people I have known

[doodlebug]

Jenny had left a small town in Arkansas with her two year old son and her husbands favorite coonhunting dog. She had a decent car and very little cash and couldn't wait to find her sister,Anna Jean,out in the L.A. area.
Her husband was the only son of a well to do farmer and had been her sweetheart since high school.They lived a fairly normal life the first year.Then he turned mean on her.Her sister had warned her because Anna knew his father as a very abusive person himself.She said she wished she had of listened but "h well." A few months into their third year a broken cheek bone made her mind up for her to visit her sister in California. She left the dog in Oklahoma in trade for a tank of gas and a new battery. She ended up spending a month in Colorado Springs with an old high school friend because she couldn't locate her sister out in L.A. She worked as a temp in offices working out of the Kelly Girls.She learned her sis had moved to Spokane, Washington so she loaded up the car and her son and headed out that way.Just shy of Cheyenne,Wyoming a salesman fell asleep at the wheel and hit her almost directly head on at 60 miles per hour. She woke up back in Denver a week later. Her car was totaled and her son was dead. They turned her out homeless and broke to the streets of Denver three weeks later.

[doodlebug]

She said she just didn't care anymore about anything. She drifted in and out of what folks call reality for the following year or so and somehow stayed among the living. One day she just woke up. That's how she put it,"just woke up". She decide to head to Spokane on her thumb to try and locate Anna. Somewhere near Chehalis,Washington she took a ride with the wrong person and got beat up and abused terribly.Four days later Jenny walked in on me.

[doodlebug]

Bill, from Tacoma, doesn't know when to give up.He's louder than ever and intent on making a scene.Jenny was n longer a" bich"but had turned into a "C_ _t and I had had enough.J.T.is a friend of ours.
"J.T. don't stand for nothin'"he says.
He's only around 5'7" but he reminds me of a wall.One thing I admire him for is he just doesn't feel pain.He used to teach martial arts at the community college and he's quicker than a damn rattle snake.
I saw him sitting over by the juke box with a plate of hot chicken wings and I figured he'd be interested in doing Jenny and the rest of us the favor of dealing with our "Bill from Tacoma" before some one got hurt. J.T.moves closer to the pool table, stands there and just grins at Bill. Then he winks.I guess Bill don't like that by the way he puffs out his chest and marches straight up to J.T.
"What are you grinning at?" Bill asks him.
J.T. leans over and whispers something to Bill. I don't know what he said but Bill tales a swing at him.All he hit was air.I yelled over at them and said "Take it out the back door."
In the parking lot J.T. lets him swing again but this time catches his right arm with his left hand then brings his right down on it. As Bill pulls his broken arm away J.T. kicks his kneecap out of place and Bill goes down screaming.While he's on the ground his partner starts yelling something about assault and the Sheriff. I bent over to check Bill out and come up of the ground with a small .380 pistol in my hand.I show it to the crowd that has gathered.I tell Bill there is all sorts of trouble for pulling a gun on some one.the crowd all agrees they saw it all even though Bill is "swearing to God he's never seen the gun in his life and asks if some one could get him to a doctor.Fire arms violations cost you your hunting rights among other troubles so Bill decides he'll settle for a ride to the emergency room because his buddy is too drunk to drive. Mike gets Bill into his Cherokee and takes off.
Back inside Jenny is chewing J.T. out quite loudly for starting trouble on her shift.Then she gives him a kiss on the cheek and buys him a 7-Up.J.T. don't drink alcohol,says it makes him mean.
Jenny IS such a" bich",but we don't mind.

[doodlebug]

aftermath....Some how the nice tires on Bills truck disappeared while he was in the E.R. in Morton and the young widow,Melany Watkins got new tires to replace her old bald ones just in time for snow season.I thought I heard some racket outside while I was cleaning the bar but didn't have time to investigate.
Who ever took them was kind enough to strip the tires off of his fancy rims and leave them. I thought that was sweet of them.

[doodlebug]

Jenny and I developed a nice relationship as time went on. She was good about pouring out the old coffee and making fresh as soon as she saw me come in for work. She also turned up the music a tad bit cause she knew I didn't hear all that well. She watched out for me. I watched out for her. She and the Wife were close too and it was nice to have time for talk on the slow nights. We had plenty of those. Another fun thing about her was she was always writing simple little poems on drink coasters and hiding them like Easter eggs. She'd only tell me that there was one somewhere. As I cleaned up I kept a look out for them. Each one I saved and have to this day. In return I drew her funny pictures and hid them. I guess you don't lose your silliness unless you let yourself get to that point. I try not to the best I can. Her poems let me know ,as I think was intended,how she was doing at the moment.
like what does this one say?

the sun pushed through a cloudy day
Prisms sparkled in the welcome ray
Ben was sitting eyes on the floor
Martha stood still eyes on the door
both of them looking for a good reason why
And I'm in the backyard clawing the sky

There's a hole in my soul where darkness seeps in
She was more than a pal,more like a twin
though laughter still echoes there in my head
Martha's gone white, Ben's turning red
Lord knows I should help and I'd surely try
But I'm nailed to the back yard clawing the sky

Pickups and trains make a mess when they meet
Noise from the merger still hangs in the street
Ben's trying to swallow regrets for his words
Martha is packing her clothes and the birds
Forgiveness forgotten,it passes him by
and I'm in the backyard clawing the sky

jenny'96

see? what the hell? I took it to mean she wasn't feeling exactly right and that I should keep my eye on her and my mouth shut. I never tried to pry with her. She had enough to deal with inside her own head.

[doodlebug]

every bar keep has favorite customers and every customer has a favorite barkeep. Jenny had Jack McCloud,an Indian fellow that lived in one of the three cabins behind the old Packwood Hotel. He was a logger before he couldn't log any more.A tree fell on him one day and tore his left arm off at the shoulder. He barely survived. He was still waiting to be compensated for the loss and was living mostly by the grace of Creator and his tribal check he got once a month. He refused to live on the rez so didn't have health care. The logging company had insurance that covered his medical bills but were being slow to settle with him for damages. Anyway,he spent the days Jenny worked at the bar drinking light beer and eating nuts and pretzels. The cook seemed to always make a mistake that "some one" should eat and Jenny had a some one in mind. I watched her and knew she had more than a fondness for him. He was oblivious though. He really had no clue because he didn't think anyone would want to get all cluttered up with him as a partner. I think we all knew better.
In between finishing the front part of the cleaning and the start of the back part I had time to sit and talk or shoot pool. One night I was hanging by the bar when Jenny just came out and asked Jack," Am I just not pretty enough for you Mr. McCLoud?"( jenny was/is very pretty after gaining her weight back and fixing her self up some.) Jack about fell out off his stool and sorta looked around like there must be another "jack" close by.He was absolutely surprised by the question.He stuttered out a "What in the world are you talking about Jenny? Of course you're pretty and exactly enough too."
"Well, sir, I've waited forever now for you to ask me out for a meal or maybe a movie down in Morton. I kinda thought you might like me enough for that at least."
I could see she was having fun making him uneasy in a good kind of way,so I joined in.
"yeah,Jack, you got a woman hidden away over at your cabin that we don't know about? Is there something we don't know, because Jenny here is feeling kinda left out. If you don't want to ask her out I will myself,with the Wife's permission of course." That got me punched in the shoulder by the Wife.
Now Jack was smiling and said"the only living thing at my cabin is rats. I can't get rid of the bastards." then he shook his head and I could tell he was thinking what a stupid thing he had said. Does anyone want to date a man with rats in his house?
Jenny didn't blink but said" I can cure that problem."
He said,I have a flashlight taped to my .22 and I get one while laying in bed about twice a week."
I thought,oh Lord,this is getting good.
Jenny said,"my way is an ammo saver."
"I'm listening,Jen."
"Well, first we live trap three rats. We can borrow Stan's trap. Then we put the rats in a wire cage and give them water but no food. After a while two will gang up on one and kill it and eat it. Then the two will eventually fight to the death and one will survive. After that,we let it go. It will hunt other rats for food ignoring all other food. A predator rat. It always worked back home and your rat problem will cease to be. What do you think.?"
"all I can think is your use of "we" makes me smile inside,Jenny."
Jenny smiled and said,"are you getting the picture mister?"
After that it was on. Those two became buddies to the point where the rest of us were just background noise. I was thrilled.
About two months went by before Jack announced a" no more rats in any of the three cabins" party. He and Jenny would host a bar-b que in the backyard of the Hotel.
Shortly after the party Jack got his settlement. I don't know how much it involved but he bought Jenny a ring and a new Ford pickup truck. She refused the ring and the truck unless he made an honest woman of her and got a preacher ready to marry them. Jack went about that in a great hurry. He got Roy, a Holy Man from the Chehalis tribe to do the ceremony. The ceremony was a beautiful thing to witness with an incredible feast afterwards. There was more food than anyone could eat and a lot left over for guests to take home, as is tradition.
Jenny told Jack she owed Karl a debt and wanted to work through the big Labor Day Flea market. Then she would be ready to do whatever he wanted to do. Jack said that was good for him and he would wait as long as she needed but then he wanted to go to Idaho to live if it suited her. With two months to wait I prepared myself for missing her.
To me,personally,Jenny has always represented the possibility that something good can follow the most devastating of things thrown at us by life. A lesson I often forget. Now that I've dug out some old poems I think I'll tack them to the wall where I can be reminded.
Those two moved over to Idaho in the spring of 2000. I get Christmas cards but other than that I don't hear much.That's good because I know if she had trouble,Jenny would call.
.

[doodlebug]

[doodlebug]

I saw a sign that reminded me of Beagsy. "Nope, I can't go to hell. satan still has a restraining order on me."

[roselia]

Hello Doodles,

I am reading through your posts and shall provide my feedback soon.

[doodlebug]

I got myself all married up a few months before I turned 18. I was raised traditional and that lead me into marrying the girl I knocked up on the LSU campus down in Baton Rouge.I'm not sayin' I didn't love her ,it's just looking back at a 17 year old me ,I find it to be a hard fact that at that particular age I don't believe I had much wisdom to go with, much less equal, my lust. I had lived on my own since 15 so I did have a couple of years of learning stuff just to survive and I was lucky to be acting that way during an era when there were a lot of people doing the same thing,turning on and dropping out so to speak. I soon found it quite difficult to make a living with little skill, other than some farming I learned just in passing through life in rural conditions.It didn't help to be in a town full of college kids taking every minimum wage,minimum skilled job out there. This led me to hitch hike to Colorado and take a job as a human fork lift working construction building Apartment complexes. I worked my way into carpentrry as fast as I could. I paid atention and took every chance I could get to do some nailing and measuing and got myself in to fair money.While there, we had our second kid and I burned out on town life.
It only made sense to me to move our little herd to the hills of Kentucky on the eastern side, down by the Tennessee border. Sorta in that corner which was and is made up of hills and hollers that grow up out of the ground not to far from the Ohio River.I had an old four room farm house with an outhouse and cold running water most of the year. When it got too cold the water froze for days at a time.I hunted squirrel,rabbits,quail,racoons and a few deer. We ate fish when we had time to fish. Everything we ate,we grew or harvested. Cash in that country was something you weren't allowed to get very acquainted with or hold onto for more than a few hours. My rent was forty dollars a month. Back in Colorado that was a days wages for unskilled labor but in the hills it was hard to come up with rent. Oh, you could trade for almost anything you needed but there was always some one who wanted cash money. Mostly the damn electric company and Hunky Rhodes' for his stores' gasoline for the pick up truck and coal oil for the lamps. Had to have a few gallons of chain saw gas and oil for the bar. We did buy shoes,gloves and jeans once a year. The wife insisted on "right guard" and tooth paste and feminine stuff they seemed to need every single month. sometimes I'd get a new pocket knife. Mid summer, right when we were covered up with hoeing tobacco and a huge garden and hauling hay I got a chance to make some cash by cutting a few "rics" of firewood for a couple of widow women and the duo of Hank and Jim. I got 15.00 dollars a ric for oak and hickory wood, both very heavy species of the tree world. I had to take the work and talk my cousins wife into helping mine take up the slack running the hoes. They were our main hoers! So, I took a pal and my dog Rabbit and went into the fast lane of cutting wood for money.
That is when I met the "bachelors". These two had never attempted to "settle down" in the arms of a woman and lived as a shining example of how happy a man can be if he just doesn't bother with it. Oh,they had their lovers over the years and fond memories of some of them, but in their profession ,a relationship is difficult at best. You don't need the distractions or anyone noseying around about how you made your money.

[doodlebug]

Hank and Jim were moonshiners from birth. Both of their fathers had been makers of corn liquor and they continued their family business. Hank had no schooling and Jim only did the third grade,which was common back when these two grew up. Hank was spokesman for the two and you rarely got a thought out of Jim. He did repeat what Hank said a lot though. At least some of what he said.
Hank," Chicken hawk was circlin' today. Lowell better watch his hens!"
Jim," better watch 'em!"
Hank,"He sure has a good setter in that black'un. Be hatchin' out pups pretty soon. Be chicks runnin' all about."
Jim,"they'll be a runnin'"
So forth and so on.
When I met them ,they had recently moved a mile up the first gravel road you came to ,going towards town from my house. They were forced in to retirement by the lack of the ability to work their stills and the fact that the revenuers had made life hard for them. Some one had turned out a lethal batch of drink and the "good people" of Graves county put the pressure on the sheriff who was also running for re election. All in all it was time to give up. Lowell was a shirt tail relative of the "boys" and had a his folks house to rent out on the back side of his farm. Lowell had a big heart and was my closest neighbor. He rented them the house for twenty dollars a month and took care of their money and saw to it that they got their groceries once a month. The shopping trip involved him driving them to Hunkys store three miles away and picking up their order. They ate the same thing all the time so bought by the case. Vienna sausages and biscuits. the kind you pop open and bake.That's it.
"Don't see no reason to change up the system, if it works." was Hanks answer when I asked about the diet.
Jim," need a reason!"
There is much that I thought "crazy" about these guys until I got up here in age myself. Now I understand better.
They didn't know their birthdays nor how old they were. A lady from welfare came out and interviewed them to see what their earliest memory was and then cross reference that with news paper articles to determine if they were old enough to get help. Once they quit the stills they were out of luck for a cash flow. She ,from a particular train wreck in Graves County determined them both "over 70". After that they both got a little "help" which Lowell took care of .

[doodlebug]

the monthly trip to the store was interesting as they always treated themselves to something new. One thing. It had to be the same for both. If Hank bought a Sabre brand pocket knife Jim got one too. One month might be a new bandanna or maybe just a R.C co cola and bag of peanuts.That was rare. They wore their overalls and long johns year around and til they were just too stiff. Then Hunky ordered them each new Big Mac overalls and new underwear.They spent about an hour talking to the rest of us that were having morning bullshitting sessions.( my school) Mostly they were checking their idea of what had been going on against reality in the last month. Living on the road they saw people pass by and got a feel for what each person was up to, their general mood,the destination of their trip and such as that. They were eerily right most of the time. They both chewed Red Man tobacco except when they decide to quit because of the lady that came by to check on them from the government.She said it was bad for them.They announced they were done with it when they came in to the store. Next month when they came they bought more Red Man.
Hank," without the 'backy we just didn't feel right cause everyone we know has at least one habit and there we sat with none! Now, Hunky here ,he fishes, and Lowell hunts varmints with his dogs,and Old Jess walks. All habits. At first we considered something new but nothin' sounded as easy as just chewin'. We made the decision that this was the healthiest option for our needs."
Jim," it's easy."
Their rule of each buying exactly the same thing had "keeps us form arguin' and gettin' into fights over things that don't mean a damn thing. Works for us for a long time. We haven't fought,for real, in forty year. Somebody bound to get hurt when you do and then you gotta take care of them."
Jim," fighting is no good for anyone."

[doodlebug]

The place that Lowell rented them had electricity. Once I asked why they had coal oil lamps instead of turning on a light switch. They got kind of excited and said "we always heard that stuff is dangerous. We don't know, so we'll leave it alone. Anyway, it's best to go to sleep when it's dark."
That was the end of that discussion.
As it turned out I found that in a way they were right. Another old timer,also a retired shiner by the name of Jess, or Old Jess as he was referred to when I came along was the victim. After Hunkys' uncle passed away the house across the road from the store was empty so the locals decided Old Jess should move in there so he wouldn't have to walk to the store every day from his log house a couple of miles down the state line road. Jess was so stiff he couldn't get in or out of cars but wanted to spend the day at the store every day except Sunday. The store was closed then. Jess was over 90 and it took him half of the morning to get to the store where he would walk in ,walk over to the calendar and stand there examining it with what seemed like great interest. It was one of those that had a big number that you tore off the previous day each day. Jess would get to a place of satisfaction I guess and then lick his thumb and ever so slowly,cause that's how he moved,would reach up and tear the page off and take a seat by the pop chest. He sat there till 5:00 in the summer and then ambled on back home.
Anyway, they moved Jess into the house across the road. This was 1974 and he had never lived with electricity. The house came fully furnished and was just as it was when Hunkys uncle passed on. It had electric stove/oven and television. Soon after moving in we all noticed Jess was rising late in the day and was getting even more skinny tan he ever had been. One day some one asked if he was feeling well. Commenting on his late rising and his weight seeming to be dropping off of him. He got into a laughing fit first but after he caught his breath he asked then,"Have you ever seen that Carson fellow on t.v. at night? I just can't go to sleep until I've watched him." then he laughed some more.
'Are you eating,Jess?"
"Well,here's the problem. I put my eggs in the skillet at breakfast and turn on the fire but before I can turn around it burns up. My cornbread ,it's the same."
Hunkys' wife went over to his house the next morning to show him how to use the stove top. He was use to the old wood fired stove and it took it some time to heat up once you started the fire. Jess being so damn slow didn't help. So, Jess got addicted to staying up too late, lost the exercise routine he formally had and his diet never was the same. It all combined to kill him in less than a year. Everyone felt horrible because every one knew exactly what had taken place.
He had a real nice blue vest that he was fond of and Hunky gave it to me after I helped him clean up the house. It is in my closet today.I've grown too much of a belly to wear it but I wouldn't part with it for all the farms in Cuba.
r.i.p. Old Jess.

[doodlebug]

Hank and Jim were picky customers when it came to their requirements. I had to split some smaller than I would have for most people. It also had to be stacked by the ric,separated and stacked as perfect as you could. Even then they would rearrange the stack until it looked like a solid piece of wood. They wanted no air holes. They explained that when they sold a quart jar of shine ,it was all the way full." Wanna be fair,don'tcha, young man?"
For 15.00 I should think so!
The guys had a real ting for keeping up with what went on around their house. Rod, a friend that went with me a few times made a stray comment on how bright the dandelion flowers were.Hank proceeded to tell us exactly how many of those had bloomed so far and a multitude of other little known facts. He knew how many babies each bird in the live oak out front had had and how many survived. He knew the cause of death for each one that perished. Some fell(or were pushed) out of the nests. Some were eaten by either Crows,blue jays or hawks. A squirrel had fought one helluva fight over one robins new born( which was the first I'd heard of this. The field of view from their side porch include a large field that dropped down to the highway and you could see Lowells roof top and tobacco barn.This gave then a sight of the hawks hunting ground and the road for a red fox that lived in the gullies behind the place. When Hank told little gems Jim would sit there with a smile and a kind of pride that they held all of this information. Today I understand. Back then I just thought they were crazy old men.
One Sunday I was bored so I walked up to visit the bachelors. I had a few questions rolling around in my head.

[doodlebug]

My interest mainly was after making good money all these years they ended up with little ,if anything,to show for it. well, that seemed like a strange question that only a dum kid would ask.
Hank," There's expenses ,you see. You can't run any business without expenses. You've got your supplies of course and the only free part of that is the water. Everything else has to be traded for or boughten straight out some how. You have shippin' costs. We never delivered. That is how most fellows end up in the crowbar hotel. Runnin' liquor is not the same as makin' it. To make it you need to stay to yourself.We always did that. I learned to drive a little but I never cared for it enough to take on a vehicle to maintain. Our customer picked up their boxes and many spent a couple of days camped with us taking samples. We had one Fulton boy that brought a couple of gals with him right often and we had the expense of feeding them and paying for their services. This fool( pointing to Jim)caught him a nice dose of the drippin' tallywhacker from one little lady name of Rose. HA HA! There was another expense, what with havin' to give Doc two quarts for the damn penicillin shots! HA HA! that there is what we call unexpected expenses in the business. HA HA! After that we called out when we seen her comin' OH NO- ROSE! haha"
Jim,"May have been high dollar entertainment for you but I was offended. Tryin' to pee was like stickin' a hot coal up inside that there masterpiece! I might have quit women all together had I ever quit drinking my own liquor! It ain't a laughin' matter if you are on the other end of the stick."
Hank," Sorry Jim,I was being mean...HA HA!"
"guess it was own fault." Jim looked around like he wasn't sure if he should have made that comment.He looked like an over seventy kid caught with his hand in the cookie jar.

[doodlebug]

"There are also losses to be figured in if you're gonna figure about it all too. You got your loss from using your stock up yourself and sharing more than you should.Then there is the loss from bad thinking as to where to hide a still. If it is found it is gone. That is copper lines and copper kettle ,axes,buckets,jugs and jar,mash ingredients the whole shittin'operation. Don't matter if was the competition or the law, it was losses all the same and with no justification whatsoever. It happens. Way back, no one would touch your works. Starting in the nineteen sixties it changed. There was also a lot of shooting gong on for a while and we done our share. Don't regret it neither.Always had luck on our side in that area. Never got shot.Never got caught shootin' either. I did get my throat cut once but as you can see it didn't make a difference.(at this he held up his beard so you could see the scar around his neck.) I regret to say that no enemy done that. It was my own damn cousin come to visit from Hickman County, over on the big River. Lived on the bluffs.We were just having more fun than we should have and he got a little blinded and sorta went stupid for an hour or so.He had a short blade or I wouldn't be here. We had to laugh at him next mornin' when he woke up hogtied to a post oak tree.
Another loss comes down from the weather. It affects everyone,not just the farmers. we've lost property to winds blowing trees down on us and floods from quick risin' creeks. It all takes a chomp of your profits.

[doodlebug]

Hank surprised me with a question of his own." How much of your wages do you have stored somewhere?" I had to admit ,"none."
Hank," have you been hurt or sick the last few years? I know you got a couple of kids and a wife. You had to be working.right?"
"yes."
Hank,'O.K."
That ended any talk about money earned and saved.

[ՏՇԾԵԵʅՏɧ_LԹՏՏʅҼ]

doodlebug: I'm just getting caught up on reading a week's worth of your story. I've said it before but I'll repeat that I'm fascinated with the way you make the words and scenery come to life, and I feel I can see the images as I read and I've gotten to know the people. When you descibe different locations, I can almost hear the sounds and smell the air.

Please keep adding to the story - it's like a winding path through your life.

[I'll also repeat again that I think you should have this published].

[doodlebug]

Thank you, Scottish!! I am once again very happy you find this worth a read. I'm happy to give some of these folks life for a while. People we meet form us in one way or another I reckon. I'm glad I can remember years ago even though what happened two hours ago slips out of my mind almost as fast as it seeps in! I can remember my first grade teacher,A Mrs. Fly who was a newly wed and 28 years old. ( she was also the first woman I ever fell in love with! HA!) All these years later I can see her clearly.She sure was pretty to a 1st grader. but yesterday is best kept track of by looking at what I posted. Has this become my new memory or what? Heck, I don't know.

[doodlebug]

To further my embarrassment brought on by my curiosity came a few days later. I had a call from Lowell wanting me to come right up to his place cause he had a sight to show me, if I wasn't too busy. At his place he was out in the drive standing in front of his chicken houses. He had two,built side by side. There was only a small space between them. He motioned me to come on in and walked into the house on the right. Inside he pointed to about three feet of a black and yellow snake. The rest of the snake was going out of a hole where a pine knot had fallen out. Over on the other side ,coming through another hole was the snake head and then some, with an egg lodged in its throat. It couldn't spit it back out and it couldn't pass back through the other hole because it couldn't constrict enough to break the egg.
"He,sir,is in a fix." declared Lowell."now,I can crush that egg he was stealing or I could cut off his fool head!His fate is in my hands." He seemed very pleased.
I asked,"which will it be?"
Lowell pulled out his pocket knife and cut it's head right off."I know that is not what a person should do but I don't have a corn crib and I don't like snakes enough to carry it around in a bag to find it a home.Hell with him." After he got the snake out and thrown to the hogs we settled under the porch roof in the rockers. He had two fantastic high back oak rockers that had pads in the seats his wife Ruthie made. He was oddly quiet and I knew he was thinking about that snake. So, I broke the silence and told him about my conversation with the guys about the money of our lives. He just looked at me funny and smiled. After another ten minutes he called out to Ruthie and asks her to take the truck over to her sisters and get their dog who had left without permission and her sister had called and told them he was over there. As soon as she pulled out he gets up and does a funny little fast shuffle in through the door into the living room sayin' over his shoulder,"come on."I almost laughed out loud because he reminded me of Red Skelton.Inside he walked to the roll top desk that Ruthie had talked HUnky out of a while back including him delivering it. It freed a spot in his back room to handle a whole pallet of feed so she had convinced him he was never ever going to use it and she was doing her Christian duty helping him out.At home she had it put in the milk barn where she stripped it and re varnished the piece. She did a fine job. Lowell rolled the top up and opened a little drawer and removed a Farmers State Bank savings book. He looked on the last page real quick and shoved it back in and closed the top. then he re demonstrated the shuffle and we got back to the porch,him out of breath."forty six thousand dollars.That is exactly how poor those two are.Plus, I don't know what they have stashed and probably neither do they." Ruthies kept up with their money the best she could for about seven years now. They got nervous when things started getting strange and people were changing.
Never, not even then, tell anyone about this. She would treat me like that damn snake and maybe take you along with me!"
back home I reflected on all of this and thought to myself,I have to change something.I never really did.

[doodlebug]

I saw Hank away from Jim one time and that was only briefly. There was a good reason. The two of them were cutting up some small oak limbs that fell out of the tree using a stump as a cutting board. the sticks were probably an inch or smaller and were destined for the cook stove.The hatchet was very sharp and good for what they were doing. Jim had the tool and Hank put his finger down on the stump and tells Jim to cut it off if he thought he could. Jim told him,"you'll move." Hank said,"no I won't and you won't do it." Jim chopped his finger off.They were both surprised. I would have thought they knew each other better. Lowell called me and said they needed to go into Mayfield to see if they could get his finger sewed back on and he was sick with the flu. I could take his truck and use his gasoline. I went over and got them loaded up with the finger in a coffee cup.Hank grunted at every bump and groaned through every sharp curve. Jim just sat quiet and looked at the floorboards. At the hospital they took Hank into the E.R. and we sat in the waiting room. Jim had nothing to say for a few minutes. Then he hit my knee with the back of his fingers and says,"told him I would.He shoulda moved." I said,"Jim, he surely shoulda."After that it was total silence except for the music coming in through the speaker in the ceiling. Finally the Nurse came out and said it would be a while in surgery and we should go home and come back in the morning. Jim said," I'll be stayin' young lady,thankee." I called Lowell and then told Jim,"Sounds like a party." We settled into the couches and stared at the television that was nothing more than the "after twelve thirty" station logo. Around three a.m. Hank came out on tip toes and said,"lets get the hell out of here." He was in a gown and had his clothes under his arm and his boots in his good hand. I didn't ask questions and we walked to the parking lot and got in the truck and went home. The finger didn't last, but it was a lesson learned and Hank didn't seem to miss it.He also went out of his way to take full responsibility."It was a damn fool trick to pull."

[NancysSummerSip]

I agree, SL. I'd rework these into publishable format and I'd do it for free. They really are that good. I hate to go a day without a doodlebug story. ;D

[doodlebug]

The wife of that time in my life was raised on a small dairy farm on a piece of dry ground in the swampy crap they call land outside of Port Allen,Louisiana. Her Dad died beneath his tractor in a small ditch of water after flipping it by getting to close to a loose edge of that ditch. She was 12. At school. She never forgave him for doing that and never saying so much as a goodbye to his Princess. That became my burden and the one to punish for the act. Never helped with our relationship I can tell you that.
We met on LSU campus in Baton Rouge. I had gone down there with a pal of mine and had met,at a drug overdose/suicide hotline I volenteered at,one of the professors who helped me arrange sitting in on a couple of classes I was interested in on campus. I was never enrolled nor cared to be at the moment.It was just some things I wanted to learn and it was a good way to meet the girls.
Anyway, the ex's goal was to get an education and never ever have to live on a farm again. She wanted the city life. Us getting all pregnant and such pretty much put an end to that goal.
Now, two kids later and a few years and she found herself on a farm out in the boonies once again. While I had found a "home" she was unhappy.After a while of continuous nagging I gave in and we moved to Washington State where my sister had moved with the company she worked for and my younger brother had gone along. After being there a while they were asking me to come out and weren't shy about telling my ex how big the job market was and how much money just grew on trees and blew down the highway waiting to be picked up. Soon the nagging turned out and out hostile so there were only two choices. I made the worse of the two I later figured out.
So, leaving the Kentucky hills in a '66 chevy short bed pickup after flying my wife and kids out was the order of the day. Most of my freinds said goodbye up at the store on the way to the interstate. Hank and Jim weren't there. I decided it best to just drive by slowly and trust that they would see my load,and what it consisted of and figure it out. That is what I did.They were on the porch and they both waved. That was good enough for me.