roundup, but he got all mad an said that cat piss was free, it was organic, and if all it took was a round or 2 through a distiller to not have to pay the corporations any more money, then that was fine by him.
So we pulled up behind Clint’s uncle Shannon’s trailer an I brought out 2 gallons of the stuff.
“Thats not what I want,” said Sparky, “It comes in large tanks.”

“Aww this’ll work fine! This here’s a NEW kinda `hydrous ammonia thats lots more stable, an its concentrated too!” says I.

“I don’t think you know what you’re talking about ‘Billybob’ .” said Sparky.

“Looky here fella,” I replied, “I’m from Kentucky...Askin a fella from Kentucky if he knows how to cook meth is about as stupid as askin a fella from Kentucky if he knows how to play banjo, or shoot squirrels, or make moonshine.”

.... Ok, so I dont cook meth, or shoot squirrels no more, or make moonshine since I relaized I could get it for free by helpin out LeeRoy’s dad, but I REALLY wanted this fella to buy my story, so had them hillbilly stereotypes turned up pretty far.. Well he eventually caved in and bought the distilled cat piss from me. I tol him I was runnin late for a family feud with the Haskills in Raccoon holler an he’d have to go back to town hisself. So off I drove till he was outta site, then I stopped at the nearest house and asked to use the phone which i then used to call up Deputy Ezekiel Hansen. (Yall remember `Zeke? He’s that big ol that ex-amish deputy with a sixgun that weighs about 30 pounds)

“ZEKE?” I hollered into the phone, “I thought you’d wanna know that we got ourselves a couplea carnies who’re gettin ready to cook some meth.”

“Brother Clayton,” said Zeke “Hast thou proof this time that these carnival folk do be engaged in the fabrication of illicit substances?”
“Hells yes I do Zeke,” I said “I jus sold this one Florida carnie 2 gallons of distilled cat’s piss an told him it was anhydrous ammonia!”

“I thank thee for this information Brother Clayton, If you can tell me the location of these suspects, I shall arrive shortly to make the arrest.”

“Wellllll,” I said, “That’s just it Zeke, I wanted to let you know in hopes that you wouldnt arrest them....at leas not till we can see what happens when they try to cook meth with concentrated cat piss weed killer. It might be kinda funny, you know?”

Zeke thought about this an then said it’d be a derilicktion of his duty if he didnt arrest them right away. I told him this wasnt a problem, an that he could just go on his lunch break early and not “clock in” till it was time to make the arrest.. Zeke was amiable to this arrangement, so we agreed that I’d head back down the road and try to figger out where the carnies was gonna go to cook their meth, an then give him a call (providin i could get me some cellphone reception)

Dont never go fishin in the grate lakes!!

2009-07-06T04:22:00.000-07:00

Well I done got back from my vacation in Wisconsin in one peace. Lemme tell you, its LOTS further up the road than Cincy. Its kinda strange up there in the north.. it ain’t like it is down here in Critchens Valley on account of it being all wide open an spread out.
The folks up in wisconsin are real nice tho.. I mean really nice.. So nice that I almost had to re-tool my thinkin about yankees in general.. `Course the drive back through illinoy and indiana reinforced my notions of yankee rudeness, but I reckon we could make Wisconsin a honoraree southern state on acount of everboddy bein so nice an down to earth..

So the main attraction of my trip was that I got to tour the Pabst mansion in milwaukee.. [You may be kinda surprised that the name dont got nothin to do with Miller, or with walking.. Wikipedia says that some indian fella named Al Gonquin made up the word, which means “Good Land”.. I dunno why he didnt jus call it that an be done with it... “good land” is lots easier to spell than Milwaukee. ] Its a pretty big town and its got lots of factories an stuff, and i think there might be a river or two as well.

So i got to tour the mansion, and it was one fancy-type place.. they wouldnt let me take no pictures though, on account of it bein so old ( I know, I know, it dont make much sense, does it?) But I took pictures anyway, an as soon as the drugstore opens up, i’ll get my film developed and scanned in back at the library sos I can show you the ones i took before they made me put the camera away.

Now what did I like most about Wisconsin? I think it was the beer.. Folks handle beer up there a little differently than in Kentucky. You can get beer pretty much anywhere you want, unless its at McDonalds or somethin. You can get vodka at a gas station, and jaeger in a walmart on a Sunday.. Its not that I’m an alchoholic or anything.. hell i didnt even drink more’n usual in wisconsin.. its just that it’s pretty damn convenient to be able to jus walk on down to pretty much anyplace you want to buy drinks, an it don’t matter if its on Sunday, or pas midnight, or nothin.

I tried my hand at fishin up there too, and lemme tell you.. its differnt than we do here.. or at least its different on the grate lakes.. Now the states got lots of small lakes, an you do normal-type fishin all day long on those, but i wanted to try fishin in the grate lakes. For those of you that dont know, Most northern states are attached to these big ol lakes called the grate lakes. I kid you not, Lake Superior is at least 5 times bigger than lake Cumberland! Its so big that I’m pretty sure its the size of the ocean, only you can drive around these lakes on account of them not going as far in the north/south direction as the ocean does.. Now I know what you’re thinkin, “But Clayton, I done saw them lakes on a map and they dint look too big to me!” Well lemme tell you what, you gots to add the area of all them lakes together.. of COURSE one single lake aint the size of the ocean, otherwise it couldnt fit inside america now could it? It dose make me stop and think though.. if you can boat from one lake to another without goin through any kinda river or canal, or connective-type ditch, is it really 2 different lakes? Anyhoo, `jus food fer thought.
Oh yeah, I was talkin about fishin.. So I figgered that if these was the biggest lakes in the world then it only made sense that they oughtta contain the biggest smallmouth basses in the world.. So I when I met a this here one fella named Fred Koenzig, i was pretty happy when he said he was a professional fisherman from Michigan... I begged him to take me fishin, but he said he didn’t have any money to pay for an extra “hand”. (I thought this must be the Wisconsin term for someone who goes fishin). I told him that I’d be happy to pay him to take me out fishing. He started lookin at me reel funny and said that he aint never heard of someone payin to go fishin, but that if I was that interested then he guessed he’d let me pay him so’s I could come on as an extra “hand”..
Let me tell you what! That aint like no kind of fishin I ever done before.. First off I was on that damn boat of his for near-on 3 days. Second, those folk didn’t even use fishing poles, they used nets, which AINT very sportsman-like, I tol Fred all this (who now insisted that I call him “Captain” like everyone else) and he said they wasnt doin it for sport, but that his boat and crew was a commercial fishing outfit. I told him that this was gonna make the most boring-ass commercial that I ever saw and that they had better get Billy Mays (rest his soul) or that Vince guy from sham-wow to do the commercial if they wanted anyone to buy their fish. He just shook his head and called me a “Green Horn” an made me go down an clean the fish. I could tell this fella already thought i was an idiot, so I figgerd I’d oblige him and REALLY give him something to tell his friends about..
So there I was, in the hold of the Maria Skivvertonne...... I had me a bucket of clorox, a scrub brush, an about 50 or so nice sized whitefish. I cleaned them fish real good sos they didn’t even smell like fish no-more.. I didn’t tell the captain of course, but I’m sure his customers will throw a fit when they find out. The way I figger, the sumbitch had it comin when he let me pay to come work on his commercial thingy.
Now the cap’n did let me keep this one 50 lb lake trout we pulled in, (cause he obviously didn’t know about the clorox incident) an I’m gonna get it mounted an then hang it on the wall in my livin room right over that fancy olan mills family portrait.. I’ll have the taxonomy fella put a rapala shadrap or a triple-wing buzzbait in its mouth so’s my friends’ll think I caught it normal-like.
After that fishin broohaha, I didnt have much time left on my trip at all, an aside from pickin up a couple of dozen cases of PBR for cheap, I didn’t really do much other than drive back home.. Its a shame about gettin shanghaied on that boat, cause I’m afraid it scarred me for life.. I cant watch Deadliest Catch no more without cussin at the TV..

Vacation, O.J., and brainworms!

2009-06-25T06:49:00.000-07:00

I just up’n had me one of the best bits of news i ever got before. See, i done won me a trip to the pabst mansion in Milwocky. I’d been drinkin pbr for years an had been savin that famous blue ribbon logo offa every box to make me a special “peeber” room sos i’d have a reel swell place to play super-nintendo.. it’d be all cool like the inside one of them fancy Apple B’s restrants like the got over in mt sterling, only it’d all be the same cause its all made of cutout pbr cans..

“But Clayton,” you well might ask, “how come yuo dont got nothin else besides pbr cans? Wouldn’t an old sled or an autographed picture of Willfr’d Brimmley make it more interesting?” Well the fact of the matter is that i dont need my gameroom to be interestin on account of I don’t wan a lot of distractin stuff to look at whilst i’m playing ChronoTrigger or DrMario when i’m cooped up inside on the days its too rainy to go out’n shoot at roadsigns.

“But Clayton,” you might also ask. “How come you don’t drink any of them premium beers like miller hi-life or budwyser select? A sofisticate feller like you needs to broaden his horizons!” . Well this is mostly cause I like the taste of pbr, an while it dont taste that different from the rest of the gang of american light beers, you cant beat $3.50 for a 6 pack at the gas-n-go... now that’s cheaper than coke! (the drink-kind not the good-kind)

So I was lookin online to see if’n i can buy me a pbr shirt to wear, and i saw there was some sort of contest goin on where you could mail in upc’s for a chance to win.. Well i had near on 487 empty pbr boxes amassing in the spare bedroom. So i I thought “what the hell1” an cut off all the upc’s stuck them in one of them big-ol vanilla envelopes, and sent it off.. an the rest is history. So Thursday i’m fixin to head up toward wisconsin.. I’m not too sure how far it is, I think its in ohio somewhere ( Me’n Clint one time drove up to cincy to get free hotdogs at a Red’s game).
So here I was all excited about runnin up an down the aisles of the pbr beer-factory thing an pourin myself a pitcher right out of a giant oak barrel... I was pretty disappointed to find out that thare aint no pbr brewery, cause they got bought by miller! (I don’t really care much who makes it, so long as they keep it cheap an good!)

Hey! I just thought of somethin you might like to hear!
So i saw this one dockermentary-type show advertised on animal planet.. I’m not lyin, that comercial gave me one big ol case of the heebie jeebies, and i can still feel my skin crawl. Seems like this shows about folks who get all sorts of awful writhin thingies holed up inside of them. Now i cant stand to have stuff under my skin.. Meybbe that makes me a little OCD, but i figure that if a fella’s only got one thing wrong with his mentology then he’s doin pretty good, what with all the gamma rays gettin broadcast by them black helicopters all over the place. So anyway’s i hate havin foreign objects inside me.. I’ll plum near cut off my thumb to get a splinter out, cause if i dont, i can just FEEL the thing sittin under my skin an it makes me itch all over. So i’m watchin this commercial, an i’m writhin around and squirmin on the couch like a 7 year old who gots to go to school onna Saturday instead a goin down to the lake with his friends. It was damm uncomfortable, but when it got to the part where they started talkin about brain worms, I wouond up doin some damage.. I’m not sure exactly how that half gallon of orange juice wound up on my flatscreen... and i dont really know how the EasyMac stayed on the plate when it got accidentally tossed through my livin room window (the sumbitch actually made it near on halfway to the mailbox). Near as i can figure, when the brainworm bit came on the tube, everything i was holdin, or had restin within about a 5 foot radius flew off in random directions as I exploded up off the couch and tried to dive behind it, while tryin to scratch my eyes out an cover my ears all at the same time.. Now I aint exacly a small fella.. some folks used to call me Hoss till I hit em in the face to mak em stop.. i’m 6’4” an roundabout 300 lbs i figger.. Now Ive had that old couch for as long as I can remember, an bein the relic that it is of nearly a decade ago when shag carpet and mullets were still in, it didnt have quite the structural integrity that it used to have..
Long story short, i snapped somethign in the couch and now it kinda looks like a big ol “V” in the middle, an i gotta lie in it sideways, hammock-style, cause there aint no sittin on it till i can find some concrete blocks and some 2x4s to fix it with..

So its good i’m goin on vacation, I figger I’ll let the ants take care of most of the spilled OJ.. that way there’ll be less to clean up when I get home.. I mean, what’s the point in cleanin if there aint no one around to know if it’s clean or not?

bonfires and courtrooms

2009-06-02T08:11:00.001-07:00

It don’t fail that bout ever time I try’n come up with a good idear, somethin’s bound to go wrong with it. Funny thing about this whole modern world we live in, is that it’s so damn in-predictible.. Its like how some cases might go by one set of rules, an another similiar scenario’ll use a differnt set (I think I mighta talked about a similar philosophy several posts back, i dont know, it done dropped off the edge of the page an i don’t know how to go’n get it back.)
Now look at addin figures.. While it’s hard as hell to do, at leas you know the same rules apply regardless of how much money/cars/tons of gravel/miles yore talking about; addin 10 to a number means it done go up by 10, an it dont matter how big or how small the number is, yore always gonna wind up with 10 moren you had to begin with... lessen of course you want to talk about gettin paid, cause then makin 10 bucks really means you made about 7.85 thanks to taxes.
So youre probably wonderin what i’ve been doin all this time... fact is, I’ve been in jail.. THERE I said it! JAIL . I don’t care who knowed it, cause it AINT my fault. It aint like i tried to go’n harm anyone, I jus tried to take one set of rules an try’n apply them to a similar situation...

Before I tell you what happened, let me tell you I KNOW what you’ll wind up sayin: “Clayon you damnfool, why dintja jus check an see if it was legal to up’n dothat?”.

Here’s the thing, my folks may have loved me when i was growin up, but they sure as S@#$ didnt like gettin interrupted.. ever time I asked mama a question she’d say “figure it out yoreself Arlister, my soaps are on an besides, when you get all big an grown you’re gonna have to figger out stuff by yoreself or people’l think yore some kinda waterbrain!” Now to this day I’m still not too shore what a waterbrain is, but I imagine it’s one of those terms that aint too nice to describe someone who cant really help they way they are. I’m tryin to be sophisticated, so im only usin the term as a sort of historical-type reference .. Anyhoo, all I knowed was that I didnt want folks to think Ii was stupid or anythin, so I sorta got into this bad habit of tryin to figure out stuff on my own, or if I do ask questions, I don’t never ask anyone I aint smarter than on account of I dont want them to think im slow on the uptake. So before the story starts and you get to askin what I was thinkin, let me just make a statement “It SEEMED like it ought to be legal based on factual precedents of a similar venue”

Theres thins thing a house can get thats called “Condemnation” . Now this aint like the house goes to church and listens to a sermon about hellfire, then afterwards done goes home an smashes all his devil-music BonJovi cds with a hammer...... This is wheres a house gets so run down that the city sorta writes it off as a loss and schedules it for demolition. Now me’n Clint, n Leeroy, n Bobby just LOVE tearin stuff down.. I dont mean we liek to go destructicating other people’s stuff, its more cause its a combination of liking to smash stuff with hammers and set it on fire while we drink pbr. Its like gettin exercise AND gettin to se a show a show all rolled into one. So it comes as no surprise when we tell the city we’d be glad to tear down a house for free, that the folks at city hall gave us a big thumbs up just so long as we didnt burn down nothin else. So me’n Bobby’n Leeroy’n Clint all spent a chilly Saturday in march tearin apart the old Haskill house with crowbars and whatnot, then burning it down to the ground. Sally from the town hall even brought us an extra 12 pack as a sorta thank-you for doin this community service work.. It was a great day, an one we’ll remeber with all sorts of happy-type feelins...

Now HERE’S the kicker.. When a CAR gets beat up so bad it ain’t usable, they total it..
Now when you step back-n take a look at it, the concepts of house condemnation and totallin a car are so similar its easy to understand how somebody (yores truly) could make an honest mistake.. However, the whole concept of gettin a car declared totalled is for has more to do with insurance reasons, and it dont got nothin to do with public safety or bein an eyesore.. a totalled vehical is ABSOLUTELY STILL the property of the fella who owned it before it got wrecked.

Now yore all knowed up on the back story, I can proseed with my story.

Silas Huffner’s a pain in the ass an everboddy knows it. He’s the type of fella who’ll throw a fit if his broaster chicken is the least bit overdone, an he’ll demand a refund fer it after he already ate most of it.. (The rest of us all rightly accept the fact that gas station food aint whatchad call gormay, and the quality of yer food can sorta be a gamble, but the trade off is that you dont gotta wear a shirt in the gas-n-go, an you can have a butterfinger and bbq fritoes as side dishes.) No, Buell is the sorta fella who’ll make the girl at the Dollar General cry because there’s a 12 cent discrepancy on his 300 dollar tab. He’s one of those sorts who thinks bein right about somethin is more important than anythin else, an anyboddy who done disagrees with him must be attacking his personality of character.

Now the fact that I knowed all about Silas shoulda tossed up a big ol red flag in my head when I heard that Silasses son Henry up’n totalled his 1993 pontiac LeMans which was now lyin in the impoundment lot behind town hall.
We all figgered that since a car cost almost the same as a house round here, that it was a good bet that the rules for disposin of mobile property were the same as the rules for disposin of unmobile property. Hell, a trailer’s got wheels on it and aint nobody’d care if we decide to tear one down an make a bonfire once it gets too old to use no more.

So me `n Bobby `n Clint `n LeeRoy all headed down to the impoundment lot one Thursday afternoon with a coupe of prybars, a sledgehammer, and about 15 gallons of gasoline. I aint gonna bore you with all the details of how to strip out all the burnable fabric, foam, rubber, belts and tires from a car, pile it all on the roof, soak it in gasoline, set it on fire, grill hotdog patties (thick sliced baloney from Gas-n-go) on the hood and drink PBR.
Now this may seem like a real great idea, but it aint. Lessen you own the veehicle in questin, youn souldnt be doin ANNY sorta hood-grillin at all, cause it’ll get you inCARcerated (hur hur hur).
So we was all enjoyin our hotdog patty samiches when Sherrifff Richards showed up..

Ok, I gotta take a pee real quick and get some more PBR cause I’m thirsty.. I ran over my wellcap with a bush-hog and I aint got no water to drink.. I’ll be back in about 30 minutes.
Okay nowe i’m bakk. I lovve thiis shtuff on account of’n im not all thirsty no more.
What was i talkin about? Oh yeah! The cops!
So we was awl outin the in-pound lot burnin a car when Richards showed up with a couple of deputieys. Theay all drew their guns an told us to freeze which was perty shtupid cauus we was by a fire ‘n all that../s1e 2 wanterd to give 3e dollards fer it anm
Sheejh iss not mah baybe qnd...
Ah hel. I will com back lat er cause iths too hard to tipe . ima gopw take a nap noww..

Ok thats better now.. sorry folks, I aint had nothin but PBR to drink for the past 3 days. I tried to ration it sos I don’t get too silly, but its been REEEL hot up in the holler lately, so I guess I up’n drank too much. ANYHOO They fixed my well-cap this afternoon, and now I’ve got water back in the house. This means that instead of bringing a 12-pack with me when I break into the library, I brought a gallon jug of water with me so i can have somethin hydratin to drink whilst I finish my blog type thing.

So we all was out in the parkin lot when the Sheriff Richards showed up. He asked what in hell was goin on an we told him. He was pretty sympathetic, but said he’d still have to take us in because this here ruckus involved someone else’s private property.. Richards was pretty pissed too because this meant he’d have to clean out the jail cell on the end he’d been using to store his file cabinet’s and all the copper coils and such for his special “Italian Expresso Coffee Maker” that look’d an awful lot like a sour mash still.
After 5 minutes of tryin to clean out the cell, Richards gave up and said we could just hang out at the jail as long as we promised not to leave. The Sheriff’s not a bad guy, and he’s loads nicer than the last fella to fill his shoes, so we agreed on account of not wanting to get him in trouble , cause we knowed if’n he got fired that the next fella actin as sheriff probably wouldn’t be so accomodatin.

So we all had to go to court and say our piece to the circuit judge. Here’s some legal advice. GET A LAWYER! It dont matter how much you think yore in the right, theres always gonna be a lawyer on the other side of the courtroom who’s been hired to make it look like you was guilty, and make you look reeel dumb in the process. Lookin back on my the experience, I done come up with a list of things NOT to say to a judge.. Trust me, I tried almost all of these, and NONE of them work!

Why is that guy wearin a robe? Is this choir practice or a court house
I done plan on representin myself Mr Cavanaugh
Why do I gotta call you “yore honor” That seems kinda stupid, that name tag thing at your desk says “Ronald S. Cavanaugh”
But yore honor, nobody dont care if I burn down a house, why cant I burn down a car!
We didn’t want to hurt nobody’s property, we just like to burn things!
I don’t mean that I get my jollies from lightin fires, its just easier than cuttin fire wood.. its like a free bonfire.. you know! Its like gettin good excersise AND gettin to see a really good show!
Scuse me, what did you just call me, boy? Arson? I dont care if yore a Judge or not, those are fightin words!
Baylift? What the hell is a Baylift? Thats the sherrif! Are you some kind of communist judge that don’t know how to say sherrif cause there ain’t no word for sherriff in russian?
Spreichen usted ze rusky?
Ronnie Cavanaugh hates our freedom! The terrorists win!!

So I done had to serve a couple of months in the county lockup. Bobby n’ Leeroy n’ Clint was finally able to post my $800 bond, and my case got appealed. It seems Clint’s cousin just graduated from law school an he says I got a good case if I let him talk about kognative capacity or somethin. Basically it means that he’s gotta say I ain’t quite right in the head, and didnt have no notion of how the court system was sposed to work since all I’ve seen was Judge Judy, and ain’t nobody ever got punished for contempt of court there..

IT HPPENS BOUT EVER SINGLE TIME!

2009-03-08T08:11:00.000-07:00

Howdy all, I had to take "hi-a-tuss" from bloggin fer awhile caus everthin was goin haywire at the quarry. We always gots to rush at the beginnin of spring cause the spring rains sorta make most of the quarry all flooded-like. Beull Adar is too cheap to get some of them industrial-type sump pumps fixed, so we gotta work over time to fill the march's quota early sos we dont get all sogged out by the rain. So now I'm onna forced-type vacation on account of it bein too wet to prime detcord under 3 feet of water. We DID make our crushed stone quota, an I got me a bonus too!

"But Clayton", yer probably askin me "What does a man do with a bonus in mid march when its too rainy to go to a race, and not warm enough to patch up the homemade slip-n-slide?"

Well clam down, I'm gonna tell you in good time! Stop bein so demandin!

Let me start by sayin that I dont exactly hate wemmen. I realize that I've been tellin all sorts of stories about me'n LeeRoy, n' Clint, n' Bobby all goin to each other's houses an how we hang out in the woods and how there's been no mention of a Mrs Clayton, or even a potential Mrs Clayton as of yet. This aint cause I necessarily prefer the company of men, and shame on yall for takin that line of thought. Ennyone who knowd me would tell you I'm pretty far from one of them brokeback foothill types. The truth is, I got me a girlfriend, but she dont live local, so nothins ever really happened that I can blog about. Folks make fun of me and say I'm too stuck up to fish in the local pond..... maybe thats true, but when you live in a community as small as the Greater Critchens Valley area, the pickins can get mighty slim on account of it bein so hard to find a girl yore not related to, or ain't been in a fistfight with. Besides, after findion this here internet, I like to think I gots more culture than most folk do over her on account of me havin a 2-way connection to the outside world (TV dont count, thats jus a 1-way connection).

So I met this lady online, her name's RoxyLaura3232... oh come on! `COURSE I know thats a SCREENNAME! ain't nobody from america's got numbers for a last name! ANYHOO, we met on a Kasey Khane fan chatboard bulletin thingy. Her chat picture was a portrait ofa bald eegle wearin a race helmet painted like an american flag with a picture of the world trade centers and the pow/mia flag in the background.. It was love at first type!(hurhurhur). So Laura lives in one of them fancy big cities called Richmond an she's all swav an sophisticated an has been to a real theater like 10 times!

So we decided to meet face to face las week an let me tell you, it made fer quite the interestin time. I decided to to the whole wine-n-dine rootine, so we agreed to meet at a fancy eatin establishment sos we could get to know one another without all that awkward silence of sittin on the front seat of yer truck when you cant figger out if youre supposed to start neckin, or shake her hand an say goodnight (That about sums up the Critchens valley datin scene).

So there we was at the Wafflehouse enjoyin the sites and sounds of the big city. Laura ordered a the seak, an it set me back round 8 bucks, so I up'n ordered some raisin toast an some water. I didnt wanna make a big deal about spendin so much on our first date, so I told her that I always had raisin toast and water for dinner cause it was a family tradition. She looked at me kinda funny, but went ahead an ordered desert anyways. In all I wound up spendin close to 15 dollars on dinner. I didnt let it tear me up too bad on account of its only money. After she finished eatin an i finished payin/stiffin the waitress, we walked the 12 blocks back to my truck... For some reason I cant get it to shift into reverse, so I had to hunt for a parkin-type spot where I could pull through.. I told her i was just tryin to save the transmission because my truck was in pre-classic condition, an i wanted to go easy on it cause it might be worth money someday.

So she gave me directions to some sorta park where we could walk around. I didn't really understand what she was talkin about (I wasn't payin attention cause LeeRoy said I shouldnt act too interested on the first date). See, where I come from, a park is this big ol batch of land where folks can park their trailer-houses an sorta make their own neighorhood, an there aint much point in wanderin around in one ifn you don't live there. Once we arrived it made better sense. Big fancy towns like Richmond have parks too, only they dont let no trailers park there. Its pretty much just an open field with some walkin-type roads paved here an there, an some swingsets for the kids, an a big ol pond. Laura said she had to go use the restroom, so I went explorin'. At this point I got mighty excited cause there was all sorts of ducks and geese at the park, an they didnt fly away or nothin! They jus stood around an ate bread an stuff... It looked like i done found me a good way to recoop the cost of dinner. I headed back to the truck an got out my shotgun from behind the seat.. So I had bagged about 5 or 6 ducks-n geese when laura ran screamin out of one of them funny green outhouses. She was flappin her arms an carryin on about how I wasnt sposed to shoot park ducks (even though they was in season). So I told her that I had to put them down cause they had the bird flu an I didn't want-em to spread it to the other ducks. She asked me how I knew they had bird flu, an I told her I worked in veternary science. She calmed down an suggested we jus go see a movie. So there we was in front of the cinema10 when I realized I didn't have quite enough money for 2 tickets. I had to stop-n think reel hard about what to do.. So I told the girl behind the glass that I was a veteran an i wanted the discount.. She had the nerve to ask me for my ID, an I blew up at her pretty bad.

"My ID?" I hollered, "Back in the war someone asked my buddy for his ID and a commie terrorist shot him! I've seen too much to have to pull out my soldjerin card every time i try to see a movie!" Then I started tellin her that she was all skeptical on account of her hatin our freedom jus like the terrorists, then I tol her manager that if he was any sort of American, he'd let a hero like me get a discount without havin him go through a background check followed up by a full cavity search. The manager finally handed over the extra ticket.

Laura was mighty impressed by how brave I was, an she even let me put my arm around her. I was startin to feel pretty good about the way things was goin untill I dropped her off at her place. There, parked in her driveway, was a 1997 Dodge Stratus.. I couldnt figure out why this detail kept pokin me in the brain. It wasnt till I was drivin home that I realized what was botherin me.. her online profile said she drove a 1998 dodge stratus, whereas that vehicle in her driveway was obviously a '97. I'm not sure, but I think I may have to break up with her.. If you dont have honesty in a relationship, you dont got nothin!

2009-02-24T12:10:00.001-08:00

People are ignant. Thas about alls I can say. People’s always doin stuff before thinkin it through.. Now I’m not talkin about how when you’ve had a few too many PBRs an you decide it’d shore be a good idea to go an toss watermellens from off the water tower. Alcherholl will doo all sorts of stuff to an otherwise right-as-rain judgement. By the by, have YOU ever tried holdin onto a watermellen while climbin up a water dower when you was drunk? Hell I dont think I could do that sober!” .
I’m also not talkin about actin without thinkin. I mean even if the idea is horrible, it all boils down to some poor idgit jus not usin his head at a critical moment. It’s all a matter of oversight which, while preetty dumb, isnt somethin you cant beat a fella up too bad for; he was actin on impulse, an he wasnt exactly thinkin about countin the cost.

No folks, I’m talkin about the sorta ocashun where someone’ll think real hard about somethin for all of 60 seconds before actin on it. This means that they took the time to think things through, but was so dumb that they STILL thought it was a good idea.

For instance, you ever seen one of them big ol women wearin one of them shirts that says stuff like “sex kitten” or “I betcha wish you could!” onnit? They actually got up and looked in the mirror an thought “yeah this is a good look fer me”. Now when Bobby Ray’s mama decided to up’n wear one of these shirts to a weddin, it would’ve been a perty awkward situation even if she WASNT the mother of the bride (which she was). It was like an onion made of dumbass-ness, where you could see the chain of events build up in layers resultin in a terrible, tearfull mess. Or what about the time Leeroy’s daddy decided to paint flames on his truck even though he cant draw an don’t got no thumbs (one thumb was lost in a huntin accident, an t’other was cut off when he was tryin to climb the water tower one handed cause he was holdin a watermellen in the other hand).
This was a pretty sad situation, but what made it worse was that the only paint he had left was a mauve-ish shade of grey. Now imagine a primer-white 1982 Ford pickup with mauv-ish gray flames painted on it by a feller who cant draw and dont got no thumbs.
In most cases moter nature will have a series of checkpoints on the way to help keep us out of situations like this.. In Leeroy’s Daddy’s case, he had 3 opportunities to turn back. He essentially had a 3 layerd defense he had to weasel his way past to still come up with a bad decision. The lineup looked something like this:

LD
----A----
----B----
----C----
BD

Up top at the start we have Leeroy’s Dad (LD). He basically has to jump hurdle A: (cant draw). This is a big roadblock here, and should have served as enough of a warnin to make him change his mind. OK, so meybbe he decides he couldn’t draw cause he’s just never tried real hard before. So now he comes to hurdle B: (no thumbs) which shoulda reinforced the info in hurdle A. Ok so meybbe he thinks “Well i seen this one horse paint in the circus, and he dont got no thumbs” . He still has hurdle C: (only mauve-ish paint left) to overcome. I wont belabor the point,. I think you understand.
So thats a little preliminary flavorin so you can better understand this here point i'm fixin to make.

Critchens valley ain’t very big place, an mos of us know mos everybody else.. Hell we’re related to half, and the other half is related to friends.. so there aint a lot goin on that we dont know about. An its because of the nature of our little community that it seems strange to several of us that we got a genuine newspaper...
Well maybe I shouldn’t call it a newspaper.. I’m not real shore what you call this sorta publication.. its way to small for a newspaper, but way to big for one of them newsletters. Its got about 6 pages (countin fronts and backs), an it usually has a story or two which we all read with interest, if only to see how a story looked from a real live reporter-s point of view..
Mostly tho, we just use it to play the word jumble. I’m doin pretty good myself cause I did last weeks jumble in about 2 minutes (the word was Turpentine, by the by).
So ANYWAY we got this here “newspaper” (fer lack of a better term) called “Critchens Creek Clarion”. None of us was too sure what a clarion was till Clint came back from his annual trip to Florence mall. He said a clarion was a type of fancy hotel they got up there.. we wasn't too sure what a 6 page newspaper had to do with a hotel, but then again, not a whole lot makes sense anymore.
ANYHOO so last week we was all sittin down at one of the picnic tables they got over at the Gas-n-go. I was enjoyin some boraster chicken, an Leeroy was chewin on some discount 25 cent sausage biskits from 3 or 4 days ago. I was doin the Jumble, an Leeroy was readin the story.
(It seems the McPhearsons had gone on vacation to renfro valley an come back with some bumper stickers, an the reporter was wonderin if WE shouldn't get some Critchens Valley bumperstickers made.. thats the story.. pretty lame huh?)

So leeroy finally finished the story and turned the paper over. I had almost finished the jumble an had narrowed the secret word down to either “RACK” or “K-CAR” when leeroy hollered “HOT DAMN!” an jumped up from the bench. I was mighty pissed because
A. leeroy scared the hell out of me an made me lose momentum on that there jumble game.
B. when he jumped up he spilled stale sausage bisskit crumbs all over me.

“Leeroy,” says I, “What in tarnation's got you all ate up over? Are you havin one of them coniptions the doc warned you about?”

“We gots ourselves some classifieds!” said Leeroy

“Yeah Leeroy, Clint's ad for mud tires has been up for 6 months now” I said.
“Naw,” said Leeroy, “I mean theres another one right here below it!” Somebodys wantin to sell a bona-fide diamond ring in exchange fer some dawgs! I always wanted me a diamond ring. I could get all blinged up like a rapper an thug it up! I could get a lift kit for my camaro an buy some rims an... an.... aww hell..”

Leeroy stopped carryin on because he suddenly noticed that all conversation had stopped in the Gas-n-go an folks was startin to stare. Rap music was all but contraband in the holler, an the fact that Leeroy said “thug it up” (whatever that means) was perty near close to that gangbang talk that we didn’t want none of in the valley. Leeroy had to apologize to everyone and buy a round of chicken for all present to calm everyone down.. I wasn’t too offended by his urban talk, and mos of the rest of us wasnt too mad either, but we pretended anyways cause we knowed we’d get some free chicken in the deal.
Out in the parkin lot I got to listen to Leeroy go on an on about how a diamond ring was an investment, an how it’d go up in value of you could keep from losin it in the creek or when you went muddin’ in the 4x4. He kept talkin about how a ring was better than money because it meant something, like it signified some special occasion... this got me to thinkin.. WHO in the valley would be gettin rid of an engagement ring? Aint nobody’d died for almos 2 years, and there werent any divorces in recent history. There was only one weddin engagement we even knew about in the valley....

It was a known fact that Danny Creech was pretty much head over heels for Debbie McPhearson.. Noboddy really knowed what he saw in her. See, Danny was pretty well off by Holler standards (he was a foreman at Adar Quarry, so he owned 2 cars an paid fer his satelite tv). Now on the other hand, Debbie was a pretty poor person. Now I’m not talkin about “I made some bad choices and am out of work” kinda poor,

I mean the CHECK ONE
[ ] Excellent
[ ] Good
[ ] Fair
[X] Poor
kinda poor that encompasses way more than financial standins. In this case it happens when someone (Debbie) is unemployed cause they’re too crazy to stop tryin to stab co-workers (me) within 48 hours of gettin hired on. I guess the point I’m tryin to make is that Danny was a big step up the ladder; he was a nice feller an his future was full of `Piece and `Sucurity. Debbie wasn’t gonna do any better with any other man in the region, cause aint no one else was willin to put up with the semi-weekly stab-fest that happened any time Debbie got mad, or any time a door slamed too loudly, or any time the humidity was up, or anytime the winder was left open, or any time she saw somethin that gave her the itch to go’n stab someone.

We decided to call Danny and see what was goin on. We had to be all tactfull and use strategery when we asked him cause we didn’t want to arouse no suspicions. We asked him ifn he was excited about the weddin, an if he was goin on a honeymoon, and ifn his groomsmen was gonna wear kevlar cumberbunts just in case the bride didnt take too kindly to somethin the preacher said and tried to pull a shiv on the rest of the weddin party. From this roundabout little covert-type info-gatherin phonecall we was able to figger out that Danny had no idear that Debbie was about to hock her engagement ring for some feller’s redbone hounddog.

Leeroy was all excited cause one of his dawgs just had puppies an he was fixin to get hisself a real live hairloom. He wasnt worried about danny findin out on account of Debbie was always fergettin people.. If you ever lived long enough to hear her talk, most folks fit either into either the category of Commies, or those S.O.B.s from cellblock 4.

Now at this point we can see how the apple don’t fall far from the tree. As I see it, Leeroy had about 4 hurdles to cross that were placed in his way to keep him from makin a bad decision.

Hurdle A: Danny was Leeroy’s friend.
Hurdle B: Ain’t nothin in the holler ever stays a secret.
Hurdle C: Debbie was plum loco and would probly stab him as soon as look at him.
Hurdle D: His friend Clayton was pointin out that he must be 7 different kinds of stupid if he though he was gonna make it out of this one without lookin like one of them collanders you use to strain green beans in.

So here’s what I guess Leeroy’s logic was

Hurdle A: Danny gave the ring to Debbi, so it was hers to do with as she pleased
Hurdle B: Debbie probably wouldnt tell cause she didnt wanna git in trouble
Hurdle C: Debbie was probably jus misunderstood and he’d try talkin real nice to her.
Hurdle D: Clayton was jealous cause he didnt think of tradin in one of HIS dawgs for a nice ring.

Long story short, leeroy has to wear an eyepatch for the next 2 months now, an the docs don’t know if he’ll ever be able to shoot a squirrel rifle right-handed again, he can’t drink anythin without it spillin out the holes in his cheeks, an 3 times a day he has to go and “irrigate” somethin.. I didn’t ask.

It turns out that Debbi was all hopped up on toilet wine and homemade meth. Well, she called it meth, it was really a concoction of about 22 bottles of dayquill, some galoshes, a pack of melted styrofoam plates, and a 5th of Jack.
Finally it was agreed that Debbie needed to go somewhere where she could get taken care of professionally. So we took her into Cincy to the rehab center. I hear they have a special wing for stabbing addicts

2009-02-17T08:44:00.001-08:00

I don’t like to complain much , but this weekend was pretty terrible. Ok so meybbe somea my storeys have some complainin’ overtones to them, but thats more cause i’m tryin to paint a vivid `pikture for everyone readin this.. Its like color commentary on life: Here’s the story, here’s what happened, and I’m man enough to see there might be some funny-type content that other folk’ll find entertainin’.
This first bit is gonna be a little different, I’m gonna complain and blow off some steam. You wana go make some popcorn or steak while i type this first bit, cause it’s gonna be downright depressin.
The Daytona 500 sucked this year! They called the race with 54 laps to go, and they declared that bastard in the no.17 Ford the winner. Now `nothin against Mr Kenseth personally, but he’s a ford man, and there aint a person alive in PossumStomp holler that dont know how I feel about Ford. I mean I can ALMOST tolerate Chevy owners when I’m in a good mood, but Ford just gets under my skin. The difference between Chevy and Ford is the difference between havin’ your car break 2 weeks after you bought it, and having a car come straight off the showroom floor broken (as a “Special Feature”).

(My uncle Roy done bought him a Ford explorer with that OnStair thing built in along with one of them little dash mounted tv things that only picks up the map channel... yeah, Roy died trying to follow that little TV’s directions to the Gas-N-Go; it told him to take a left when there weren’t no left to take. He drove through a field and wound up havin one of the Warbuck’s barns collapse on him when he broke through one of the support pillars.. I’m still not sure what Parson Warbuck was doin with all of them sharp objects an hooks hangin all over the place, but one or two of them found their way into Uncle Roy. On a happier note, we sued and got us lots of money. We paid off the remaing $1200 on the double wide and took everyone out to a reel nice dinner at the sizzler.)
So Dodge didn’t win.. aint that sad? I shore thought so. Its 2 days later an I’m jus now able to talk about it.. Oh yeah, I guess some other stuff happened to us on Sunday, its not really a big deal an I don’t know if its funny or not, cause I’m still depressed from the race. I’ll tell you anyway an let you decide:

Me, Clint, Bobby n’ Leeroy all went to watch the daytona 500 over at Leroy’s house. Ok, so Leeroy didnt actually go cause he was already there, but you knowwhutimeant. Roy, Leeroy’s jackass older half-brother once-removed, said that racin was for what he called “Slack jawed yokels” so he left the house an went into town to drink coffee and be intellectual with the Fallen Rock Holler folks on account of they just had a record mushroom harvest.
Just as the race started, we realized that Leeroy’s fridge was broke. This wasn’t too big a deal cause he didn’t have nothin but half a package of baloney , some jelly, and a pack of uncooked spaghetti noodles in there anyway. We fried up the baloney for snacks (Leeroy called ‘em “Race Steaks”) an we put the jelly on some of our moonpies to make em more fancy-like. Now the condition of the existin’ food weren’t the issue. The problem was that there was no way to keep the beer cold. Leeroy had put his two 24 packs of Coors down by the baseboard heater last night with the intention of puttin them in the fridge, but he got distrackted cause he thought he saw his cousin Archie on that there “catchin a predator” special on dateline. This means that the beer was downright hot, I mean it was really hurts-to-hold-the-can-cause-its-hot-as-hell hot. An it’s not like we could go an buy more at the Gas-n-go cause it was Sunday. So we took the hot beer and stuck it down in the creek under a rock. We figgered that the cold water might just cool down the beer in time for the race.
After we set the beer to coolin, we went back inside to wait. Bobby said he wanted to show us somethin an came back in with this contraption he’d invented.
Have you ever been to Sunday school when you was little? If you did, you’ll remember how they had this one thing called a flannel board. They’d hung this piece of shirt-type cloth material on the wall that was painted like some kinda bible-type scene. Then there’d be all these sheep n shepperd n clouds, n angles that the sundayschool lady would use to tell storues, cos the bible dont got no pictures.. Well Bobby had gone an created himself a racin’ flannel board! To tell the truth, the whole thing was perty near breathtakin. Over the years Bobby had been cuttin pictures of racecars an drivers from wheaties boxes an magazines. He had taken this cutout collection an glued flannel strippin to the back. Then he hung a flannel-picture of a racetrack on the wall an he stuck all them little cars all over it like a visual chart-type race-aid. He also had cutouts of all the racecar driver’s heads an had glued them to notecards where he’d written down their numbers, car types, and other useful data. Then he had taken a marker and drawn a black box in the upper left corner of the flannel board an had written “1st, 2nd and 3rd place” on the box. The intent was to figger out who was in first place at any given point in time an then to place the appropriate card inside the square. This meant that a fella could go to the kitchen to fry up a Race Steak an still be able to tell what was goin on thanks to the strategic positioning of the nascar racin flannel board.
The race proceeded as usual, accompanied by the standard name callin an insults we usually handed out durin just such an event.. Only problem was, we didn’t have enny beer in us to make us all jolly-like, so things started gettin real mean. When Bobby made the card for #17 Matt Kenseth, he didnt do too good a job of puttin flannel strips on the back, so the card kept fallin off the board.. Now Clint had money ridin on the race, an though he was a Chevy fan, he was more interested in winnin some cash. He figgered it was about time for Kenseth to win one, so he had 20 bucks ridin on a longshot. Well he kept gettin pissed when the card would fall off the board, an eventually his pissed-offedness started spillin out. He started criticizin the flannelboard in general; like how the track on the board was a standard oval, but the Daytona Speedway was really a tri-oval, or how the cars were facin the wrong way on the board.
Bobby’s feelins were gettin hurt we could tell. He’d spent tons of time gettin this visual aid ready, an clint just kept on cirticizin. Finally Bobby had had enough an he stood up an declared that Clint had about the daintiest wrists he’d ever seen and was pretty sure hed been born a lady but had got operated on to make him a dude cause daddy already had way too many daughters.
“Its pretty obvious you sumbitch,” Said Bobby, “You got your mamas beard, aint no denyin it, and you have your daddy’s dainty she-wrists. That’s why you wont never arm wrassle cause yoore skeert your little girl wrists’ll get broke”
Clint got even madder an jumped up to his feet. “My wrists are slim cause they’re in SHAPE cause they get lots of exercise when I do mechanic work. They gots DEXTERITY! Just cause I ain’t got thick old cankle-writst like your mama, it don’t mean I cant still whomp you one.”
We didn’t really hear the last bit of what Clint said though. If you look reel close at his response, you can probably guess where we all fell down laughin’ at him. This was a bad move on our part cause Clint kicked over the flannelboard and stomped out of the house. We all ran out after him tellin’ him not to get so sore. We followed him for almost a mile while we joked around and tried to cheer him up. We finally got him to laugh when Leeroy told that one story where his daddy got drunk and thought the bear was a hitchiker. On the way back to the house, we stopped by the creek an retrieved our beer that was now cold enough to be drinkable.. As we popped open the first cold one, we noticed a funny smell comin from the general direction of Leeroy’s house.. The smell was perty complex an we couldnt quite place it.. It was almost like if you had a big pile of wood ,aluminum siding, carpet, drywall, ceiling tiles, an books and set them all on fire. In a few short minutes the smell made sense.. it WAS the smell of burning wood, aluminum siding, ceiling tiles, carpet, books, etc.. Leeroy’s house was on fire. It seemed that when Clint kicked over the flannel board, it lay right up against the baseboard heater an caught fire when we was out. We all grabbed hoses an buckets an managed to get the fire mostly under control by the time Dale showed up in the fire truck. Leeroy’s daddy’s collection of commerative 9-11 plates was ruined along with almost 22 years worth of sports illustrated and field-n-stream magazines. The couch was now one solid chunk of melted vinyl, and the TV was ruined. There was also a hole in the roof an in one of the walls. We couldnt worry about the house just yet cause we had bigger fish to fry. We had to scramble around all desperate-like to find somebody who had a tv who’s house wasnt crammed full of race fans.. We wound up at Dale’s house an finally sat down with our beers an moonpies only to watch the drivers literally drive for 2 laps before they called the race on account of rain. To top it all off, a ford man won in the end..
What a rotten day!

2009-02-13T18:38:00.000-08:00

I'm pretty pissed right now.. I'm about so angry i jus wanna pour about 200 gallons of antifreeze into Critchens creek just sos the bluegill population can feel my pain.
I wrecked my truck..
Now dont yall worry, i'm doin ok, but i'm still pickin bits and pieces of glass outta my forehead..

Mostly, I blame my buddy Clint for the accident. He my not have actually CAUSED the wreck, but he shore contributed to the curcumstances leadin up to me pitchin headfirst through my windshield. Me an Clint have always had one of them wierd-type friendships that mostly consist of cussin each other out, makin fun of each other's choice in music/cars/women/huntin, and tryin to out do each other in whatever it is we're tryin to do at the time. Its funny cause we're the best of friends and i dont recon either one of us has said 2 nice words to t'other the entire time we've been buddys. Its Clint knows deep down when I call him "One stupid son of a bitch" he knows i really mean "I got your back buddy".
Anyhoo, back to the story at hand. As i said, me'n Clint like to try and out do each other. There was the one time in 9th grade when Clint bet me he could make Coach Haskins madder than I could.. This wound us up with both our asses kicked into detention for a week (This meant I had to miss a week of work at the quarry, and Clint had to pay his sister to watch his kid). There was this other time when I bet Clint that he couldnt drink more Boones Farm Apple Wine than me.. Lets face it, we both shoulda knowed that there ain't no one come out a winner in a drinkin contest involving Boones Farm Apple Wine.
On this particular occasion I'm tellin you about (If i can ever stop gettin sidetracked) me'n Clint were arguin over who knowed his way around holler better. The conversation went somethin like this.

Me: So what youre sayin, dumbass, is that you reckon you know your way up'n down the holler better than me just cause you found your way back home in the dark after gettin lost on the Davies' propery after tryin to sneek a peek in Makhaley Davis' bedroom window?

Clint: Clayton you dumb hilbilly, I didn't get lost, I knowed right where I was, it was just really dark that night an i couldnt see too well, there was sposed to be a moon!

Me: Yeah its too bad you picked one of them dark nights to sneak on over, I reckon you shoulda picked one of them nights when the sun DIDNT go down sos you could find your way.

Clint: There was SUPPOSED to be a MOON idiot. there were clouds an stuff. I aint no Meatierologist, How was i supposed to know it'd get overcast. But it DID get overcast, and I found my way back home on account of my superior sense of direction. I'm like one of those migratory ducks!

Me: Thats not quite the word I had in mind, dumbass, but at least it rhymes with "duck"

Clint: Now that aint fair clayton, you've done nothin but try'n point out how wrong in am.. So what if I aint got 6th sense, but with directions. I've got a good memory, a good sense of direction, an I DID find my way back home in the dark without fallin' into a ravine

Me: We live at the bottom of a valley you ignoramus. In case you've not brushed up on your geographic terminology, the general orientation of a valley is that it sorta tends to be at the BOTTOM of things.. The only fallin-type activity you coulda done with regards to a ravine would be to fall UP it, an I'm about 95% sure no one could do that, even in daylight.

Clint: Well, since youre so sure of yourself Clayton, Lets see YOU find your way home in the dark!

Me: That aint fair Clint you sumbitch, I live WAY further up the holler than you do. I'd have to walk 3 times as far

Clint: Then drive! I dont give a sheeat what form of locomotion you use, take a train for all I care, but you gotta make your way home, and its gots to be in the dark!

Me: Well why didnt you say i could drive in the first place?Shoot, that'll be easy! I drive with my eyes closed all the time when I'm singin to the radio or pretendin to drive a tank! Lets do this! it'll be dark in about a half hour.. but if i find my way home, you gotta buy me a case of beer AND a case of moonpies!

Clint: An when you crash that jacked up offroad truck of yours, you gotta wear a Joe Nemecheck chevy racin' shirt next race at Martinsville Speedway

Me: Thats below the belt Clinton, you know full well It's MOPAR or NOCAR for me!
Not that i'm gonna lose mind you, but dammit, askin a fella to wear another team's colors is like treason.

So I took the road over to where our end of the holler butts up to the main part of Critchen's Valley and waited for the sun to set.. Lucky for me, I had a secret weapon. When you listen to Hank Jr sing "Amos Moses" its kinda spooky how the drive up the holler road matches the changes in the song (provided you maintain a steady 25 mph). About the time hank sings "it aint legal huntin alligator down in the swamp, boy" for the first time, the road takes a gentle curve to the left. You gotta keep the whell turned this way till you hit the line "would use him as alligator bait" then you straighten up the wheel an drive straight till you reach the end of the first chorus. I'd tell the rest, but i think you get the point; no sense in me boring you to death (Or lettin the soviets figurin out how to get to my place with the headlights turned off on their tanks).

Things was goin pretty smoothly till i got to a dip in the road where there's a little bridge over Little Critchens Creek. Just past the bridge theres this big ol oak branch thant hangs low over the inbound lane road. I usually have to shift into the oncoming lane to keep from decapitatin' the lightbar on the roof of my ol truck. The problem her is that i REALLY liked the song an was too busy singin to think about the lane change. there was a loud "CHUNK" soundin noise, an somethin fell into the bed of my truck. I said some choice words an I hit the brake. Shore enough, the lightbar had ceased to be a lightbar an was now a useless pile of twisted-ass junk in the bed of my dodge. This was REAL bad on account of my final headlight burned out 2 weeks ago, and I'd been relying on the lightbar from my nocturnal-type driving.. Worse than that, the tape had continued to roll, an now I had lost count. I got back in the truck and tried my damndest to rewind to the spot jus before I lost my lights. It didnt quite work because I left it on rewind too long and started playin on the wrong vers.. This meant that about 20 seconds later, I veered left instead of right an took a nosedive into Little Critchen's Creek.

Now I think it's important at this point to make sure you understand that little critchen's creek IS NOT in a ravine.. It runds along the bottom of whats more like a 15ft deep miniature valley that ran alongside the road for about a quarter mile. It was more like a grown-up ditch, or a really long hole, but it AINT a ravine! And if clint finds out exactly WHERE I wrecked my truck, I'll never hear the end of it, but I'll know you internet-types probably squealed on me.

ANYHOO, my truck hit the bottom of the ravin- I mean deep creek-valley, an i mustve not tied a real good knot in my seatbelt cause i pitched right through the windshield and into the water.
Its a good thing Leeroy lived right across the way, an he used his daddy's trackter to help pull me out.. then he rode shotgun an shone a flashlight out the driver side window whilst i limped my truck the rest of the way back home. I agreed to split the moonpies and beer with Leeroy if he promised not to tell Clint.

The next day I was sore as hell and I still can't look over my right shoulder without it hurtin... It warnt all bad tho, Aunt Sandy was in town visitin and she offered to share her favrit' breakfast
of OxyContin and Waffles with me... After that we were feelin pretty good an we sat around and watched Price is Right all mornin. Aunt Sandy's pretty cool cause she's only like 5 years older'n me and not really my aunt anymore on account of her divorcin uncle Joe-Steve, but its still kinda creepy when the Oxycontin takes effect an she starts hittin on me.. She usually realizes what she's doin before it gets bad and she gets embarassed an gets up to fix me more waffles... So I guess I can't really complain too loudly...

Traffick inferstruckture

2009-01-29T08:48:00.000-08:00

I cant stand taxes. Ever year i gotta shell out money to the IRS for work they didnt do. It wouldn't be so bad if I actually saw the benifit for some of the taxes i gotta pay, but i dont! I aint got kids in the school districkt, the road in fron of my house aint been re paved in almost 8 years, folks have enough guns in the valley that we dont ever got to worry about them chi-comms invadin, an ever time we get a genuine disaster it aint never took the government-types less than 6 weeks to get out here. By then we've already cleared everythin out. Its sorta like payin for a truck you don't ever get to see, let alone drive.
More than the federal taxes tho, what really gets me is the local taxes we gotta pay. It ain't like Critchens Valley's got a whole buncha infrastruckture to keep track of. we got 4 cops (includin the sherrif), a mayor, and a chamber of commerce consistin of Earl from the Gas-n-Go, and Peggy from Peggy's Consignment Shop/Tanning Salon. Of course the chamber of comerce dont have no expenses other than coffee an fancy printed napkins from a plastic bag, so they dont really count as a majer expence..
My point is, we pay plenty of money to the town, but there's hardly nothin in the town to need tax money for. About the only thing we got thats publicly owned is the roads. (Agin, my road aint been paved for almost 8 years.. ) Here's where it gets REAL pesterin: Their AINT but 2 or 3 roads in the entire valley. Now this aint one of them valleys out west that goes on an on and is full of grape farms an stuff, this is one of them narrow eastern Kentucky valleys in between 2 mountains with a creek at the bottom; There jus aint much horizontal-type room for many roads.. ANYHOO my point is, that for all the money thats gettin sent up to town hall, we shore as hell dont see none of it trickle down into the few roads n streets the town is responsible fer pavin. This means we get potholes big enough to lose a chicken the size of a pig. This isnt a big deal for those of us that gots offroad vehicles, but my poor aunt Peggy drives an old Ford LTD woody wagon, and she's always gettin stuck when she tries to pull into the pharmacy.

We decided to take this here matter before the town council in hopes of either losin less money, or else gettin the roads in better shape. The problem of livin in a community of less then 500 folks is that, while we have official-soundin municiple bodys, it dont usually get put into practice. I'm not meanin to dog on my own town, but theres not much point in holdin a town meetin every week if the only discussion item is how Harley Mccoy's pitbull had his way with Ezra Warbuck's mama's toy poodle and how nobody wants to buy the puppies on account of them lookin like a buncha rats with gigantick heads and a perm. So in order fer us to participate in a town meetin, there actually had to BE a town meetin.. This is way easier to say than to actually do. Let me explain.
The position of mayor of Critchens Valley is a position that no sane person would ever run for. The office is a joke, plain an simple. OK so maybe theres 3 or 4 things a year that actually require mayorish authority, but the fact of the matter is that the poor sumbitch in charge of the town spends most of his days signin' papers, balancing the budget, and listenin to people gripe.
So the ideal candidate for mayor not only has to be able to write, but he also has to be good with numbers. Not only that, but he also has to be one of them long-sufferin types that can handle people poundin on his door demandin money fer fixin the front door to the local vfw post, or complainin that the roads look more like the surface of the moon than a city street.

Ralph Higgins could read and write and do figures, which made him a much better candidate than the other fella stupid enough to run for mayor....actually, t'other "fella" was actually a mule, an it was more of a joke that he was even in the runnin'; we got some strange traditions out here.
So Ralph won the election by a narrow margin, and it wasn't long before he realized that while he could read an write, an do numbers, he WERE'NT what you'd call a patient man. Ralph became mayor because he thought it was the most amount of money he could make for the smallest amount of work.. well that and his ol Ma kept fussin at him to "do sumfin" with his life..Ralph didn't like gettin bothered with everyday complaints; "I didnt sign up for this BS" became his cathphrase. Mayor Higgins' civic policy usually involved "making his rounds" (drivin around the community with his CB turned off) and "reviewing bills, petitions, and policies" (shuttin himself in his office, lockin the front door, turnin off the lights, and playin spider solitare on his computer"). So any attempt at gettin Ralph to actually do ANYTHING usually involved makin several passes.
Ralph had adopted a "3 strikes and you're in" policy. He figured that an issue obviously wasn't important enough to consider if it didn't come to the table on at least 3 consecutive town meeting sessions. In reality, he just didn't want to get off his ass an do some work . When you combine this with the fact that he spent most of his days hiding, and that the other 2 members of the town council had chronic bronchitis, you can easily see why nothin ever got done.

I decided to take matters into my own hands. I didnt tell no one what I was gonna do because I'd shore as hell go to jail if i was caught. I went down to the quarry on a friday mornin and swiped my ol Tamrock DHA500 hydraulic drill (with aHL538 Drifter) and drove it to town. Now a rock drill dont move too fast at all, Its mostly used for punchin holes in the rock to accept detcord or tnt for blastin. So I was goin at a pretty slow pace as I headed downtown fer city hall.

Halfway to town Neil Meyers sauntered up to me and asked me what was goin on. I told him how sick I was of nothin ever gettin done, so I was gonna drill some nice potholes in front of city hall so that no-good Mayor Higgins would have to park 2 blocks away untill he fixed the roads. Neil worked for the telephone company, so he offered to put on his work uniform an hardhat and come along with me. He said if anyone asked questions, he could spout a buncha telephone jargon about fixin some subsurface phonelines. This was a pretty good idea to make it look all official, cause that drill is pretty loud, and the town is full of nosy people.

So we both made our way towards town, and on the way we got joined by Dave McAlister (who owned a bobcat mini-dozer) and by Sheila Clevre (who had herself a portable cement mixer).
It seemed that the further we went, the more people joined up cause they thought we was doin a real good thing. By the time we reached town hall, we had a small army followin us. All them people an tools sorta looked like a miniature forest of shovels, scrapers, sledgehammers, an prybars. Surprisingly, we didnt run into any real oppisision on account of City hall bein empty that day cause Sherriff Richards had driven hisself an Mayor Higgins 3 hours away to CaveRun Lake fer the weekend to fish for striper.

Long story short, I drilled a systematic grid of holes 15 foot by 40 foot into the asphalt in front of city hall. Saul McCoy cut slots between the drill holes, and the army of angry townsfolk pried up the 2'x2' concrete blocks and loaded them into the dozer. When the bucket got full, Dave would drive the dozer across the sidewalk up to the front doors of city hall where Sheila an her crew would unload the blocks, stack them, and cement them together across the front door of city hall. Once the front door was completely blocked, we nabbed the keys to the Mayor's car, popped it into neutral, and drove it into the 2 foot deep hole left by our crew.
Next we painted a sign sayin "FIX THE DANM ROAED MAYER HIGGINS. WHAT ARE WE PAYIGN YOU FOR?" an we hung it on the freshly laid asphalt wall.

Afterwards we all went back to my place for a barbecue and were havin a fine time untill the mayor and the sheriff came back early. We ant never seen the Mayor that angry, and Sheriff Richards was pretty pissed. They demanded to know who was responsible for the destroyed section of road.
"Meybbe it was Al Quaeda!" Clint shouted, we al laughed REEEL hard at that one.
Dave McAlister walked right up to the mayor and said "We did it Mayor.. ALL of us. The way we see it, the City Hall is public property, and by my count, we got over 3/5ths of the town participatin on this in one way or another. we ARE the Public, an the Public decided to do a little remodelin on it's property. We figure you got 2 options. You can either arrest all of us, or you can do your mayoral duties and FIX THE DAMN STREET."
Higgins said it was all outrageous and an affront to national security and he told Sherriff Richards to arrest the ringleaders. I started to get real scared at this point, cause I was the one doin most of the ringleadin'. It turns out I didn't have nothin to worry about cause Sheila spoke up "I'm a ringleader",
Then Clint shouted "I'm a ringleader too Sherriff".
Parson Warbuck hollered "Arrest me too Mayor, I'm a ringleader"
Leeroy Mcalister said "DITTO"..
The mayor's face kept gettin redder and redder as more folk stepped forward to identify themselves as ringleaders. Finally Sheila spoke up once more, "The thing is Mayor, there aint a one of us in this here crowd that didnt think this was the best idea, (and the most fun) that's come to this town in years. Now you've known full well that the roads here suck, but you've been spendin the budget on fishin trips for all your cronies. Fact is, you've been doing a piss poor job as mayor, and the only reason you won re-election is cause the town bylaws wont let us actually elect the Mule...but that dont mean we cant APPOINT the mule the interim in the event that the office of mayor suddenly becomes vacant. So I'm callin an emergency town meetin right now. All in favor of firin Mayor Higgins and installin the mule as temporary mayor say Aye!"
There was a deafening roar of consent from all 3/5ths of the town present.
"Since the mule dont got no need for a paycheck, I move that we divert the mayoral salary and benefits package money into the transit fund." said Sheila.
I piped up, "I second it! All in favor?"
314 voices shouted "AYE" in unison.

So thats it, we now have a 6 year old mule as the honorary mayor of Critchens Valley for the next 2 years. Civic decisions are now handled by a city commission board thats got people appointed more because they got good heads on their shoulder instead of bein able to write all fancy in cursive. By the way, the roads look great, and Honorary Mayor Dolly has officially declared "Street Days" to be a public holiday spanning the second friday-monday of May. Its a great day celebratin the time we took a stand against "the man" and won out, so we made ourselves a parade. Dolly leads it parade as the grand marshall, followed by a rock drill, a mini-dozer, a cement mixer, and the Critchens Valley "Shovel Brigade".....`course the whole of downtown is only about 4 blocks long, so the parade only lasts fer about 20 minutes, but we all meet up at the end and drink and trade guns n dogs.
Yeah life here is good. way i figure, we got 2 types of folk in the world: US and THEM.. So lon as youre one of us, it dont matter what you've done, when the chips are down, we'll stand by you when one of THEM is involved.. Its good to know that folk have got your back... except when it comes to Roy McAlister; aint NO ONE wants Roy gettin their back.. When it comes to Roy, all bets are off, THEY can have him!

`Brief description of the Holler votin districks

2009-01-28T13:00:00.001-08:00

This time of year, there a whole lotta talk about politics. We in PossumStomp Holler, and the greater Critchens Valley area don’t cotton too much to them fancy goins-on over `Washinton. `Way we see it, it dont really matter who’s runnin the country; chances are they aint never heard of PossumStomp Holler, so why’d we ever wanna let someone tell us what to do who ain’t ever been here or met no one from around here. Its sorta like havin a boss who lives 3 states away and doesn’t know what it is you do, or even who you are.. Hey, come to think of it, there’s no “sorta” about it.. its EXACTLY like that.
Election time in the valley is always a real dangerous time. See, we got all these different areas with different kinda folks an family groups scattered around. When it’s time to elect a Mayor, there’s always lots of arguin about who oughtta be mayor, since we got so many different-type folk to be represented. Most outsiders’ll probly think we’re all the same, but we aint. Here’s a list of some of the different folk from the different disticts.
Critchens Valley Proper(CVP): Folk here usually make more money’n most cause they own shops and stores and whatnot. There’s lotsa young folk downtown who got married recently and reckon they wanna get a feel of town life. CVP folk usually root for whoever’s gonna do things to improve downtown. Mos downtown folk work inside the municipality, `cept for Rich Harvey who’s a foreman at the lumber mill, and a real basterd’.
PossumStomp Holler Lower (PSHL): This is where me-n-mine sorta fall in. Folks from the PSHL district live outside’a town on account of there’s more room out here. We tend to be more reesourceful-type folk who dont like to be tol what to do. Some of us don’t work, some of us work in the quarry, or the mine, or the lumbermill. In general we want to be left alone by unwelcomed guests, but always love to see visiters. We root for the sort of feller who’ll not try’n annex more property for the town, but’ll make sure all the power lines and trash pickup continues to run up the holler.
PossumStomp Holler Upper (PSHU): Up the head of the holler folk are a little different than us PSHL folks. PSHU folks like to keep to themselves. And have gathered enough firearms and mean dawgs and the like to make this possible. There’s a “posted, no trespassin” sign stapled to about every tree and fencepost available. Folks up there don’t get out much an hardly any of em has a job; theys too worried about folks trespassin to ever leave. They generally root for whoever is gonna leave them the hell alone, but’ll guarantee no increases in the price of beer or redman.
FallenRock Holler (FRH): Folk here are jus plain backwerds and ignorant. This is mosly due to the abundance of mushrooms in the holler, an cause Scott Harvey puts some sorta “secret ingredient” in his moonshine. Folk here tend to be reeel lazy, though we expec this has somethin to do with some sorta chemicals they ingest. They also produce the finest “homegrown” in the valley, though my probation officer says I’m not sposed to write on the internet aboout growin stuff like that. Folk in FRH district sorta tend to think that we dont need no kind of government hangin around an they jus want to be left alone. They hate what they call “capitalist establishmentarianism” unless they get a heavy moonpie-cravin and go’n head on over to the Shop-n-gas for supplies.

Critchens Creek (CC): Folk round this part of the valley are sorta out of touch. Most of em have enough money to build real houses. We don’t know much about these folks cause they don’t come into town much. almost all of `em work in Ritchfield which is almost an hour away. They all got fences up around their properties, and long driveways with all them fancy 1990’s cars. I think some of them do book keepin an stuff, an even one of’em is a retired doctor. Critchens Creek folks mostly complain about how there aint nothin to do in the valley, an most of em will tell anyone who’ll listen how much better Richfield is cause they got a Walmart and a Krystal over there. CC folk wont vote for no one unless they promise to try’n make Critchens valley more like Ritchfield.

So as yuo can see, we all feel differently bout who oughta’ lead our community. Problem is, we all want differnt things. We tried breakin up into more autonomous-type communities with self rule, but you can’t have too much self rule when a district’s only got 15 people and 2 last names

Ex-Amish bootleggin extravaganza!

2009-01-28T12:59:00.001-08:00

Moralitys’ a funny thang when you pondre it a while. Liek how its ok for some folks to do certain things, whilst others get all hollerd at, or shunned. Like how the more wommens a fella is with, the more of a Casa Novice type his friends say he is where on t’other hand, the more fellas a girl is with, the more of a downright `ho her friends say she is. I’m pretty guilty of this here duality of thought mahself when it comes to my name. See, “Clayton” is the proper nomenclature, an everyone who knows me’ll call me Clayton, `lessen I’m getin some sorts of award. Ok, so Clayton may be my las’ name, but when yore first name happens to be Arlister, and your middle name is Braxton you don’t gots many other options.
--By the by folks, just `cause your relative had hisself a name, that don’t make it `automaticly a GOOD name. If you gotta name your firs’born son Shannen so’s you dont ferget your uncle by that same name, then shame on you... That poor boy child’ll be runnin around with a girl’s name just sos you can memorialize some drunk that yore kid’ll never even know [sorry bout this Cousin Shannen, but your great uncle WAS a drunk!]—
So even tho my real name ain’t Clayton, anyone who doesn’t want a knuckle sandwich’ll call me Clayton... `less of course its my Ma’. Ma gave me my name, despite my daddy’s protests. He wanted to name me Winchester “Desert Eagle” Clayton, which would’ve been the greatest name ever given a boy...but mama said no. `Way I figure it, Mama’s the only one who got’s the right to call me by that name.. After all, she’s about the only one in the Holler who thought it was a good idea at the time.
Holler bylaws are a wonderful thing. Long ago, we valley-folk came to the understandin’ that the legality of an issue don’t always have anythin’ to do with the right or the wrong of it.. It’s ok for Wilson Warfield to move in with his brother’s family and split the rent. Its ok to speed so long as you got a good excuse. It’s ok to steal cable TV when the Nextel Cup is on. When Ewell Bloomfield beat his wife, it was ok for her brother and 6 of his friends to show up the next day and put Ewell in a wheelchair for 2 years. The legality of a persons acts can sorta be summed up in the Twofold Law of the Holler:
Its OK to do somethin so long as it
1. Don’t hurt nobody else in the Holler
2. Ignore rule 1 if someone really has it comin to `em.

This makes things perty interestin for the boys down at the Sheriffs office. Most have grown up in the holler, and are fine citizens. Its a generally accepted rule that as long as they don’t see it (or look away quick enough) then it didn’t happen, so long as it dont violate the 2 bylaws. Sad fer them though, they had to hold themselves to a higher standard of behavin...

And here we come to the meat and potatoes of this here story..

While Its perfecktly socially aceptable in the Holler bylaws for Uncle Ray to make moonshine and sell it acrost state lines for extra Christmas money, it AINT acceptable for Deputy Ezekiel to do the same.
Deputy Ezekiel Hansen, (or Zeke as we called him when he was off duty), had lived in the Hollar for almost 15 years, so he was still sorta a newcomer. Zeke used to be one of them Amish types, but never came back after they set him loose to taste the world, like they do with all their teenaged young’uns. Zeke got sick of livin’ the pacifist life of them there Amish folk, where you’d get shunned just cos you decked a fella for lookin at you crosseyed. He was still a REAL nice fella at heart, and he just wanted a job where he COULD throw down and wallop somebody if he had to, but wasn’t required to, unless there was what he called a “pressin’ need for righteous retribution”. Zeke ended up bein one of the best deputies we ever had in Critchen’s Valley cause his meek upbringin and trustin nature made it real easy to talk yer way out of a speedin ticket.. On t’other hand, Zeke’s strong sense of morality werked out real well when it came to handlin folks who was doin stuff that was really bad.. We never had to worry about ol Zeke takin a bribe if’n the mob ever decided to get into the coal minin’ industry..
Ezekiel Jensen, God love’im, didnt have the same oppurtunities as the res of us did growin up, so he spent most of his spare time tryin to compensate for his sheltered childhood. I’ll tell yall about some of his other escapades later cause I really wanna concentrate on the moonshine run... well it weren’t exactly a proper run, and it actually what happened afterward that made it so dang funny.. Heck there I go again, just sit back and let me tell the story.

One fine afternoon in June I was busy bush-hoggin the cow pasture down on the Higgins property. The ol JohnDeere was almost outta diesel, so i parked her in the shade of a big `ol oak tree sos I could take a breather and refuel. I lit up a smoke, popped open a PBR, leaned up again’ the tree and tried to figure out how much I had left, and how best to spread out the beer breaks sos that I still had a cold one left at the end of the day. `Bout that time, Deputy Zeke rounded the bend. He waved at me, an I waved at him. OK, so one more person meant I’d have to re-figger the beer count, but that was fine by me; Zeke was one of those people you where jus didn’t mind if he messed up yore beer count.
“Good afternoon to thee, Brother Clayton.” Said Zeke, who still talked like he was back in YoderLand drivin a buggy, “I trust that thou hast had a fine time of it so far with the mowing?”
“Yeah it’s been pretty good Zeke,” I says, ”it ain’t too hot today, I got plenty of PBR, and `wider Higgins is gonna pay me 30 dollars to bush hog her pastures. How bout you Zeke? Hows sheriffin’ these days?”
To which Zeke replied “Upholding the laws of the Hollow are rewarding enough, thank thee for asking, but in truth I had hoped that thou might be providing to me some advice.”
“Why shore thing Zeke! What can I help you with?” I said as I took a sip of beer. Zeke replied, “I would have thee help me in smuggling a load of the Moon-Shine drink across the state line.”
To this day, I still cant reckon how far I spewed that beer when I heard Zeke’s question. Alls I know is that I got wet, the trackter got wet, and Zeke got wet. It was just one of them situations that really takes a fella off guard. Formerly Amish, deputy Ezekiel Jensen askin for help smugglin moonshine was about as unlikely as LeeRoy McAlister sayin that Ford makes some real good cars.. Its as unlikely as Mama suddenly decidin that she likes college football.. Its `bout as likely as....well....as likely as a straight-laced ex-amish sheriff deputy askin how to bootleg moonshine..
Zeke was such a nice sorta guy that I shore didn’t mind helpin him out so long as he agreed to turn his off his ‘sheriff eyes’. I’d run `shine before, and neither myself, nor nobody else in the holler saw it as a bad sorta thing; Uncle Sam didn’t grow the corn, or build the still, or pour the mash, or take part’n any area of the processin’, so why should he get paid for somethin he didn’t take no part in? So me’n Zeke drove on over to his place. He had on his back porch a milk crate full of mason jars containin’ that sweet homemade hooch that so many a resident of the holler had come to know an love.
“Well Zeke,” I says “I figger the firs thing you’ll need is a set of wheels suitable for runnin whiskey. The car’s gotta have plenty of trunk space, it’s gotta have an oversized gas tank, and it’s gotta be fas’ enuff to outrun the cops if’n they poke their no-good noses into the operation (no offense Zeke!).”
“In truth, brother Clayton, I already be having an automobile that rightly fitteth thy description!” Said Zeke, “We ought take my police cruiser for the run. This 4-wheeled vice of modernity shouldst prove abundant supply for our need, for in truth it hath both ample trunk room, an abundant fuel tank, and it be just the sort of cover that wouldst deceive the police shouldst they poke their noses into our operation (No offense taken, Clayton!)”.
I sorta stared all whopperjawed for at Zeke for a second whilst I processed what he jus told me.. I was pretty impressed and I could tell he put lotsa thought into this. Using the police car to bootleg shine was sheer genius! Aint no one’d ever thinka searchin a cop car for moonshine!.. Sometimes when you got a friend who’s a cop it’s easy to ferget that they can be regular folks too with ideas, and dreams an stuff.
So we left Zeke’s house at `round quarter till 11 that bright Saturday mornin in June. We stopped by Williard’s Shop-n-Gas to nab ourselves a road-food feast of moonpies, jerkey, some a them gummy orange thingies, chicken salad samwiches on wheat, some cokes, an a pack of Dorals for Zeke. This was probably the last normal-type event of the whole trip. It all sorta went downhill form there.
About 15 miles outta town, Zeke’s cruiser got a flat.. Now mos cop cars is supposed to have these extra puncture-resistant type tires, but it seems Sheriff Richards had decided to spend the tire budget on a new nickel plated long barrel .44 magnum. Seems he sold them tires on E-bay (yes we know what E-bay is, we got a computer over in the library). So it seems Zeke was runnin’ on regular tires, an so we had to get out the spare (good thing the cruiser had a reglar’ tire for a spare instead’a one of them worthless little donut thingies). Funny thing was, Zeke didn’t know how to change a tire. Now the boy could hitch a mule, build a barn, plow a field, an even cut grass with one of them skythe thingies you see hangin up on the wall in them “ol fashioned country” restraunts, but he couldn’t figure out how to change a tire.. he kept lookin fer what he called a “axle nut”. I actually had to explain to him what a crank jack was, and how to use it. What shoulda taken about 15 minutes ended up takin almost an hour cause Zeke kept askin questions. We finally got the old tire off, put the new tire on, stowed the flat in the trunk, and replaced the moonshine we had to remove in order to get the flat outta the trunk..
Things started lookin a little brighter after that; when we was rummagin in the trunk Zeke found a couple of Merle Haggard and BTO tapes for us to listen to. So there we was, drivin through God’s country with the winders rolled down, the radio turned up, and the wind blowin through our hair like in the Alabama song (but without all them references to love, cause Zeke an I aint like that). Halfway through the second tape, Merle started singin all funny like he was posessed or somethin. Zeke commented that our “Heathen singing” sure sounded funny, and I had to explain to him that this WASN’T how Merle sounded, thank you very much, an that there must be somethin’ wrong with the tape player. Sos I pushed the `reject button, an the tape comes flyin out at me with a big ol wad of shredded tape guts everywhere. Zeke about lost control of the cruiser he was so startled, but he managed to get back on the road before hittin’ more’n 2 or 3 mailboxes. He asked if I wanted him to stop the car, but I tol him to go on ahead cause we was runnin behind schedule. I asked to borrow his buck knife, an I started performin’ mobile surgery on the tape deck. I finally managed to dislodge the rest of the tangled mess, an stuck in the BTO tape to see if it worked allright (an of course it did, I’m real good at fixin stuff with a buck knife).
So we was drivin along, rockin out to “takin’ care of business”, when Zeke takes a gander in the rear-view and sees a pair of blue flashin lights comin up behind us. I tell Zeke just to play it cool, so he pulled the cruiser on over an waited for the state trooper to mosey on over.
Onna little side note, we was smack in the middle of Greenup county. There ain’t nothin to do in greenup county.. There never has been nothin to do in Greenup county...An I dont think there ever WILL be anythin to do in Greenup county. The place was plain boring even by Holler standards, and this meant that the police stationed in Greenup county were desperate for any reason whatsoever to get out an turn on the siren and maybe even hand out a ticket. This includes pullin over a Critchens Valley Sheriff’s cruiser for having an “obscured license plate” just cos’ it got some mud on it. Zeke explained that we had to swerve a few miles back to miss somebody’s Basset Hound in the middle of the road, and we must’ve picked up the mud then. He said he always washed his car off real nice at the end of each shift, and that this weren’t standard practice of the Critchen’s Valley Sherrifs Department to leave mud all over the car.
About that time the trooper starts askin’ questions about me, and why I’m in the car. I’d normally gloss over this sorta thing, but it was so derned funny, that I’ll try’n recreate the dialogue for yall.
The Trooper taps the winder with his big ol flashlight, points to me an says “Who’s this boy here? Whats his business”
“Oh him Officer?” said Zeke, “This is Roy Mcalister (not to be confused with his brother LeeRoy McAlister), He is a truly offensive character, and I have been charged to kindly deliver him to the West Virginia for booking. If thou wouldst kindly speed us on our way, I shall rightly be seeing to it that he be delivered unto the proper authorities.”
“Well what’s he in for?” Asked the trooper.
“I’m Roy McAlister!” I shouted, “I tried to ‘do it’ with a coke machine at the Ladies Auxilliary Picknic in Charleston! I cussed out a bus full of schoolchildren, and I peed in a West Virginia state senator’s mailbox!”
The trooper asked: “Deputy, why is this man sitting in the front seat? He should be restrained in the rear”
“Cos I called shotgun!” Says I, “An I tol him ROY MCALISTER’d keep singin and kickin the hell outta the back of the drivers seat if’n he didnt let me ride up front like a big boy. I can sing real good too!.........‘Ohhh I got a date with cousin Suzieeee, cousin Suzieee’s got a date with meee-’”
“GOD almighty!” said the trooper, “Just make him stop singing and get the hell out of here! Who did you piss off to land this assignment Deputy? Best of luck to you”. He just shook his head and went back to his cruiser.
Shortly after 7:00 we crossed the state lines and delivered our load at the drop off point. The `shine itself was destined for somewhere up in Pennsylvania, but it was jus more economical to hand it off to a middleman.. we ain’t got none of them hybrid type cars in the holler, an the extra gas jus wasn’t worth the little bit of extra profit we’d make.
In exchange for the shine, we got 150 bucks, 2 jugs of homemade hard cider, a sack of malted barley, and some empty jars. We loaded up the non-cash type payment items, an headed back fer home.
We hit the Holler `round Midnight an pulled up to Zeke’s singlewide. Despite the mishaps, it wasn’t too bad of a day, an we got to add one more county to our list of “Places Roy McAlister better not set foot in.”. We was just gettin ready to pack up for the night when I noticed that Zeke was lookin mighty nervous.
“Whats eatin’ you, Zeke?” I aksed’ him, “You look like yore gonna get all sick or somethin”
“In truth something DO be bothering me, Brother Clayton.” said Zeke, “I had forgotten about the mileage policy set in place by Sheriff Richards. In order for him to be receiving proper funding from the county, and to assure that the deputies be driving patroll routes, he requireth all of us to turn in weekly mileage logs. Mine are due tomorrow. To tell thee the truth, I am unable to reckon how I can possibly account for 200 extra miles seeing that my weekly route be only 40 miles or so.”
This was quite the predickament. It was no secret that Sheriff Richards up’n spent way too much money on all sorts of stupid crazy side projects, but it was also well known that he was a pretty tight fisted fella when it came to keepin track of the deputies’ expenses and stuff. We thought reel hard about what to do, till I finally got one of those “mentalventions”, you know, where your brain intervenes with yore normal thought process an upn’ comes up with a solution all by itself: We could jack up the back end of Zeke’s cruiser, chock the front wheels, put the engine in reverse, put a brick on the gas pedal, and leave it runnin’ all night long in reverse. That oughta run the odometer backwards until his mileage was back down to an explainable-type level. Zeke was pleased as punch and said it was a “rightly genius” type’a solution. So we fixed up his car, shook hands, an I took off for home.
Physical-type laws are a funny thing. Its kinda strange how 2 grown fellas can tug an jump an prod as hard as they can to test the stability of a car on jacks to make sure pretty stable, yet it only takes a few inches of rain to make things all go to hell. It seems those few inches of early mornin rain can make the ground that the car is restin’ on reel soft. Physical-type laws bein’ what they are, the ground softened enough in the night to make Zeke’s jack sink into the mud. Now I don’t think I have to explain the physics of what happens when a pair of spinnin’ rear wheels hit the ground, especially when the wheels are attached to a 250hp V8 police interceptor engine.
I got woke up about 4:30 in the mornin with a frantic call from Zeke. It seems that ol cruiser had taken a little joy ride in the wee hours of the mornin. I headed on over to his place and we set out to find where his car had got to. We followed the tracks across what was left of the fence surrounding the Warvey’s lower pasture, through what was left of the Warvey’s ol’ cowshed, back onto the highway, across the Critchen’s creek bridge, through the Hutchins’, the Joneses’, and the McCrearey’s front yards, and finally into what used to be Sheriff Richard’s living room. The Sheriff had left town on account of him gettin’ a phonecall from the Greenup County state trooper outpost that his nephew Roy McAlister was on his way to West Virginia an that he’d probably need bailed out of jail. This gave Zeke just enough time to call up the Sheriff and report his car stolen by some young Amish fella who must have been turned loose to have a taste of the world, and how the kid obviously didn’t know how to drive and how he deemolished half the Holler tryin to get the car under control. I made sure he also tol the Sheriff that he heard rumors that Roy had put the whole idea in his head and that they planned on goin over to West Virginia to raise hell on some politician’s mailbox. Roy was such a jerk that mos people would believe anythin said about ‘im so long as it was bad. So whilst Holler law might frown on lyin to get someone in trouble, article #2 makes it perfectly acceptable anytime, anywhere when the person takin’ the heat is Roy McAlister.

Liek a drive-in theater for storin stuff

2009-01-28T12:58:00.000-08:00

Seems like more `n more these days a feller can’t even go out on his front porch to take a pee ennymore without runnin into some city slicker tryin to move in and divide up our proprtey’ to make a fast buck. Then you realize the city slicker aint so bright and then you feel bad for makin fun of him.
Now Critchen’s Valley (of which Possum Stomp holler’s just a suburb) ain’t never had no reason for , let alone heard of one of them self-service storage comeplex things. First off, we Appalachian Americans are a resourceful bunch, an we make use of most everythin we got. Fer instance: is yore ice box broke? Don’t trash it! That wrecked frigidare’ll make a fine display case for all them vintage oil cans you’ve been keepin in a milk crate beside the mattress in yore bedroom. You can almost imagine it sittin there on the front porch all shiney like while you exhibit yore fine collection of penzoil cans from almost a decade ago!
Most city folk poke fun at us “sloer” backwoods types, but they jus don’t seem to understand that we got as much enlightenment as most, if not more. We unnerstand the crueshal concept that just cos you bought item to do a task, that don’t mean you gotta stop usin it once it gets too wore out to do whatever it is you stole it from the appliance store for. There ain’t a whole lot a person needs that cant be got from somethin’ lyin around the house. All a fella needs is some pliers, some duct tape, some copper wire, a few milk crates, and a tarp or two and there aint a whole lot that CANT be fixed up or made better. Our motto is sorta like “If you cant fix it, or reuse it, or re-gift it, give it back to mother nature!” Got a flat tire that’s too shredded to use as a planter? Don’t jus put it on the curb! If you toss that thing down in Critchen’S Crik, it’ll make a right fine bluegill habitat! The same goes for that icebox we was talking about once it gets too rusted to hold enymore treasures.
There I go chasin’ rabbits again! I must have that Aye-Dee Ache-Dee theys always talking about on Oprah. Where was I?...Oh yeah! I started to talk bout them self storage complexes. A few months back some fella from Fitchville bought a plot of land in Critchen’s valley down by that ol intersection of route 2312 and Fallen Rock branch road. Right away he starts cuttin down trees and bulldozin the earth nice an flat. We thought meybbe he was fixin to make some pitches where folks can play horseshoes till Clint said he thought it might be one of them really low-occupancy automotive cinemas.. You know the type! Its where a fella puts a sheet over the side of his barn and rents a move projector from the school and him and 3 of his buddies drive their trucks in backwards and watch John Clod Van Dame movies whilst drinkin lots an lots of sweet, sweet homemade bathtub wine.. (I call these things Microbrewery Drive-in Movieries).
Well we wanted to make sure we got invited to movie night, so we walked up and introduced ourselves to the guy. It turns out the fella’s name was Buddy Anderson and he called hisself an “entrepreneur”. (We thought maybe this was how city folks said “entertainer” up in Fitchville, cos they talk sorta funny there). So we walked up and introduced ourselves an had a right nice conversation and it went something like this (I’ll try real hard to remember how it all went).
I says “`Lo there, you mus be new roun here.. Mah name’s Clayton an this here’s mah cuzin Clint.
“`name’s Clint” said Clint, “Whatcha buildin?”
“The name’s Buddy, Buddy Anderson,” said Buddy, “And I’m building something that will be of great use to your fine community!”
“That’s real great, Buddy!”, I says, “Clint an I have a perty good idear what yore doin an we think it’s real good of you to offer this kinda service onna permanent basis.”
Clint got all excited-like and started to talk, but th’ problem is that the more excited Clint gets, the less undurstandible’ Clint gets..

He says: “Yeaaaaah!!! Me-n-him’r reely looken-ferwerd n all’em `MOVES anna bathtub anna old trucks backerds n-gittin trashed ever fridaynight!”

“Well friend,” says Buddy with a grin, “I’m not sure what all you said, but once I’m finished, you’re welcome to move over any old trucks or bathtubs, junk or even non perishable trash here if you want.”
I was awful mighty impressed with this, aint often anyone from PossumStomp Holler can understan’ what ol Clint’s sayin once he gets riled up, let alone someone from the city, but ol Buddy seemed to understand what Clint was gettin at. Buddy had lots of work do to, so we all shook hands an Clint and I all headed up the holler to spread the word.
That Friday night me an Clint, and Bobby gets in our pickups an ol Leeroy gets in his Camaro….

We all made fun of Leeroy the day he brought that speed machine home. `problem was, while he could outpace any of our ol trucks in the quarter mile, there waren’t a quarter mile’s worth of straight highway in a 50 mile radius of Critchen’s Valley.. Leeroy could go REAL fast for a REAL short amount of time. (Hell, he’d never even had the thing above 3rd gear before!) So Leeroy was a REEEL pitiful sight come movie night sittin in the back of his camaro with the hatch up an his knees up around his ears, tryin hard not to spill anny of that Whirlpool Sauvignon on his stereo speakers.

ANYHOO, so we all jumped into our respective vehicles laden wit a butt load of hooch, some smokes, an some of them crocheted sleepin bags Aunt Judy knit fer us last Christmas. So we started that long drive down to the intersection of route 2312 and Fallen Rock branch road. When we got there we had ourselves a shock that plum near made at `leas half of us run off the road.. Instead of a nice open area with a big ol movie screen, there was lots of little garage lookin’ thingies all done up in rows.

“Hey, whater those garage things for?” asked Robert, “Has this Buddy fella got a million cars or something?”

I says “Meybbe he uses it like one of them oil change places in the daytime an he’s gonna changes EVERBODIE’S oil at once!”

“Maybe its gonna be a Flee market!” Said Leeroy.

We pondered that thar dilemma for a couple of minutes til’ Clint spoke up: “Fellas,” he says, “I reckon I know what them booths are… thems not garages, thems BOOTHS. You know, the sorta movie booth just ONE fella drives into.”
Robert piped up “Now whars the sense in that Clint? Half the point of movie night is drinkin tub wine with yer buds. Why’d anyone wanna go watch a movie by hisself? It don’t make no sense, What sorta movie’d make a feller want to oh… OH… …….OHHH”
Things got REAL quiet at that point. We’d heard about them naughty theater type things before, but we always assumed they’d be inside some sorta building `stead of laid out in rows like this. Now we boys weren’t exactly as pure as the driven snow, but there are certain aspects of grown-up activity that don’t oughtta be on public display like that where kids gotta walk by on their way to school.
Well we high tailed it home and agreed to tell Sherrif/Mayor Richards at the next town council meeting.
Later that night I laid awake in bed thinking.. If’n I was to go tattle on Buddy Anderson to the Sherrif, I was gonna probably need some sorta proof. I didn’t wanna to bring the other fellas into it, no sense in them gettin corrupted, so I decided to sorta go an spy out 20 or 30 of the booths by myself. This was on a fact-finding basis ONLY, understand? I wasn’t tryin to catch a peek at anythin unnatural.. So I snuck down the long dark road on foot, feelin all guilty and ashamed like. I jus kept telling myself “its fer the good of the community! Yer bein a good citizen!”.
Just as I reached the intersection I nearly run smack dab into Clint who was sneakin in from the other direction. “What’re you doin here Clayton?” he asked, “You shouldn’t be hangin’ `round places like this, shame on you! I’m here gatherin evidence!”

“CLINT you stupid hillbilly!” I said, “I’M collectin evidence! An I’m older than you so it should be ME doin the collectin! I want to spare your young eyes from the horrors and go’ins-on on the other side of that fence!”

“Yore only older’n me by a week,” Said Clint, “don’t you go telling me what I oughtta see or not see! Besides, it’s a free country an I-……SHH! Whats that?!?”

We both got reel quiet and hunkered down in a ditch by the side of the road. There, in the dim ol light of the streetlamp, we saw Leeroy shuffling down the road lookin over his back all guilty-like every few steps. He walked right up’n the front gate an took a long, hard look up the road to make sure no one was comin’… We waited till Leeroy was halfway up that thar fence before we scared the hell out of him by jumpin out and askin what the hell his young self was doin out at this hour.
It turns out, Leeroy was out on a fact finding mission himself, only it took him a little longer to get there than us on account of havin to knock back 3 or 4 cans of PBR to get up the guts. We decided that in order to be REALLY good citizens, we should leave the investigatin’ to the sherrif.
The next day;s town council meetin was in a reglar uproar. Mothers were outraged, Fathers were outraged a little less, Grandpappys were delighted. Parson Warbuck was screamin about Sodom and Gomorrah an the sins of bein adults or somethin’ like that. Sheriff Richards sent one of his deputies to bring Buddy Anderson into the meetin house to explain hisself. Deputy Ezekiel dragged a handcuffed Buddy through the double doors of the meetin house as the accused started wailin and carryin on about his innocence. He kept sayin something about self service an storage , only things got so loud with all them protestations that no one could hear exactly what he was sayin, but it sounded downright lood.. Finally Sherrif Richards pulled out his pistol and fired it in the air like 2 or 3 times, afterwich we all hushed up real good. Bill explained that he was the owner/operator of some kinda storage center, which was sorta like a trailer park with nothing but garages for people to store their stuff in. This caused even more of an uproar since he was obviously a lyin’ sack of something; as if ANYONE’D wanna keep their stuff somewhere else, wheres they couldn’t keep an eye on it!

Finally Robert piped up: “It’s true y’all, Buddy ain’t lyin! I went on a fact findin’ mission last night an I opened up 20 or 30 of them garage thingies. They’s all empty except for a ligthbulb in the ceilin’. It ain’t no kind of theater at all!”

Now things got REEEL quiet and everyone sorta stared at Buddy. Why in tarnation would anyone wanna build empty garages just to keep stuff in when most folks had perfectly good front porches, carports, back yards, front yards, and plenty of creek shoreline that was free.
It suddenly made perfect sense.. His name was “Buddy”, he could understand Clint when Clint got excited, AND he built a small city of garages for people to pay money to put stuff in even though they had a perfectly good (and free) creek up the road. Buddy was one of them Forest Gump types!.. He must be, cos all the signs pointed to it! Most folks felt pretty bad about draggin’ him in here like that, especially after Parson Warbuck preached about folks needin to be nicer to slow people. I

“There..there..little..fel-la.”, said Sheriff Richards, “We..shore..is..sorry..about..this.You.can..go..back..to..yore.garage..city..thing..in..peace”

Buddy stormed out of the meetin house in a rage. We all felt real bad about it, so we decided to go over to Critchen’s Crik and pull out some junk to go put in his Garage City Thingy to make him feel better. That made Buddy feel a little better, but the bluegill fishin’ shore hasn’t been as good lately…

Figurin out the Beer-conomy an consequences thereof

2009-01-28T12:57:00.000-08:00

There be times inna man's life that sticks right up in his brainpan sos he remembers `em for longer'n most other memrys floatin round in th' vast expanses of the human head. I remember this one NewYears shindig we had a whiles back when all (or at least most) of the folks in the holler went over to the McGee farm for a real fashioned bonfire and hayride… [`course back in PossumStomp holler, we don't cotton to much of that new fangled stuff, sos when one of you city fellers calls something "old fashioned", we in the holler just call it "fashioned"]
So anyhoo we was goin over to the bonfire cause it's the one time of year we all got to see all the cousins, (JimBob needed a date for senior prom). Cousins are fun.. they're sorta like havin a brother or sister that you ain't had to wallop mor'en 4 or 5 times.
So we was all together in the Mcgees back yard, all of us Claytons, and McGees, and Macalisters, and Warbucks, and Houlihans, and Harveys, and Ayers, and Mccoy's, and Deans. Strange to say, a full hour'd passed and aint one of us had started a fight. It was like some sorta new record for the whole clan. We decided this called for a right proper sorta toast to this newfounded age o peace! This was about the worst mistake anyone made all year!
Now I figger I best give a little bit of background info for you outsiders with regards to drinkin up in Possum Holler. Long ago, Holler folks evolved a more reeesilient sorta liver on account of the extra strong `shine everyone makes round here. Holler folks take drinkin VERY seriously, and there is an unspoken ethic regardin the consumption of alcohol.
Drinkin at someone else's house is for the purpose of socializing (unless a race is on). This means that it aint polite to drink all of a feller's hooch in one sittin. If you want to be a drunk, please pre-drink before the event sos as to not go finishin off Larry's expensive Store-Liqqer
anything said whilst under the influence don't count! We all know that a fella can say some right mean things when he's eneebriated, but we also knowd it was the booz talkin. Ok so meybbe it was what the feller was thinking all along, but you cant fault a guy for thinkin a certain way so long as he don't go sayin it. After all, it's the ability to NOT say whats on yore mind that separates us from them beasts of the field. Besides, no one alive'd have any friends ifn they always spoke what was goin throough their head.
Don't drink and drive, unless you've phoned ahead. There's only 84 people in the Holler, and about half of them share a party line, the remaining 2 households means that you only gotta make 3 "Yall stay off the road, I'm drivin home" calls. There ain't no excuse to do otherwise
Take a beer, give a beer. Thisuns' easy. If you go to a friends trailer and watch the ball game and drink, you gotta make sure that you make same quantity available when he comes to your place
Booze don't make a bad idear a good one. Just cause you've had a few, it don't make cousin BettySue hotter, and it shore don't make her less married to your best friend Jake. Always ask yerself "would I do this sober?"
A man's dogs are off limits! You can make fun of a man's looks, a man's kids, a man's job, heck you can even poke fun at is mama if you an him are good enuff friends, but don't never mess with a man's dog. It just aint right. It don't matter if you could beat him in a fight or not, it's a matter of persunal ethicks.
Now these simple rules usually make for a happy and safe party time. The bad part is that the more you consume, the harder these here rules get to remember.
So here we are around the bonfire pit getting ready to make a toast. A proper toast is made with `Shampane, but we didn't got any of that high quality stuff. So in true holler fashion, we decided that we'd make up for quality with quantity.
Clint's good with figures, so he got it all added up once everyone took off their shoes..
A bottle of Don Perryon costs about $159.99. at 5 servings a bottle, it adds up to roughly 32 dollars a serving. Translated into modern Pbr rates (4$ for a 6 pack) it rounds up to roughly 8 PBR 6-packs per person, or 42 cans of PBR equivalent to a glass Don Perryon `Shampane. There was about 30 of us at the party, so in total we were lookin at an end-of-evenin beeramid of roughly 1,260 cans of pbr.
So we started that thar great debacle known as the Helloween Trainwreck Breakdown of 06.
Startin out it was pretty easy since you can stack 3 of the 12packs on top of each other to make a handy camp stool, but once the serious drinkin had begun, seating space began to run out at a disturbin rate
. About halfway through my 17th beer all hell broke loose:
In direct violation of rule #5, Cyrus McAllister declared to everybody present that he loved Susie Warbuck (her maiden name), would always love Susie Warbuck, and thought that Leeroy McAlister (Cyrus' brother and Susie's hubby) was a no-good sumbitch for askin her out first and that she only said yes on account of her bein impressed by that new set of plastic spinner hubcaps.(Cyrus actually bought the hubcaps, but Leeroy was the one who actually had a car). Then he tried to kiss Susie. This was pretty disgustin cause Susie was his first cousin (Cyrus was only Leeroy's half brother, so it warnt no big deal when he asked Suzie out). Callin Leeroy a sumbitch was a bad idea on account of Leeroy's mama sittin right next to him. She stood up and put her size 14 boot to Cyrus backside and made im trip and fall in the fire. Cyrus screamed like hell and got up before any real harm was done, but it seemed the fire had scorched a hole in his favorite redman hat. He hauled off and slapped Leeroy's mama in the face as hard as he could.. or at leas' he TRIED to slap her face, cause he missed and he fell face first in to Ma Warbuck's chest. Parson Warbuck looked up from his drunken stupor to see the "Heathen sheenanygans and goins-on" bein performed by Cyrus on all 6'7" of his delicate flower of a wife, so Parson up and fastpitched one of his beers as hard as he could at Cyrus, but missed on account of throwin it sideways instead of tossin it straight ahead. The beer sailed through the air like one of them meatiers and hit one of Roy Houlihan's prized blue-tick hounds square in tha forehead. Poor ol DaisyBelle was knocked out cold, and she was expectin puppies too, so it was like a octuple type of crime.
Things got REEEEL quiet while we all waited to see what Roy would do. Roy calmly stood up, sauntered over to his old beatup green pickup truck, and took his 12ga. Remmington pump-action off the rack. "Don't do it Roy!" I hollered, "She's just unconscious like! She'll come around in a few minutes!" But he quietly sauntered back to the fire, sat down, and began to load his scattergun. "it ain't fer mah dog," he said, "its fer that no-account Parson who done chucked a beer at poor ol DaisyBelle."
This here made everyone pause for a moment. It was a known fact that Roy Houlihan was about the worst shot in all of PossumStomp holler. On the other hand, it was also a known fact that his marksmanship got a whole lot better the drunker he got. At this point there were about 15 empty beer cans around his feet. This, as everyone knew, meant he was at about Threat Level Orange. In other words it meant he could mostly hit what he aimed at, but he was also sloshed enough to not really give a rip if he hit someone else in the process.
Looking back on the next link in this ol chain of events, I can see why Parson did what he done. When faced with a preedickament like facing Roy an his shotgun, the safest thang a feller could do was to keep the dog between hisself and Roy's shotgun(everybody knowed Roy'd sooner shoot his own mama than hurt his dogs). So Parson Warbuck picks up the unconscious DaisyBelle, slings her over his back, and hits the ground runnin. In retrospec, we now see that whal his intensions may have been to save his skin, the perception was that he was makin off with one of Roy's dawgs. This looked to be a serious violation of rule #6, so in accordance with Hollar Law, we all took after the parson with Roy in the lead(you just don't steal a man's dawg!!).
After a few hundred yards, Roy aimed a warning shot over Parson's head. It missed him of course, but it did managed to put yet another hole in the "PossumStomp Hol. Pop 84" sign. I don't know if it was the noise of the shotgun, or all the jostling that woke DaisyBelle up, but she did `woke up and was none too pleased to find herself slung over the parson's shoulder like a sack of potatoes. DaisyBelle started to struggle, and the parson started to struggle, and somehow the dog collar and the clerical collar somehow got entwined. They fell to the ground and for a spell it was difficult to figger out who was draggin who along. Well Daisybell did some flippin, and Parson Warbuck did some floppin, and somehow the two managed to wind up facin' each other while they wriggled and struggled and rolled into a big patch of chicory in the ditch beside the road. At this point, Roy stopped dead in his track , as did we all. (remember, its purty smart to keep behind the guy with the shotgun no matter how sober he is). A big ol range of emotions playd theyselves across Roy's face. It was like the fella couldn't know how to feel. We all watched fascinated-like as his face turned purple, then white, then red, then white again as he tried to form words with his mouth.. Finally Roy broke down and started to laugh. He laughed and slapped his knees, he laughed till he had to drop his gun, he laughed till he was bent double-like, he laughed till tears done streamed down his face. "Them two," He said b'tween gasps "Them two looks jus like a pair of teenagers neckin in front of the piggly wiggly!".
It were true!. When presented with a human face in close proximity, any dog worth their salt will start lickin away, and any Parson when presented with a licking dog's face in that proximity will begin to protest. The result did sorta look like 2 kids makin' out French –style..`course it seemed all the more funny when we had a few beers in us. We all laughed fit to be tied and plum forgot about why we was chasin the parson.
That Sunday parson preached a mighty powerful sermon about the evils of alchohol.. that is till Roy started barkin in Church, then Clint started Barkin, and so did Leeroy, and Vana, and Susy and Ma Macalister an all of us. I'd never seen a parson hit the back door of the church so hard in my life.. `course the poor fella forgot the door opened inwards and knocked hisself out cold.. We thought about bringin in DaisyBelle and drapin Him over HER back whilst he was unconscious like, but we thought better of it.. after all, she was expectin puppies soon!

ITS A HOMEMADE TRACKTER PULL!!

2009-01-28T12:56:00.000-08:00

It aint often that a fella gets to go to a real live trakter pull... Ok so meybbe I gets to go bout every tuesday and thursday night all durin the summer, sos i' better correct myself.
It aint often that a fella gets to go to a real live trackter pull in winter. Seems like the frozen ground messes up the big ol trackter tires in the back. After all, we calls em trackters cause they use TRACKSHUN to move, and if a trackter aint got trakshun, then a trackter pull would be more of a trackter-sit-an-spin.
So Clint, LeeRoy, Bobby and me decided to up and do our own trackter pullin. We started by tyin a metal crate full of concrete blocks to the back of LeeRoy's 84 camaro. Leeroy was pissed when the back bumper got pulled off. Seems like jus cause a car is fast it dont mean it were built for haulin. Leeroy was so tore up he almost went home, so we bought him some Little Kings and he settled right down. We next tried usin Clint's ol ford F100. This here vehicle was built to haul, and it worked great till Sherrif Richards caught us draggin that crate around the town square. Richardson said we was messin up the road on account of the sharp corners and that we better put wheels on that thar crate or he was gonna ticket us and dtell our daddys what we done. So we did and we done renewed our attempt at trackter pullin. We foun a couple of atv wheels lyin in aunt Sheila's flowerbed, an after we uprooted the germaniums we only needed ta find two more tires. At this point, clint pointed out that we could use his daddys garden trakter since it had wheels on it, but that we'd better not detach em lest his daddy have a conipshun. Sos we figured what we'd do was to weld one end of the crate to the tow hitch on the ridin lawn trackter, then weld the atv tires to t'other end of the crate. We next tied a tow strap to the front of the ridin mower and tied t'other end of the strap to the truck.
When bobby saw the getup he said "look boys, its a trackter pull!". I said "course its a trackter pull you stupid hilbilly, what'ya think we've been doin all day"
Bobby said "no I mean its a TRACKTER pull! the trackter is gettin pulled instead of doin the pullin! It was a joke!"
We all thought about it for 10 minutes or so and then we finally got it. It TWER pretty funny , an Leeroy almost fell outta the truck, (but then again he was 8 or 9 drinks ahead of the rest of us), but we tol Bobby that he needed to make his jokes a little easier to understand if he wanted folks to laugh right away.
An so our great Deecember Trackterpull began, an it set off a reglar chain of purty unpleasant events. Meybbe it was the Little Kings cream ale that made us less smart, meybbe it was that we was so worried about Leeroy up and leavin on us that we wasnt payin attention. In order for a tracter pull to work, there gots to be some sorta drag involved. We learned all about drag in 5th grade math my sneior year.. Its something airplaines use to fly along with lift an thrust.. Likewise. it seems trakter pulls use drag too in order ta make the truck stop after a point. If you just up and slaps wheels on a load of concrete blocks, that AINT a trakter pullin thingy, its just a plain ol trailer! Your vehicle doin the pullin will keep pullin till you run outta gas. So it were an hour and 2 counties over when we finally realized that we was goin about this all wrong. You shoulda heared us cuss! Clint got a good idea that one of us should sit on the garden trackter and use the brake to make it give some drag. Leeroy Volunteered and soon we was startin attempt Numero Two.
I'm not a physicist an all, but i can do figgers ok, an i was worried bout this plan. The brakes on a garden trackter were only sposed to stop 25 horsepower worth of haulin (cause the trackter was only 25 horsepower). On'tother hand, the F100 had about 178 horsepower in it's heyday.. Ok so meybbe 2 of the cylinders werent firin right, but it still had a good 150 horsepower. There is no way this was goin to work: The pickup truck had almost TWICE the horsepower of the trackter, and even if Leeroy slammed it into reverse, chances are that it still wouldnt be able stop the truck. I didnt wanna say anythin though because i didnt wanna be "that guy"
So Leeroy gives the signal and Clint steps on the gas. After about 10 seconds we tell Leeroy to hit the breaks. Leeroy musta not heard us because the truck didnt even start to slow down. Clint yelled again for Leeroy to hit the brakes, an leeroy yelled somethin back at him, only we couldnt hear it on account of clints truck dont got a muffler. So the truck is gettin pretty fast, so clint turns around an yells at leeroy to hit the brakes again. At this point we heard some sorta large snapping screechy noise an Leeroy stars yellin like he was on fire. We stopped the truck an got ou to see what happened. As it turns out, ol Leeroy WAS stompin the brake, but they was so weak we didnt even feel it in the truck. The brakes eventually overheated to the point that they sorta welded themselves to the wheels an the tires started draggin. Poor leeroy stomped so hard on the brakes that his foot punched through the rusty ol floorboard and he got cut up something fierce.. oh yeah, when his foot punched through the deck on the trackter, the steerin wheel also came off an hit Leeroy in the face. It only broke his nose, but shoot, leeroy breaks his nose about every other week, so all in all it wasnt so bad. We patched up leeroy with some napkins from the glovebox an some duck tape from Clint's toolbox. We dragged the trackter all the way back to Clint's house, an then tol his daddy that Leeroy broke it trying to pull our truck out of a ditch. Leeroy Up an got hisself beat with a belt by Clints Daddy which was purty funny consedrin Leeroy was 30. We finished off the rest of the Little Kings and headed for home. I think I understan why they dont got trackter pulls in deecember. Stuff must break easier when its cold on account of it bein all brittle like.

this is somethin i wrote a while back

2009-01-28T12:55:00.000-08:00

mmm...d'other day I was fixin to slap on my mudboots and go traipsin up tha holler to stomp me some possums for thanksgivin dinner..(Uncle Ray up'n told me a more refined way fer spellin dinner was ta switcheroo the last 2 letters of the word sos it spelled "Dinnre" [pronounced Din-Ray] like they do in olde English.. I suspect he jus likes it cause it sound like its got his name in the word, so I'll jus stick with the reglar american spellin of tha word]ANYHOO, so i was gallyvantin through the woods lookin fer a nice meaty possum, when what do you suppose mah eyes espied beneath a punky ol rotten log? It were a geenuine Knight Rider lunchbox! (I knowed it was Knight Rider because somebody wrote "Night Ridder" on the side of a milk crate). Sos I looked to see what migth be in this here parcel o discarded treasure.. Well shut my mouth! there was an old bottle of kerosene that still had almost 1/3rd of the contents! Now i know you folks is probly sayin "Clayton you ol redneck, keroseen loses its flame-a-bility after sittin around outside!". OFCOURSE I knows that, ya bunch of ig'nant yankees and foreignas! I prefer usin keroseen for the medicinal virtues, cause the wonderous abilities of keroseen to heal a toothache aint gots nothing to do with how well it burns.. Hell if that were the case you could gargle with GASOLINE for a sore throuat, and who ever heard tell of that? ANYHOO, i pickedup my treasure and was traipsin back to my cabin when I ran into old Wendel McCoy. Now everybody up in Raccoon Ridge knows about old Wendel. He done come back from junior college with a whole buncha ideas floatin around in his head. He decided that this one fine eatin eestablishment named "Wendies" had stolen his name and he was fixin to use his government check to hire a lawyer to sue the restraunt into givin him some money for Intelicksual property, or some such. We was all ready to back him up, but then Roy McAllister, who was a retired trucker who'd been to the city once or twice, said that he'd seen lots of wendy's before and that the founder named em after his daughter. Then we had a good laugh and told Wendel that maybe the daughter should sue HIM fer stealin HER name..though we cant figure out why anyone'd name their daughter Wendel. Wendel was downright crestfallen and has never been the same sense: he never quite got over that sense of entitlement. ANYHOO, Wendel saw what I had an he wanted to get his grubby mits on my new stuff, i could tell from the way he was twitchin. Our exchange went somethin like this.Wendle: Hay thar Clayton, whatcha got in that box?Me: It's some stuff I found ip in the hollarWendel: What kinda stuff? It must be good if youre carrying it back to town.Me: If you gotta know, its a partial bottle of keroseen I done got from under a logWendel: Keroseen dont come from under a log, it comes from a pump! youd have knowed that if you went to Juniorversity (Juniorversity was what Wendel called junior college...`said it made it sound more cultured)Me: Well I figured my money would be better spent in investin in some high quality franklin mint figurines and commerative dinner plates than usin it to go to highschool for 2 more years. besides, i didnt actually get the keroseen FROM the log, it didnt actually produce the keroseen in and of itself, I jus found it in a bottle UNDER the log!Wendel: Thats pretty interesting, I seem to recollect hiding a similar bottle of kerosene up in the hollar. It was in a box with some writing on it that said.. hey what's the writin on YOUR box say clayton?Me: Uh.. It says "Night Ridder"Wendel: Well how bout that! MY box said Knight Rider too!Me: Small world isnt it!Wendel: I'm pretty sure that thar is MY box Clayton!Me: Well, you'd have a point if it said Wendy Mccoy on it. The way i see it, its finders keepers if it don't gots nobody's name on it. But since i feel sorry for you, you can have the box... but I'm keepin the keroseenWendel: No no no no! The contents of said box are mine too! you gotta give em to me! I got a toothache and need me some keroseen to fix it, and i don't wanna buy a full bottle!Me: Now wait just a second Wendel, you didnt say anything about the bottle of keroseen, you was just talkin about the box, an I agreed to hand it over all civil like. The Keroseen is mine all fair and square!At this point , Wendel pulled his pistol on me.Now we all knowed wendel's "Pistol" was just a cap gun, but we figured we'd just play along. Hell, If Wendel ever figured out it weren't a real gun and we knowed it, he might actually look at procurring the real thing, and then we'd all be up a creek! I wasn't about to risk life and limb in furure confrontations, so I handed over the bottle of keroseen. Lster that day at the gas station, I was recallin the story to Larry Callahan. "Wait a second Clayton, Did you say you found this keroseen in a box labeled Night Ridder?""Thats right." I said."Shoot boy, that werent no keroseen! 2 weeks ago me an uncle Tommy was drivin back from huntin and we were in a big hurry, trying to make it to church in time for his wedding. Tommy had to pee, but we didnt have time to stop. All I had in my truck was an empty kerosene bottle. So Tommy did his thing, and then we pitched the bottle and the box, and a few old huntin magazines out the window. I guess the magazines must've blown out."Wendel is going to be in for a purty traumatic experience when he tries to cure the that toothache!"So it werent such a bad day after all, but by this time it was far to late to go stompin fer possums, so i procured some moon pies and a can of dinty moore and a loaf of wonder bread from the thrift store, and we had a pretty good feast. Its a good time of year to be thankful about things like dental health..

I hates me some winter

2009-01-28T11:34:00.000-08:00

Winter's probably my least favrite time in the holler. Kentucky winters are sorta like one of them hybrid-type creatures (like a mule). Kentucky winter usually means it rains nonstop from `bout first of january straight through the first parta April. Sometimes it snows, but ifn it do, it gets followed up by more rain. It sorta looks like onea them slushies you can buy at the Gas-n-Go if slushies came in a flaver called "Old Tires and Ass". Once the sun goes down, the rainwater usually freezes which means the expandin nature of tha water opens up the aluminum seams in the roof of my doublewide. This means I get woken up `least twice a week with a stream of freezin watter hittin me right in the face. Normally i'd go an grab a bucket or a pot an just set it down under the drips, but lately its been drippin near my baseboard heat, an i dont wanna make a latenight call to the boys at the fire dept.

Las night just such a `senario took place. So this means I gotta go out to the trackter shed the freezin rain for repair supplies. My hair ain't as thick up top as it used to be, so now rain kinda pushes right past my hair and splashes straight on my head-skin. Its as uncomfortable as all getout, so I gotta stomp back to the house an get me a decent hat for the weather. Next, I make my way back to the shed where I keep about a 200 ft roll of rubber sheeting I found one time lyin in a ditch. (It had some sorta sign on it sayin "This roll of rubber belongs to Roy McAllister" but a quick pass with the wire cutters meant this roll now belongs to Clayton). Sos i take the roll of rubber and the ladder back to the trailer sos I can get up on the roof. I get bout halfway up the ladder when my feet hits the top half of the ladder that had been lyin exposed to the elements. This means that there was `bout a half inch of ice waitin fer my unsuspectin feet.
So I fall off the ladder, bang my face on one of the rungs, and landed on my back across the roll of rubber sheeting. (I bet this is what it feels like to get a Tilt-a-Whirl backbreaker from WWE wrestler Brock Lesner).

So I'm hurtin and I yell and cuss loud enough to wake mama who comes out her back door an stars fussin at me about my language and fer bein out so late. So I gotta sit out in the rain an argue with a woman who's half deaf about how i'm tryin to do repairs. She starts fussin about how she's gettin all wet standin out there yellin at me, so i tell her that if she'd quit the moanin and groanin an go inside she'd get drier. I didnt mean to disrespect mama, but i was cold, wet, an tired and her standin there scoldin me didnt help. So Mama runs inside and tells daddy i was givin her lip, so now HE comes out an stars hollerin about how that aint no way to talk to yer momma". I explain the situation to Pa (who aint deaf) an he goes back inside jus long enough to fuss at momma for squakin like a mother hen an wastin everyones time. he comes back out with a coat an a screwdriver.

We chip as much of the ice as we can off the ladder, and i'm up on the roof right quick. Pa hand me up a manure shovel, an I get mos of the ice off the roof. Then I lay down the rubber sheeting across the roof and weight it down with bricks... only there werent no bricks because i forgot em. So I holler for pa to go an get a couple of bricks from the trackter shed. Meanwhile i'm sittin on the rubber mat on the roof in the middle of a buncha freezin rain.

Pa gets back an tells me that we dont got no spare bricks on account of them all bein used to prop up the trackter whilst we waited fer the new wheel to get delivered. So I send him back to the shed to get somethin else to weigh down the sheet. He comes back about 5 minutes later with a wheelbarrow full of about 8 cans of paint. At this point i try'n get up, but my butt has frozen to the roof! I try'n kick the manure shovel over where i can reach it so i can spatula myself loose, but I must've misjudged the angle or somethin, `cause I wound up kickin the shovel off the roof where it hit Pa in the foot on it's way to the ground. at the time i didnt realize it'd hit him, but I hear this shreikin and a cussin comin from down below. Not 2 seconds later I see the manure shovel (thrown by Pa) come up over the edge of the roof in a sorta slow-motion type flight.. Maybe it only seemed like slow motion cause I knew it was headin right for my gonads. I flinched an drew my legs up into the feetal position and managed to jus take the shovel in my shin. It hurt like hell an it opened a gash in my leg. (Its a good thing it was so cold or else i't mighta hurt worse!). I finally got hold of the shovel an managed to pry my tookus loose from the roofdeck.
So we up'n hauled them cans up top of the roof an spaced them out at even-type intervals sos as to weight down the rubber sheeting. I climbed back down the ladder an me an Pa both limped back to our respectiv' dwellins.
Late the next mornin I get woke up by the phone ringin. My leg was all swelled up an it hurt like hell whilst i limped on over to the phone. I picked it up and was greeted by the way-too-cheerful voice of my buddy Clint.

"Clayton," he says, "I didnt know you upin joined the village people!"
I replied "What the hell are you talkin about?"
he says, "Jus take a look at your trailer man! you're ridin the rainbow road-"
the res of his sentence was followd by a fit of laughin, so i just hung up on the sumbitch.

So I walk outside, an LORD do I see what Clint was talkin about. `Seems the paint buckets, brand new and chock full of water-based paint, had burst in the night and fallen over. Both sides of my double wide were covered in smears of yeller, blue, white, an green.
It's downright embarrasin an I wanna wash it off, but I don't wanna pay a bunch extra on this months water bill. maybe we'll get another couplea days of hard rain in where its above freezin. that wash it off, but untill then I plan on stayin away from town . I'd ruther not tell this story to every son-of-a-gun I run into on the street...

finally got me a blog!

2009-01-26T09:31:00.000-08:00

WOOHOO! I finally up'n got me onea these here blog thingies! We jus got a computer in the Critchens valley library `bout 6 months ago an we finally got it hooked up to the worldwide web-type thing. Problem is, the librarys only got one phonejack, so times limited durin business hours. Lucky fer me, i got a slimjim (not the meaty delicious kind) behind the seat of my ol truck. I sneak in after hours an play tetris an solitare all the time.

So lemme tell you littlebit about myself. My names Clayton.. actually this is my lastname, but when yer first name is Arlister, you dont got a lot of options, so all my friends call me "Clayton" outta sympathy. I live in a nice place called PossumStomp Holler.. actually the Holler is more like what cityfolk would call a "suburb". My mailin address actually says "Critchens Valley" onnit, but we foks in PossumStomp dont want to be put in the same basket as those wierdos over in Fallen Rock Holler.. (they jus aint right in the head).
I wrk on the blast crew at Adar Quarry, an i live with my ma and pa.. Actually, i bought my own trailer, but Pa still needs help on account of him losin his arm tryin to catch a greased pig durin the county fair. We got a little breezeway connectin the 2 buildings, an a freestandin garage. If my kid brother Cliff ever graduates and buys his own trailer, maybe we could put him up here. we could have our own little courtyard like one of them italian Bob Villa houses.
I got me a couple of goodfornothin friends i'll tell yall about later.. Clint, Robert, Leeroy,.. those are the fellers i hang out with mosly. I got lots of extended family in the area, so it makes it kinda dificult to meet wemmen i aint related to in some sorta way. I mean a cousin is ok to dance with if you need a prom date, but you dont want it goin any further than that, believe you me. (dont tell LeeRoy I was talkin bout this).
Mos folk'll probably think life up in the Holler is pretty borin, but it aint. There arent a whole lotta rules here, so everybody sorta has their own ways of doin stuff. This usually makes fer some pretty entertainin-type stories.
Oh Hey! I gotta run! Someone's pokin round the library with a flashlight, I dont wanna get caught or anythin.

Clayton